Participatory Planning for Metro 10k

Idea by LTSC Community Development Corporation

LA Metro has committed to constructing thousands of housing units, presenting a unique opportunity to integrate tenant perspectives on the housing they desire, with the potential to create a dream community that remains permanently affordable for them and their families. ACT-LA and LA Forward Institute will engage residents through participatory planning and skilled based training around five targeted Metro stations across LA County, empowering them to articulate their visions for their communities.

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What is the primary issue area that your application will impact?

Affordable housing and homelessness

In which areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?

Central LA East LA South LA San Fernando Valley West LA South Bay County of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a countywide benefit) City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit)

In what stage of innovation is this project, program, or initiative?

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

What is your understanding of the issue that you are seeking to address?

The expansion LA Metro rail has historically led to luxury development, hiked rents and displacement of black, immigrant and working class communities. In an effort to mitigate and reverse harms - Metro one of LA County's biggest land owners must plan responsibly. Metro has committed to building 10,000 homes by 2031 on public land near Metro stations. This is an incredible opportunity for Angelenos to improve quality of life, if done correctly. The problem is Metro 10k housing is being planned and developed without sufficient community engagement. We believe that centering community voices and supporting Angelenos’ understanding of what’s possible in housing will lead to genuinely affordable and equitable housing options. This project aims to shift the conversation and dynamics of power, ensuring that it links the perspectives of Angelenos – across all income levels – to Metro and city officials responsible for developing new housing in their communities.

Describe the project, program, or initiative this grant will support to address the issue.

ACT-LA and LA Forward Institute (LAFI) will identify five Metro stations targeted for Metro Joint Development, and facilitate ten robust community conversations –about what should be built on the land surrounding that station. We will center participatory planning and skilled based trainings so that tenants build muscle in exercising their voice to shape their communities. We ultimately believe that this type of tenant vision and voice must be maintained once housing is built in the community. Our community engagement will start by reaching out to community organizations, residents and workers in and around a targeted Metro station, with invitations to participate in asynchronous and synchronous opportunities that will solicit neighborhood perspectives on the types of projects that would make a welcome contribution to their community.
ACT-LA and LAFI will invite nearby individual residents already connected to ACT-LA’s 50 member organizations, as well as reach out to other community organizations with bases in the area.
Synchronously, residents will share their visions for new additions to their communities, in space with Metro and city officials that could be influential to projects eventually built.
Asynchronously, residents will hold post-carding sessions in their homes or local establishments to send details about Metro’s surveys to their neighbors, thereby multiplying response rates to community engagement efforts and increasing local voice in the process.

Describe how Los Angeles County will be different if your work is successful.

We hope not only to shape five housing developments across five Metro stations, but we also hope that residents deepen their understanding of their power in informing what gets built in their communities; and vice-versa, we hope that Metro grows in its investment in soliciting community voice as it continues to grow its work. With more Metro 10K stations to be revealed in future years, we hope this begins to perfect community engagement processes for each subsequent Metro Joint Development site. Moreover, ACT-LA and LAFI are invested in at least some of these projects becoming LA’s first major developments of Social Housing, a form of permanently-affordable housing at which tenant governance is key. Building tenant voice in these early processes helps ready tenant voice to continue exercising its power – even after a building is built and the tenant resides within it.

Approximately how many people will be impacted by this project, program, or initiative?

Direct Impact: 500

Indirect Impact: 1,000

LTSC Community Development Corporation

For over 30 years LTSC has been serving the Japanese/Japanese American community in the Greater Los Angeles area as the only regional provider of bilingual and bicultural social services. LTSC reaches 18,000 people each year. A significant proportion of our clients come to us from the broader Japanese/Japanese American community members who seek services such as child abuse prevention, consumer education, senior services, case management, individual and family counseling, and cultural education for children and youth.

As part of our community development work, LTSC has made significant efforts to revitalize Little Tokyo into a vibrant community. LTSC has worked in partnership with other entities to designate a major portion of Little Tokyo as a National Historic Landmark. LTSC has renovated and upgraded three buildings in the historic district:

*San Pedro Firm Building. This 1923 building was threatened with demolition by the City but quick action by LTSC and community advocates saved the building. After a $3 million renovation, it now provides 42 units of safe, clean, affordable housing to low-income seniors and other residents, and commercial space to longstanding and new small businesses.

*Old Union Church Building. Immediately next-door to the San Pedro Firm Building is the historic Old Union Church, one of the earliest Japanese American Christian church structures built in Los Angeles. In the 1970’s, the church congregation relocated and the aging building suffered in the ensuing years from neglect. Again LTSC led the effort to raise $4 million to bring this building back to life and now this once abandoned space is The Union Center for the Arts. *The Historic Far East Building with its famous Far East CafÃ© is located in the heart of the Little Tokyo Historic District, bearing witness to the birth, growth and development of what was, during its heyday in the 1920s and 30s, the largest Japanese American community in the mainland United States. After suffering severe damage during the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the building’s future was uncertain, possibly taking with it all of its history. LTSC was able to save the building to keep this part of Little Tokyo’s history alive. *Casa Heiwa. Additionally, in 1996 LTSC completed the first new family-oriented housing project to be built in Little Tokyo in over 70 years. Through LTSC’s community organizing efforts we have established relationships with Little Tokyo residents and have taught them to collectively and formally represent their concerns. Moreover, we have worked with residents to develop a model for community involvement in planning. With our support and guidance, the residents have lobbied for two crosswalks, a post office and helped successfully fight to preserve affordable housing at a 100-unit building. They have also lobbied against a proposed 500-bed jail and have fought to limit bail bonds businesses in the area.

Organization website
LTSC.org
Learn about this organization’s budget, leadership and mission
charitynavigator.org

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