Safe Spaces LA – Healthy Homes Protect Families

Affordable housing and homelessness

South LA

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

Los Angeles faces a dual crisis of housing instability and unsafe living conditions. Many families in affordable housing, shelters, or transitional spaces live with hazards like mold, poor ventilation, lead, or fire risks—issues that quietly threaten their health, safety, and long-term stability. These dangers often go unaddressed due to lack of awareness, limited resources, or fear of retaliation. Without safe, healthy living environments—and the knowledge to identify or report risks—families remain vulnerable to illness, injury, and displacement. Safe Spaces LA addresses this gap by delivering safety inspections, training, and tools directly to where families live, ensuring that housing isn’t just available—but protective, dignified, and sustainable.

Safe Spaces LA – Healthy Homes Protect Families is a preventive health and housing safety initiative focused on improving living conditions for families in Los Angeles’ affordable housing and shelter systems. This program will provide free environmental health and safety inspections to identify hazards like mold, poor ventilation, fire risks, and post-wildfire contamination in shelters, transitional housing, and multi-family units that serve low-income or unhoused families.
In tandem with inspections, Safety InColor will lead on-site safety trainings for tenants, families, and housing providers covering emergency preparedness, habitability rights, fire safety, and indoor air health. The program will also distribute free safety kits (e.g., smoke detectors, first aid supplies, N95 masks) and engage youth volunteers in community safety education efforts.
By addressing overlooked safety risks, this initiative helps ensure families remain not just housed—but safe, empowered, and protected in the places they call home.

Through our success, Los Angeles County will be a place where housing is not only more accessible—but measurably safer for the families who rely on it. Shelters, transitional housing, and affordable units will be equipped to prevent common health and safety hazards, and residents will feel empowered to advocate for the conditions they deserve. Families impacted by poverty, displacement, or environmental crises like wildfires will no longer face silent dangers like mold, poor air quality, or fire risk in the places meant to protect them.
Our initiative will also shift how community safety is defined—broadening it to include environmental health, tenant rights, and disaster preparedness as core components. Through trained staff, educated tenants, and youth leadership, we will build lasting safety infrastructure in the neighborhoods most often left out of prevention efforts. LA County will be healthier, more equitable, and more resilient—one home, one family, one community at a time.