CD13 Pinoy stakeholders welcome proposal
LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles City Councilmembers Mitch O’Farrell (Council District 13) and Felipe Fuentes (Council District 7) recently introduced a motion in the city council, which seeks to establish an affordable housing policy for Los Angeles.
The two councilmembers said in the motion that the city needs to create livable, mixed-income, and sustainable neighborhoods in LA, which would include a range of housing types, sizes, and costs that are in proximity to transit infrastructure, jobs, amenities, and services.
Aside from affordable housing, the motion also called for the development of permanent supportive housing, veterans housing, workforce housing, and senior housing.
It also highlighted the importance of the “established City objective” of providing housing for the workforce that is in close proximity to transportation infrastructure, like bus lines, fixed rail, rapid transit and Metrolink.
“I’m excited about starting on the long path toward more affordable housing that will meet the needs of our homeless brothers and sisters, veterans, working professionals, and seniors,” O’Farrell said in a statement posted on his website, www.cd13.com.
“These groups have been priced out of the market over the past few decades,” the councilmember acknowledged.
O’Farrell indicated that stakeholder groups (homeless advocates, business leaders, neighborhood leaders, the real estate industry, and LA city departments) will be brought together in the process of forming the new housing policy.
O’Farrell said that the motion is on its path to “becoming a standard of practice that will provide badly needed housing and help make Los Angeles a more environmentally sustainable, word-class city.”
Welcome development
Upon receiving word about the resolution, Filipino community stakeholders (particularly those located in district 13’s Historic Filipinotown) welcomed the development.
Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA) executive director Joel Jacinto lauded the affordable housing proposal.
“I think that this motion by Councilmembers O’Farrell and Fuentes is exactly what Los Angeles needs!” Jacinto said in an email correspondence with Asian Journal.
Jacinto said that the motion is a “positive and strategic” step towards developing more affordable housing in LA. Jacinto also revealed that SIPA intends to develop their building site into an affordable housing project, and that O’Farrell seemed very supportive of the notion.
The SIPA executive said that he “looks forward to O’Farrell’s leadership on the matter” and that he will “most likely be participating” in the policy development process.
Pilipino Workers’ Center (PWC) Associate Director Lolit Lledo likewise expressed support for the affordable housing resolution.
Lledo pointed out that Historic Filipinotown (HiFi) has been undergoing gentrification (or a redevelopment of an urban community) towards becoming a more wealthier commercial or residential district, sometimes at the expense of the poorer residents of the area.
In some cases, displaced residents are forced to move out to inner cities or nearby counties, where they would live farther away from their places of work.
Lledo said that there are now more commercial apartment buildings in HiFi that low-income residents cannot afford.
When the city council finally comes up with an effective affordable housing policy as a result of O’Farrell and Fuentes’ motion, it will allow poorer LA residents to stay in their neighborhoods, and not have to move out to nearby counties or inner cities, Lledo pointed out.
Input needed
Filipino American Community in Los Angeles (FACLA) representative Arturo Garcia lamented that Filipinos “are always not on the priority [list] when it comes to affordable housing.”
Garcia said that the Filipino community, particularly those residing in HiFi with other minority groups, were “left out” of similar housing opportunities like the now dissolved Community Redevelopment Agency.
However, Garcia said that FACLA is waiting for O’Farrell’s camp to reach out to them during the consultation process.
“We are sure that we (FACLA) will be consulted and we are ready for our inputs (sic) to this good initiative,” Garcia said.
HiFi community advocate and former CD13 council race candidate Alex De Ocampo pointed out that this process will take time and that it is vital that the Fil-Am community in Los Angeles takes part at every level of the policy formulation discussion.
“As legislation begins to form, our community needs to provide input,” De Ocampo said.
“After my discussions with Councilmember O’Farrell, I believe this is a step in the right direction in terms of building a proper coalition of stakeholders [that will] address this important need of affordable housing in the community,” he added.
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Midweek December 11-13, 2013 Sec A pg.5)
