LOS ANGELES – Under Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ direction, the City will conduct a review and establish a reinvestment plan of existing affordable housing units that have received city funding but may be at risk of falling into disrepair. This effort is funded by a $500,000 grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation to the California Housing Partnership Corporation (CHPC), secured by the Los Angeles Housing Department and the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Homelessness Solutions.
This assessment is part of Mayor Bass’ citywide housing strategy to preserve and expand the city’s existing affordable and permanent supportive housing stock. Specifically, this review will enable the city to develop a proactive reinvestment strategy.
“While we work urgently to bring people inside from the streets we must also apply that same momentum toward preventing people from falling into homelessness, including making sure that our older affordable and permanent housing units are in good, healthy condition,” said Mayor Karen Bass. “Thank you to Wells Fargo Foundation for partnering with the City to conduct this essential review of our housing stock to help us make strategic, informed decisions about how to upgrade and maintain aging housing for years to come.”
“Wells Fargo is committed to addressing the important need of housing access and affordability in our communities,” said Gregg Sherkin, Senior Vice President of Philanthropy & Community Impact for California. “Through our collaboration with California Housing Partnership Corporation (CHPC), and the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Homelessness Solutions, we hope to identify sites in need of additional preservation to safeguard housing in our local communities.”
The California Housing Partnership Corporation, a nonprofit organization, will execute the grant in partnership with the Housing Department, local nonprofit affordable housing developers, including faith-based developers and community-developers. The assessment and recommended reinvestment plans are underway with an anticipated completion of December 2024.
Earlier this year, the City of Los Angeles, with strong leadership from City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, took swift action to preserve and rehabilitate nearly 2,000 units of permanent supportive housing owned by the Skid Row Housing Trust in order to prevent thousands of vulnerable Angelenos from falling into homelessness. This review builds on the lessons learned about aging housing stock and seeks to proactively address maintenance, financing and operation challenges in existing affordable housing and permanent supportive housing sites.
Mayor Bass and her Office of Housing and Homelessness Solutions are executing a citywide strategy to urgently bring people inside from the streets, build a housing and services continuum that includes expanding interim housing infrastructure, accelerating construction of permanent affordable housing, cutting through red tape to move people from the streets to permanent housing faster and locking arms at all levels of government and in partnership with local nonprofits and the private sector to ensure people stay housed.