Archinect - News

AXIS/GFA's record-breaking Weingart Center supportive housing development tops out in Skid Row

2023-07-21T12:34:00-04:00

A record-breaking supportive housing development in the overburdened Los Angeles market is one step closer to completion this week after AXIS/GFA Architecture + Design’s new 19-story Weingart Center Tower 1 project topped out near Skid Row.

Once completed, the development will provide a total of 228 studio and one-bedroom apartments reserved exclusively for people who had previously experienced homelessness. Proponents say it will be the largest single-addition housing project of its kind in the city.

Los Angeles is currently in the midst of a crisis caused in large part by state and local policy failures, the lack of financing, and a compendium of related issues, including developers' reticence, corruption, and the resounding absence of low-income housing countywide. New Mayor Karen Bass recently signed an ordinance that makes it easier to realize constructions under 49 units, but the hope and need for larger developments is also glaring. Therefore the project stands as a new high...

An underutilized hotel retrofit offers inside view of LA homelessness crisis

2022-12-15T14:28:00-05:00

The historic hotel, with its haunted reputation and 600 rooms, reopened in December 2021 as a privately funded permanent supportive housing project. With most of the rooms reserved specifically for those in the bottom 30% of the area’s median income, it’s open to any [...] with a government-funded voucher. Many viewed the project as a promising new model in L.A. because of its size and flexibility. And yet, a year later, two-thirds of the Cecil remains unoccupied.

The rare privately-funded $80 million conversion project for the influential Skid Row Housing Trust is one of many case studies on the issue of vacant single-room occupancy (SROs) in Los Angeles. The city housing authority’s Section 8 director thinks an absence of in-unit bathrooms and kitchenettes is to blame for the empty rooms at the Cecil, but bureaucratic hold-up and a lack of coordination between disparate agencies that serve the vulnerable is the primary factor that’s causing the project to fall short of its weekly move-in targets by 66%.

HUD is committing $365 million to help prevent homeless encampments. Will it be enough?

2022-06-22T18:27:00-04:00

In an effort to halt the actions of different major cities to sweep away homeless encampments in recent years, the federal government is now taking direct action in the form of two expanded grant programs it says have become necessary in the face of rising inflation and untenable rental markets.

Bloomberg is reporting that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has earmarked some $365 million worth of funding aimed directly at the country’s unhoused population it says currently numbers more than 550,000.

The funding is going to be provided through an expansion of HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) grant program and a new round of housing choice vouchers which add up to $43 million. It represents the first time that the agency has dedicated monies to directly aid those who are without shelter, and will address the related issue of rural homelessness with a special earmark of $54.5 million.

Previously on Archinect: A homeless encampment is growing on Apple's future N...

DTLA 2040 rezoning plan gets one step closer to Los Angeles City Council approval

2021-09-27T15:15:00-04:00

After a pair of marathon hearings, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission has amended and approved the draft DTLA 2040 plan, sending the proposed rezoning of the city's Downtown core on to the City Council for consideration next.

The area has been particularly beset by the pandemic, which is being seen more and more as a potential hub for housing in the city (and state) whose political landscape is increasingly shaped by affordability issues.

Ten new land use designations, proposed under the DTLA 2040 plan for Downtown Los Angeles, will establish baselines and universal building standards in the expanded area, which will accommodate approximately 20% of the anticipated residential growth that could add capacity for 175,000 additional residents to the area in just under two decades.

The plan would eliminate parking requirements for developers as well as scrapping much of a decades-old TFAR program. Urbanize LA has more on the proposed plan’s details here.

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti taking 'full responsibility' for city's homelessness response

2019-06-13T14:15:00-04:00

When Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti took office in 2013, the city was home to 22,993 homeless residents [...]. The number of unhoused people living within city limits now stands at 36,300—and 75 percent are unsheltered. With homelessness up 58 percent on his watch, the mayor struck an apologetic tone in a letter sent to residents Tuesday.

"As your mayor, I take full responsibility for our response to this crisis," wrote Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in an open letter this week. "And like everyone who has seen families in tents or spoken to a homeless veteran in need, I am both heartbroken and impatient. While we have housed more homeless Angelenos than ever before in our city’s history, it’s not enough. We must respond like it’s an earthquake — and do more, faster."

Garcetti's response follows the release of sobering statistics on extreme poverty in Los Angeles County; counting nearly 59,000 homeless people countywide and 36,300 within the City of LA.

L.A.'s homeless count nearly doubled in six years

2018-02-10T09:00:00-05:00

The number of those living in the streets and shelters of the city of L.A. and most of the county surged 75% — to roughly 55,000 from about 32,000 — in the last six years. But the crisis has been decades in the making. If homelessness continues to escalate at current rates, it will swamp even the best efforts.

Despite declaring homelessness in the city an 'emergency' and committing drastically increased funds to housing and services, Los Angeles is failing to improve the lives of its unsheltered citizens.

L.A.'s Skid Row Housing Trust C.E.O. Mike Alvidrez will step down in 2018

2017-07-06T17:29:00-04:00

After nearly three decades of involvement with the L.A. Skid Row Housing Trust (and working relationships with architects including Michael Maltzan and Brooks + Scarpa), C.E.O. Mike Alvidrez has announced his plans to step down next year.

Brooks + Scarpa's homeless housing "The Six" developed in conjunction with the Skid Row Housing Trust. Image: Brooks + Scarpa

He will remain in an "ambassador" role to help the new leadership, although applicants for that position will not be formally reviewed until later this year. In a statement to The Architect's Newspaper, Alvidrez noted that "the public perception of supportive housing has forever changed thanks to our partnerships with renowned architects to design beautiful residential and community spaces that foster reconnection, healing, and dignity.”

Brooks + Scarpa's homeless housing "The Six" developed in conjunction with the Skid Row Housing Trust. Image: Brooks + Scarpa

Los Angeles approves plans to tackle homelessness crisis, but funding is still unclear

2016-02-10T13:44:00-05:00

In a fresh bid to confront a problem that has confounded lawmakers for decades, Los Angeles city and county officials approved sweeping plans Tuesday aimed at getting thousands of homeless people off the streets. But one crucial question remains unanswered: Where will most of the money come from? [...] The renewed government attention to homelessness was spurred in part by a 12% surge in people living on the streets [...] pushing the total to more than 44,000 homeless people countywide.

Previously in the Archinect news:

Los Angeles to declare homelessness in the city an 'emergency' and pledge $100 million

2015-09-22T13:46:00-04:00

Los Angeles elected leaders announced Tuesday that they will declare a “state of emergency” on the growing homelessness problem in the city and commit $100 million toward housing and other services for homeless people. [...] "If we want to be a great city that hosts the Olympics and shows itself off to the world,” Cedillo said, “we shouldn't have 25,000 to 50,000 people sleeping on the streets.”

Related on Archinect:

LA's Skid Row, the "homeless capital of America", seeks to establish own neighborhood council

2015-05-05T13:05:00-04:00

While neighborhood councils don't have governing power, they are crucial for the public to come together and discuss issues and concerns, organize projects and lobby for change from City Council. [...] Page and other activists say that Skid Row is underrepresented in the [Downtown LA Neighborhood Council] [...] He likened downtown to a glazed donut, where the shiny donut part is the rapidly gentrifying downtown, and where Skid Row is the empty hole in the center.

For more about homelessness in Los Angeles and its infamous "Skid Row":

Los Angeles funds $213M policy to end chronic homelessness

The Last Skid Row in America Faces Increasing Gentrification

Low-income housing in Los Angeles: A look at the past, present and future

2015-04-08T18:30:00-04:00

The phrases "public housing" or "low-income housing" do not generally conjure thoughts of architectural innovation. [...] But it doesn't have to be that way, as several recent housing developments in Los Angeles prove. Instead, they pose the question: What if low-income housing was perceived as leading the vanguard of innovative, responsive architecture?

Los Angeles funds $213M policy to end chronic homelessness

2014-09-10T13:33:00-04:00

The system, which was first tried in 2013 on skid row, was designed to identify the most vulnerable homeless people and get them off the streets. Long-term or chronically homeless people, who are often jailed or hospitalized, are a quarter of the homeless population but consume 75% of the county's resources [...] But the system, which has been described as match.com for homeless people, is also supposed to get families and others who fall into homelessness back in housing quickly

Previous accounts of homelessness in LA County, particularly in Skid Row: The Last Skid Row in America Faces Increasing Gentrification

The Last Skid Row in America Faces Increasing Gentrification

2014-07-25T12:39:00-04:00

As shocking as it is to look upon the rows and rows of makeshift encampments and thousands of roving, hopeless people, perhaps even more shocking is this: Los Angeles is the last major American city with a single district of anything approaching this magnitude of homelessness and extreme poverty [...]