At the city’s first tiny home village, scheduled to open in January, each of the 39 closet-sized homes is costing $130,000, about 10 times what some other cities are spending. Five more villages are planned to open later. — Los Angeles Times

It’s also not hard to picture oneself as a homesteader. The land is not free but it is cheap—some of the cheapest in the United States. In many respects, a person could live here in this vast, empty space like the pioneers did on the Great Plains—except you’d have a truck instead of a mule, and some solar panels, possibly even a cell-phone signal. And legal weed. — Harper's Magazine

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. — Curbed LA

Antipathy to the “concrete jungle” is rooted in the assumption that concrete-heavy environments are by nature detrimental to psychological health. One study of more than 4 million Swedes, published in 2004 in the British Journal of Psychiatry, seemed to suggest that moving from a rural to an urban environment had a detrimental effect on individuals’ mental health. — The Guardian

[...] medium- and low-income residents can’t afford land, while the city’s wealth explodes and attracts economic activity that doesn’t keep its poor residents in the loop. This was the Hong Kong Greco wanted to show.

“Perhaps one should adopt a special lens in looking at Hong Kong, not only to see its superficial beauty, but also the social undercurrents that sustain its structures,” writes Dr. Ernest Chui in Greco’s book. — CityLab

Speaking to the Guardian after the announcement of his award, Doshi said that architects and urban planners involved in low-income housing projects – as well as architectural education – needed to move away from their focus on the designer as individual to being far more collaborative, compassionate and invested in the dignity of those they house. — The Guardian

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. — Los Angeles Times

How do you raise the standard of living in the poorest neighborhoods in the country?

That’s what community developers, typically nonprofits that build and finance affordable housing, have tried to do over the last few decades. And yet [...] many of these communities remain stuck in poverty. [...]

This problem has stumped community developers for decades. But two local nonprofits think they’ve hit on something: They’ve created a private equity fund. — marketplace.org

The number of apartments deemed affordable for very low-income families across the United States fell by more than 60 percent between 2010 and 2016, according to a new report by Freddie Mac.

The report by the government-backed mortgage financier is the first to compare rent increases in specific units over time. It examined loans that the corporation had financed twice between 2010 and 2016, allowing a comparison of the exact same rental units and how their affordability changed. — The Washington Post

Residents of the outer suburbs tend to travel much longer distances between home, work and the services they need daily. Getting around necessarily defaults to the car, which has serious long-term implications for health. Driving is particularly associated with extended sitting in a confined space and, as a result, not getting enough exercise each day.

When poorer communities are located in areas of lesser amenity due to lower housing costs, this exacerbates their health problems. — Economist Times

Poverty is largely “a state of mind”, housing secretary Ben Carson has claimed, dismaying observers who had modest hopes for his tenure.

Carson, the neurosurgeon who heads the agency charged with helping low-income Americans gain access to affordable housing, told Sirius XM radio: “You take somebody who has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there.” — The Guardian

As he toured facilities for the poor in Ohio last week, Mr. Carson, the neurosurgeon-turned-housing secretary, joked that a relatively well-appointed apartment complex for veterans lacked “only pool tables.” He inquired at one stop whether animals were allowed. At yet another, he nodded, plainly happy, as officials explained how they had stacked dozens of bunk beds inside a homeless shelter and purposefully did not provide televisions. — The New York Times

As a child, Anthony Foxx knew he couldn’t ride his bike far from home without being blocked by a freeway. By the time he became U.S. transportation secretary he understood why.

“We now know — overwhelmingly — that our urban freeways were almost always routed through low-income and minority neighborhoods, creating disconnections from opportunity that exist to this day,” [...] “I really believe that this is an issue that has been on the shelf collecting dust for a long time,” Foxx said. — washingtonpost.com