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A new lawsuit aims to halt the construction of a homeless shelter in Griffith Park, arguing that Los Angeles officials skirted city and state rules when they approved the project on a Riverside Drive parking lot...
In the lawsuit, the group [Friends of Waverly Inc.] asserts that Los Angeles officials abused their discretion when they granted the planned shelter an emergency exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act.
— Los Angeles Times
According to the Los Angeles Times the lawsuit "argues that the city skipped necessary hearings for the project, flouting the city charter and ignoring the rights of nearby property owners." The $6.6-million project is due to include a 10,800-square-foot building with around... View full entry
Citing the need to act quickly to get homeless Californians off the streets, Gov. Gavin Newsom will ask lawmakers this week to allocate more than $1.4 billion to a variety of local and state-run efforts, with much of the money earmarked as subsidies for immediate housing and community healthcare services. — Los Angeles Times
The $1.4 billion will be used to pay for monthly rents, construct shelters, and provide treatment to those in need. “Homelessness is a national crisis, one that’s spreading across the West Coast and cities across the country,” Newsom said in a statement, according to the Los Angeles... View full entry
At the direction of Mayor Jenny Durkan, the city’s Human Services Department is studying the possibility of mandatory biometric screening of homeless shelter and service clients, using fingerprints or other biometric markers to track the city’s homeless population as they move through the homelessness system. — C is for Crank
Independent journalist Erica Barnett reports on an ongoing study being undertaken by municipal officials in Seattle, where efforts to resolve the city's ongoing homelessness crisis could include using biometric tracking systems to log how individuals make use of public services. View full entry
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced an initiative Tuesday that promised to “end long-term street homelessness as we know it” by bringing thousands of people off of the streets and into permanent or transitional housing within five years. [...]
The city plans to spend an estimated $120 million next year on the plan, which will create 1,000 new permanent apartments.
— The Wall Street Journal
The mayor's office has outlined de Blasio's latest plan to house the estimated 3,600 homeless people currently living on New York City streets — a fraction of the city's total homeless population of 80,000 — in the action plan The Journey Home. We’re announcing a plan to END... View full entry
On this installment of Archinect Sessions, we’re sharing a conversation I had a couple of months ago with Sofia Borges and R. Scott Mitchell, the leaders of a design-build studio at USC that addressed one of the most pressing issues in Los Angeles today—homelessness. ... View full entry
By early next year [UnitedHealth Group] expects to house 350 homeless Medicaid patients whose annual health-care spending, while they’re on the streets, exceeds $17 million. The goal is for them to “graduate” within a year to paying their own rent. — Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Businessweek profiles UnitedHealth Group's efforts to reign in healthcare costs by providing high-cost patients with housing. The approach comes as the connections between a lack of housing and extreme healthcare costs come into sharper relief between these adjacent industries. The... View full entry
Since April, the gates have been locked against the city and its contractors, and only a few people let in. The case manager’s office has sat empty since Aug. 5, and no one has left the village for permanent housing since at least July.
Now, after an almost seven-month stalemate, the city announced Tuesday it won’t fund the village after December, saying it’s out of compliance with its contract.
— The Seattle Times
In a city-issued press release, Seattle spokesperson Will Lemke writes, “The village will no longer operate after Dec. 31, 2019, and the property will be returned to Seattle City Light.” City officials, according to The Seattle Times, will help offer “new shelter or housing... View full entry
The Trump administration officials who came to town to study homelessness spent Monday and Tuesday meeting with officials from Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office, checking out the Jordan Downs public housing in Watts and touring the long-entrenched epicenter of the crisis, skid row. There was even a trek to Pomona.
An administration official said the purpose was to gather information so that President Trump could begin to develop a plan to address the “tragedy.”
— The Los Angeles Times
The tour comes as the Trump Administration's controversial Opportunity Zones program designed to funnel investment to underserved areas gains steam and as the administration potentially looks to rewrite "regulatory barriers" for affordable housing projects nationwide. According to... View full entry
Due to many factors, now more than ever, LA architects have a responsibility to offer solutions and creative resources to solve this crisis immediately — as if our currently 59,000+ unsheltered Angelenos were displaced by an earthquake or a wildfire. — AIA|LA
A year ago, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told Boise that it’s unconstitutional to stop the homeless from sleeping in public spaces if there’s not enough shelter available for them. Now Boise wants the U.S. Supreme Court to have a look at that decision. — The Los Angeles Times
A recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece takes a look at the ongoing legal battle regarding whether criminalizing homelessness constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" under the United States Constitution. Two constitutional lawyers, Theane Evangelis and Theodore B. Olson, discuss the... View full entry
Authorities in San Francisco are making moves to bring a $600 million affordable housing bond to voters later this year. The bond, according a recent press release, would allow the city to "fund the creation, preservation, and rehabilitation of affordable housing in San Francisco." City officials... View full entry
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
"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... View full entry
Finland is the only EU country where homelessness is falling. Its secret? Giving people homes as soon as they need them – unconditionally [...]
“We had to get rid of the night shelters and short-term hostels we still had back then. They had a very long history in Finland, and everyone could see they were not getting people out of homelessness. We decided to reverse the assumptions.”
— The Guardian
Meanwhile in the U.S., major cities that have seen an influx of new wealth, such as San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles, continue to struggle in their fights against extreme poverty and homelessness despite allocating increased funding. View full entry
Now, Dubai has taken a step further along the road to making such dreams a reality by announcing that 25% of the city-state’s new buildings will be made using 3D printers by 2025.
The move is part of an ambitious 3D-printing strategy announced in 2016 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Dubai.
— weforum.org
According to the Dubai Future Foundation the city aims to reduce labor by 70% and cut overall costs by 90% with their 3D-printed construction plan. The strategy not only aims at addressing the UN's projected density for urban areas in the future, but also holds potential to solve Dubai's severe... View full entry
Last week, a coalition of homelessness advocates, non-profits, and tenant groups in San Francisco secured an initiative for November’s ballot that, if passed, would almost double the city’s spending on homeless shelters using an increased gross receipts tax. [...] This news comes just weeks after Seattle—home to companies like Amazon and Starbucks, along with the third-largest homeless population in the country—capitulated on a similar plan. — CityLab
After the swift defeat of Seattle's “Amazon Tax”, big tech cities in California like San Francisco and Mountain View are working on similar initiatives that charge higher taxes on large companies to raise more money for affordable housing. Despite some skepticism, these initiatives might... View full entry
