Affordable Housing/ Rent Control / Living Wage

By Gary Abrams

City Failed to Meet State Housing Obligation

No Plans To build

Insufficiency

Affect on Community

"We SAT there for the better part of eight years,

Sacramento is telling us, we have to build 658 (affordable) housing units in the next four years".

CONSTRUCTION: Either there is no funding or greatly reduced amounts available for the various + grades of affordable housing.

Diminished government funds have reduced the production of new affordable units.Dramatically lowered the number of developments that can proceed.

Compounding the problem: State and federal funding for below-market housing plunged 79% over last five years.

It's creating a rapid change in our housing stock-away from providing affordable, low +income housing toward housing the rich.

TILDEN TERRACE project on West Washington Boulevard brought 33 new affordable housing units to Culver City and had more than 1,300 applicants for those units.

These residences represent the first affordable family housing units created in 10 years in Culver City.

CULVER VILLAS on Irving Place -With a staggering 1,448 residents or would-be residents of Culver City applying for 12 housing units.

Upon closer inspection, such a claim may be exaggerated, a huge proportion of the Irving Place units are reserved for city employees,as opposed to the authentically needy.

The Habitat for Humanity project on Globe Avenue, There will be 10 more new affordable units.

RENT CONTROL Rent regulation exists in approximately 40 countries around the world.

Rent control has been in force in a number of major American cities for many decades.

Both the city and county of Los Angeles adopted rent control in 1979, but the county dropped it shortly thereafter.

What is Rent Control? Rent control, or rent stabilization, is much more than the percentage % maximum increase to which people refer.

It is a collection of laws that regulate how much a landlord can raise (or must reduce) the rent, limit the reasons for eviction, and more.

Rent control and eviction protections work together, so that the landlord doesn't get around a rent limit by evicting the tenant, instead, or vice versa.

Rent control became a topic of very short-term concern last summer in when Ms. Shireen Daytona announced to the Council that two Culver City tenants had died, unexpectedly, shortly after they were informed of huge rent increases.

City Councils stance on rent control is not in favor of it.

The Councils position is that the Landlord / Tenant Mediation Board is sufficient, even though the Board has not managed to discuss a single mediation at the last two quarterly meetings (6 months). No minutes from any of the Board meetings held in 2013 were drafted or approved. Or posted on the City website.

The Landlord/Tenant Mediation Board has only ONCE, in its entire history of more than 25 years, successfully resolved a rental increase dispute between a landlord and tenant.

Vice Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells on the topic of rent control, There should be some sort of protection for renters, more than we have today.

Mehaul OLeary as a businessman, homeowner and elected official for the past six years,States that, "There could be a process and I have said this in the past, I don't care where they residents)go."

TENANTS vs LANDLORDS Although the battle over rent control is routinely portrayed as a contest of "tenants-versus-landlords," in fact the situation is far more complex.

21,549 people (55.4% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 17,023 people (43.8%) lived in rental housing units.

AFFECT on ELDERLY 5,806 people who were 65 years of age or older.

AFFECT on FAMILIES 4,499 had children under the age of 18 living in them,

1,882 had a female householder with no husband present,

80 percent of families (mainly single women and children under the age of 10) are unable to financially handle the most modest rental obligations.

7,312 people under the age of 18,

636 had a male householder with no wife present.

AFFECT on DIVERSITY Culver City Population is estimated to be 40,000

Seniors over 65 comprise 14.9%

People under 18 comprise 18.8%

People, 35 to 64 year old form the spine, 63 percent, of the community population.

DEMOGRAPHICS: White (non-Hispanic) 48% Hispanic or Latino origin 23.2% Asian 14.8% Black 9.5% Native American 0.5% Pacific Island 0.2%

AFFECT on LOW-INCOME WORKERS: If current trends continue it would be devastating for low-income households and California as a whole.

At some point we are going to run out of available low-income workers because no one will have a place to live.

A LIVING WAGE: A gradual increase to $15.00/hour for all workers in the city.

Will get some people out of poverty and put more into the local economy.

It is really difficult to live anywhere if you are trying to raise a family on that kind of money.