Home News Hey, Buddy. Can You Spare Dime for Affordable Housing?

Hey, Buddy. Can You Spare Dime for Affordable Housing?

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Mr. Weissman with granddaughter Ori.

Third in a series. 

Re: “Killing of Redevelopment Still Hurts.” 

The forecast is for showers of grimness a week from Monday when the City Council sits down at the Vets Auditorium to explore how to meet its affordable housing obligations.

“The bottom line is we no longer have the financial resources to put into projects,” said Councilman Andy Weissman of the agenda for the much-ballyhooed March 23 agenda.

“Unfortunately when we had the resources, Councils in the past were, for whatever reason, otherwise occupied. They were not focusing on affordable housing.”

The heat is on the City Council to creatively search out funding sources.

“Now,” said Mr. Weissman, “we are in a position where there is a City Council extremely desirous of creating an atmosphere to bring on additional affordable housing.

“But we don’t have the money to buy down rents, to buy down market value for projects to be built.”

When in doubt, when broke, hope for goodwill.

“There may be some developers, like Habitat for Humanity,” said Mr. Weissman, “devoted to doing nothing but creating affordable housing. Tilden Terrace is an example of that. L.A. Housing Partnership builds affordable units. They are few and far between, though. And construction is expensive.”

(To be continued)