Posted: July 9th, 2007

Audit says City must make affordable housing a top priority

Calling the shortage of affordable housing a crisis, City Controller Laura Chick released the first of several audits of the Los Angeles Housing Department.

“The median price of a single-family home in Los Angeles is over half a million dollars. How can we expect those in the lower income brackets to be able to put a roof over their family’s heads in this highly costly environment?” said Chick.

Among the audit’s key findings:

- Barriers to providing affordable housing require creative solutions from the Housing Department and the City, as a whole.
- The Housing Department does not have an adequate means of measuring its effectiveness.
- The Housing Department’s program to utilize City surplus properties for the development has been unsuccessful.
- The Housing Department’s efforts to preserve the existing affordable housing inventory have had limited results.
- The Housing Department’s existing technology systems ate inadequate, inefficient and do not interface with one another.

The City Project supports Controller Chick’s recommendations for creative solutions to address this critical need for the Los Angeles community.