The Glamour and Grit of Housing in Los Angeles

Los Angeles has long been associated with gorgeous residential homes. The glamour of the Eames house and the Ennis house, for example, invoke a Hollywood of film stars, champagne, and fortune. As a city, Los Angeles prides itself on its residential housing. What it fails to acknowledge, however, is its lack of its very source of pride. Bluntly, there aren’t enough homes in LA. Although there are many beautiful residential homes in Los Angeles, there is a painful lack of overall housing, an oft-overlooked grit to the city’s glamorous housing market.




While working at an architecture firm this summer, I witnessed both the glamour and grit of Los Angeles housing first-hand. I assisted in trying to create a non-profit geared at design resources to alleviate the housing crisis, and I also saw the multi-million dollar single family homes commissioned by wealthy owners. Frankly, the equation is imbalanced. Far too little time is devoted to reporting on the housing crisis, such as Prop H spending. Instead, articles such as “There is a 1$ Billion Dollar Property for Sale Atop Beverly Hills” dominate headlines. In this way, the housing crisis is almost regarded in awe, with readers marveling at astronomical home prices rather than acknowledging the grit of homelessness.




On any given night, there are approximately 553,742 people experiencing homelessness in America. In Los Angeles alone, 55,188 people are homeless. The homeless in Los Angeles have suffered from poverty, failed housing measures, and ballooning real estate prices that have culminated in abhorrent living conditions that we often ignore. In the past, Los Angeles has taken a militaristic approach on homelessness, policing the streets wielding the power of nuisance arrests to harass members of the city’s most vulnerable population. Just two months ago, Eric Garcetti reinstated a historically detrimental law that enables police to arrest the homeless for sleeping on the sidewalk. Their rights are denigrated, and they are outcast from society because they are homeless. Homelessness is never a choice, however




The issue of homelessness is both intractable and easily ignored. When we pass homeless people on the street, we may feel a tinge of guilt or sorrow. The issues of homelessness and the housing crisis are often neglected in the news, and yet they are essentially important. In order to alleviate the housing crisis, the city of Los Angeles must both acknowledge their detrimental impacts on homelessness and actively work to alter their ways, creating permanent supportive housing and working to ensure long term stability. With Prop H, the government has been given a 1.2$ billion dollar chance to create affordable housing and support the homeless; they must use it wisely to ensure that they are helping to aid the entirety of Los Angeles rather than focus on glamour and ignore the percieved grit of the housing crisis.







https://www.statista.com/chart/6949/the-us-cities-with-the-most-homeless-people/

https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-report/

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-homeless-accountability-20180302-htmlstory.html

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sidewalk-sleeping-20180622-story.html