MEDIA ADVISORY FOR APRIL 19, 2023
ACT-LA Housing Coalition Rallies, Demanding LA City Council Create Social Housing
LA unlocked hundreds of millions of dollars for Social Housing when Measure ULA passed last year.
Renters and housing advocates will be rallying outside of Los Angeles City Hall on Renter’s Day 2023 to demand that LA City Council create social housing in the city as part of a slate of housing solutions needed to address the city’s housing affordability and homelessness crisis. Social housing, a housing solution proven to be effective internationally, creates homes that enrich communities instead of corporate landlords.
WHO:
Eva Garcia, Renter and renter leader
Irma Fabian, Strategic Actions for a Just Community (SAJE)
Scarlett De Leon, Campaigns Director, ACT-LA
Roberto Garcia-Ceballos, Co-director, Fideicomiso Comunitario Tierra Libre (Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles Community Land Trust)
Carla De Paz, Senior Organizer, Movement Building and Strategy, Community Power Collective
Eunisses Hernandez, Los Angeles City Councilmember, 1st District (Confirmed)
Nithya Raman, Los Angeles City Councilmember, 4th District (Confirmed)
Hugo Soto-Martinez, Los Angeles City Councilmember, 13th District (Confirmed)
WHEN: Wednesday, April 19, 2023, 8:10am
WHERE: Los Angeles City Hall, South Lawn
WHAT:
Renters, who make up over 60 percent of the population in Los Angeles city, lost emergency tenant protections when they expired at the end of March 2023. In the backdrop are mounting pressures of housing unaffordability, record lows to accessing single family homes for purchase, a lack of living-wage jobs, and the little affordable housing available expiring to become market rate.
Since 2014, Los Angeles City has celebrated Renter’s Day every April. On the 2023 Renter’s Day, renters and housing advocates across the city will be rallying to demand that the City Council take bold, drastic action to address LA’s housing affordability crisis by creating a social housing program.
Run by nonprofits and residents, social housing is designed so that the rents stay affordable forever while also providing tenants the training and authority to manage their own buildings. It works by providing city-owned land or leasing existing buildings to community-led organizations to develop and manage housing directly—all benefiting local renters and residents in need of stable homes. Additionally, social housing can provide tenants with a pathway to homeownership by making payments they can afford over a reasonable period of time. It’s an option to earn equity in property that many LA residents have never had due to disenfranchisement, discrimination, and redlining.
VISUALS (PHOTOS AVAILABLE):
Renters, tenant leaders, and housing and homelessness advocates speaking, chanting, rallying outside LA City Hall.
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ABOUT THE ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNITY TRANSIT-LOS ANGELES (ACT-LA):
The Alliance for Community Transit-Los Angeles (ACT-LA) is a coalition of 43 organizations fighting for housing and transit justice in Los Angeles County. Our coalition strives to create just, equitable, sustainable transit systems and neighborhoods for all people in Los Angeles, placing the interest of low-income communities and communities of color first as we create a more sustainable region. Learn more at: www.act-la.org
CONTACT: Alison Vu, (562) 265-8031, avu@act-la.org