Housing in Los Angeles and the Idea of Housing as a Human Right

The United States is the world's wealthiest nation and largest economy. The city of Los Angeles is the second most populous city in the U.S. and has the third largest urban economy in the world.

Los Angeles is also the homeless capital of the nation. The city suffers from an acute affordable housing crisis which reflects a huge divide between living standards for wealthy and poor residents.

Los Angeles policy makers’ current solution to homelessness and poverty is primarily criminalization, instead of preservation and expansion of decent, safe, and affordable housing. These policies only exacerbate poverty and homelessness, destroy communities,and manifest policy makers’ inability to ensure the right to safe, decent and affordable housing for all Angelinos.

We, the Los Angeles Human Right to Housing Collective, call upon ourselves and our government to include the following principles in all policies and practices:

1. Preserve, improve and expand public housing as a public resource owned and operated by the government.
2. Preserve all existing housing at affordable rents, including rent-stabilized, subsidized, and other housing in order to prevent displacement.
3. Create “affordable housing” that is affordable to those most in need and end the sole reliance on region-wide Area Median Income standards that don’t reflect the reality of low-income neighborhoods.
4. End all criminalization of homelessness and poverty.
5. Create and enforce permanent protections for renters that prevent displacement.
6. Ensure that all housing is safe and healthy.
7. Create and enforce mechanisms to improve the participation and influence of affected tenants in any planning, decision-making, or policy-making processes.
8. Ensure that housing is not a mechanism for profit but is rather a human right and the foundation of communities.