How bad is the housing crisis in LA?

By Simon Ha

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‍According to the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), Los Angeles has 1,373,864 total housing units. About 535,000 units are single-family detached homes, and the remaining 840,000 are multi-family.

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To meet the current housing demands, Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) identified the need for 456,643 units, of which 184,721 need to be income-restricted affordable housing, by 2029.

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That’s almost a half a million homes.

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Los Angeles must increase from 1,373,864 units to 1,830,507 units—an increase of 33%. For comparison’s sake, the housing boom in the last decade produced fewer than 90,000 units.

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What is needed for the county to build 5 times the amount of housing?

• Faster approvals
• Faster construction (through offsite factory-built construction)
• Removing attrition like Measure ULA tax on housing
• Providing direct rental subsidies and tax incentives
• Incentivizing Accessory Dwelling Unit production on single-family lots (if every single-family lot added an extra unit, housing needs would be met)