In 2016, Los Angeles voters approved a $1.2-billion bond measure to help fund housing for homeless people, with a goal of 10,000 new units in a decade.

Now, after hustling to get as many housing projects started as soon as possible, city officials are coming to the end of the money available through Proposition HHH, and it’s not certain that promise will be kept.

Read More: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-hhh-spending-commitments-20190421-story.html

The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office has filed a criminal complaint charging Miesha Charnae Grant with five counts of tenant harassment in violation of Santa Monica Municipal Code (SMMC) Section 4.56.020, one count of operating an unlawful business in violation SMMC Section 6.04.020, five counts of grand theft in violation of Penal Code Section 487, five counts of criminal contempt in violation of Penal Code Section 166, one count of vandalism in violation of Penal Code section 594, and one count of battery in violation of Penal Code section 242.   The charges relate to actions taken with respect to tenants in rent-controlled units at 1914 18th Street.

The investigation revealed evidence that Grant disobeyed a court order; defrauded tenants by posing as a landlord charging rent in violation of a court order.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/citywide-city-attorney-files-multiple-criminal-charges-in-tenant-harassment-case/174420

A Venice neighborhood group has initiated a legal fight against plans by the City of Los Angeles to erect a 154-bed homeless shelter on a former Metro bus yard, a few blocks from the beach.

The shelter was approved by the LA City Council last December and is to be funded from Mayor Eric Garcetti's A Bridge Home initiative. The site is supposed to provide 'transitional' housing, with the residents eventually moving on to more permanent housing.

Read More: https://www.smobserved.com/story/2019/04/17/news/venice-homeless-shelter-approved-at-mta-bus-yard-on-main-street-and-sunset-avenue/3900.html

In a sign of the times, the Planning Commission likely will have an updated mission statement the City Council is expected to endorse Tuesday night.

Instead of promoting the "health, safety and general welfare" highlighted in the statement endorsed by the Council in 1947, the new statement envisions Santa Monica as a city of "wellbeing, sustainability, and equity," according to staff.

Read More: http://surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2019/April-2019/04_18_2019_Council_Set_to_Endorse_New_Mission_Statement_for_Planning_Commission.html

Adopted Regulation 4203, respecting the calculation of rent decreases, specifying that a rent decrease due to the reduction of housing services or maintenance shall be calculated from the date on which the petition as to which it is granted was filed.

See the Notice on page 2: http://backissues.smdp.com/041719.pdf

Regulations: https://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/Rent_Control/Rent_Control_Law/04,%20Rent%20Adj.pdf

The people of the City of Santa Monica are straining to maintain some semblance of the city’s beloved beach town character. As Santa Monica residents, we are seeing our community sold and developed out-from-under us and we live with adverse consequences. Policy wise there exists a middle ground between no growth and rampant development. However, the organs of power within the City; namely, the money interests and some city politicians, all too often collude to err on the side of overdevelopment.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/wall-street-vs-main-street/174330

It turns out Gov. Gavin Newsom was deadly serious when he insisted as a candidate last year that California needs to build 3.5 million new housing units over the next ten years in order to solve its affordable housing crisis. That’s a total of 3.5 million, more than double what builders around the state have put up in any of the last few decades.

Newsome resent that message a few weeks into his new job, when he successfully urged Attorney General Xavier Becerra to sue the Orange County city of Huntington Beach for allegedly failing to allow enough new housing to handle its population growth.

Read More: https://smmirror.com/2019/04/opinion-can-newsom-housing-campaign-succeed/

Santa Monica businesses that have been operating without a license can have the lion's share of their penalties reduced under the City's Business License Compliance Assistance Program (CAP).

The program is part of an on-going effort to identify unlicensed businesses and collect taxes due to the City, finance officials said.

Read More: http://surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2019/April-2019/04_17_2019_City_Program_Gives_Unlicensed_Santa_Monica_Businesses_Chance_to_Register%20.html

Rent control is once again gaining momentum in America. A long-held economic theory about rent control is that the approach actually hurts affordability over the long term by constricting supply, for example by incentivizing landlords to convert rental units into condos. Across the United States, there’s evidence that the economic arguments against rent control are no longer as compelling to as many people as they once were.

Read More: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/rent-control-policies-gaining-momentum-across-america

City leaders say the bill doesn’t go far enough to encourage the production of affordable housing

The city of Los Angeles is siding against Senate Bill 50, with elected leaders arguing not against density—but market rate housing.

On a 12-0 vote, the City Council adopted a resolution opposing the bill, which seeks to allow apartment and condo buildings up to five stories tall near some bus stops and train stations, even in areas zoned strictly for single-family homes. The goal is to increase the supply of housing and drive down prices for both renters and buyers.

But councilmembers argued the bill would encourage more market rate housing that Los Angeles does not need, without protecting existing affordable housing and promoting more of it.

Read More: https://la.curbed.com/2019/4/16/18410879/sb-50-los-angeles-opposition-california-density