There’s No Such Thing as Affordable Housing
Back in October, LAist reported that over the past decade, Los Angeles lost eight times more affordable housing units than it gained for its lowest-income residents. According to city records, from 2010 to 2019, 110,000 houses and apartments affordable to low earners were lost, while only 13,000 were built.
“Affordable,” in this case, means costing no more than 30% of such a household’s gross income—a standard typically used by federal and non-profit housing programs. Statistics like this go a long way toward illustrating the precarity and hardship faced by the working class in high-cost cities like LA that have failed miserably to get a handle on their housing crisis.
Statistics like this can also mislead. The obvious follow-up question to the statement, “Los Angeles lost 110,000 affordable units,” is the answer to the question, “So where did they go?” And I have routinely seen casual observers of the housing crisis misunderstand the answer or make incorrect assumptions.
The answer is right there in the LAist article, but it’s a few paragraphs deeper. While some were presumably physically demolished, replaced, or renovated, the vast majority were “lost to higher prices.” The house or apartment didn’t go anywhere; the rent just went up.
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