Nithya Raman will soon be the next mayor of Los Angeles, taking her oath of office in mid-December. On the campaign trail, she, like many Democrats this fall, made “affordability” one of her key issues. In a city where unfair, excessive rents are the norm, affordable housing must rank high on her to-do list. Housing Is A Human Right has some suggestions that will directly help the people who need it most: poor and moderate- and low-income residents.
The suggestions are actually part of a sensible concept called the “3 Ps”: protect tenants through strong renter rights, including rent stabilization; preserve existing affordable housing (such as rent-stabilized apartments), don’t quickly demolish it for more luxury housing that most people can’t afford; and produce moderate- and low-income housing and permanent homeless housing through such methods as the adaptive reuse of existing buildings and prefabricated housing.
Protect. Preserve. Produce.
Unlike the “trickle-down” housing agenda pushed by Big Real Estate, the 3 Ps directly and urgently help poor and moderate- and low-income renters, who have been hit the hardest by L.A.’s housing affordability and homelessness crises. We can’t emphasize that point enough. The 3 Ps help people right now. Trickle-down housing, which involves flooding the rental housing market with expensive luxury housing, takes decades to create affordable housing – and even that’s not guaranteed.
To protect tenants, Raman and her staff can immediately look into what renter rights are needed or should be improved. In fact, Raman should consult with housing justice activists and tenant unions who work on the frontlines of the housing affordability and homelessness crises to hear what they have to say. Too often, politicians fail to talk to activists, who can give invaluable information about what’s happening on the street.
To take it one step further, similar to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Raman can appoint a veteran housing justice activist to be one of her key advisors on housing.
Raman can also get behind a push by the L.A. City Council to regulate algorithmic rent-fixing software. San Francisco, Berkeley, San Diego, and Santa Monica have already banned such technology, which, in the past, has been widely used by corporate landlords to collude and wildly inflate rents in cities across the United States. That’s what the RealPage scandal was all about, and that’s why cities throughout the nation started banning rent-fixing software. Los Angeles has been lagging behind, so Raman should tell the city council to quickly pass regulations.
In addition, Raman can put pressure on state politicians to reform or repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which created statewide rent control restrictions in California. If Raman can make headway on changing that law, L.A., the most populated city in the state, will be able to update its rent-stabilization ordinance.
By the way, a group of top economists and two housing experts explained that rent control not only works, but it’s desperately needed to protect renters against Big Real Estate’s predatory business practices. The economists also found that anti-rent control arguments pushed by corporate landlords and YIMBY leaders are outdated and wrong, ignoring what’s actually happening on the street.
To preserve existing affordable housing, Raman should again put pressure on state politicians to reform or repeal the Ellis Act, which corporate landlords and developers have long abused to demolish rent-controlled buildings in California, including Los Angeles. It’s a major issue: Coalition for Economic Survival and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Protect found that 31,824 rent-controlled units have been lost between 2001 and 2026 in L.A. due to the Ellis Act.
Let’s make something very clear. Big Real Estate, some politicians, and YIMBYs rarely, if ever, want to talk about the impact of the real estate industry’s predatory business practices on tenants. But ask any housing justice activist or tenant union member, and he or she will tell you that Big Real Estate’s constant grab for outsized profits off the backs of hard-working tenants is fueling the housing affordability crisis and, as a result, the homelessness crisis – if you can’t bring down rents, you won’t fix homelessness. So protecting tenants is desperately needed, and should be a part of any public debate about fixing the housing affordability crisis.
Also, it’s very important to preserve moderate- and lower-income communities, where there’s usually a healthy amount of affordable housing. Unfortunately, corporate developers, with the help of backroom deals at L.A. City Hall, go into those neighborhoods, build luxury housing, and push out longtime moderate- and lower-income residents when rents suddenly skyrocket. In other words, gentrification and displacement ruin neighborhoods and dramatically alter lives.
(Read Housing Is A Human Right’s award-winning special report: “The Garcetti-fication of Los Angeles: A Gentrification Cautionary Tale.”
One way for Raman to monitor gentrification and displacement in Los Angeles, and then to intervene when needed, is by updating the Los Angeles Index of Neighborhood Change – an academic term for gentrification. Right now, the index only has information between the years of 2001 and 2014, but it can be an excellent tool to understand what’s happening on the street and to help residents. Data-Smart City Solutions, sponsored by Harvard University, actually hailed the index.
Raman can also update the Los Angeles Index of Displacement Pressure – its data is more than 10 years old. That index, which measures the possibility of displacement in L.A. neighborhoods, can also be a useful tool to head off gentrification and displacement.
We’re in the age of data and technology, so it seems only sensible for Raman and her team to update and use the two city databases that can help deal with skyrocketing rents, gentrification, and displacement, all of which impact poor and moderate- and lower-income residents first and foremost.
Lastly, L.A. needs to produce more moderate- and lower-income housing and permanent homeless housing. Two key ways to do that is through the adaptive reuse of existing buildings, such as a single-room occupancy hotel, or prefabricated housing. Both methods can quickly and cost-effectively create more affordable and permanent homeless housing. But, Raman must streamline the stifling City Hall red tape that holds up the construction of affordable and homeless housing for months, even years.
L.A.’s mayor can actually be very effective in fixing red tape: the mayor can fire department managers who aren’t doing a good job or aren’t carrying out the mayor’s wishes. So from day one in office, Raman can send a memo to all department chiefs and tell them to streamline the approval and permitting process for the construction of affordable and homeless housing within an appropriate timeline — since many lower-income and homeless people are waiting for housing, the streamlining process must be done quickly. And she can let them know that if they don’t make it happen, they’ll be let go.
Raman can also work on finding more funding for the construction of affordable and homeless housing – affordable-housing developers are always looking for money to complete projects.
Protect, preserve, and produce. If Raman carries out the 3 Ps, poor and moderate- and lower-income Angelenos will have the opportunity to thrive, and she will probably seen as something of a hero.
Patrick Range McDonald is a veteran investigative reporter and the award-winning advocacy journalist for Housing Is A Human Right.