If you live in Long Beach, or plan to someday, your housing options may soon become more affordable.
Long Beach City Council addressed the issue of the lack of low-cost housing Tuesday night by moving to conduct a study on the resources available for affordable housing units in the area.
“To say the [housing] situation is becoming urgent is an understatement,” said councilwoman Jeannine Pearce who urged the council to come up with a plan that could help citizens sooner rather than later. “I want to make sure that we’re not looking at funding sources that are projects that can happen in ten years, but projects that can happen in three, that can happen in four.”
According to a city draft report, 47.2 percent of people living in Long Beach are cost burdened, which means that 30 percent of their income goes toward paying rent. Furthermore, 24.3 percent find themselves severely cost burdened, meaning that their rent takes up 50 percent of their income.
The city hopes to drop these numbers by providing more affordable housing for seniors, college students, families and those with disabilities over the next few years.
The study session touched on the issue of college student homelessness, suggesting university-controlled housing or affordable housing adjacent to the university for students. Councilmembers shared their experiences with homeownership, saying that they want every college student to experience the “American Dream” of owning their own home.
Cal State Long Beach third year transfer student Elizabeth Waites shot back, saying that issues of homelessness are more pressing to college students than homeownership.
“Homeownership is a great goal, but for a lot of us, we’ve given up on homeownership and we can’t even enter the renter’s market because it’s so competitive,” said Waites. “College student homelessness is rampant, it is unprecedented, and it is a threat to the economic viability of our city.”
Waites urged the council to consider the conversion of school buses into housing units, an idea that is commonly used for road trips and vacations.
“Since we don’t have much space to work with, let’s work with the vehicles we have at our disposal to create safe living environments for people,” Waites said.
Waites also delved into the issue of renter’s protection, stating that if a college student can pay their rent, there is nothing protecting them from being suddenly evicted.
Although issues of renter protection were not on the agenda, many citizens urged the council to come up with a plan that would protect those renting now, instead of waiting for construction of low-cost units.
“People and families are losing what’s already affordable to them faster than you can even rebuild,” said Jorge Rivera, an active member of Long Beach Residents Empowered, a grassroots organization dedicated to the creation and preservation of cheaper housing.
Pearce also recommended that the council look into possibilities of creating housing units out of abandoned shipping containers left behind by Hanjin shipping on the port of Long Beach. Almost 15,000 containers are sitting at the port, according to the Long Beach Press Telegram. Shipping containers have been repurposed into permanent food lots in Bixby Knolls, a project known as Steelcraft.
Previous efforts have been taken to combat the issue of economically sufficient housing from the city by granting housing developers density bonuses. Developers are given more relaxed parking requirements and are allowed to build higher in exchange that a percentage of the units, decided by Long Beach Development Services, will be available as affordable housing units.
Cheaper housing units on the coastal zone of Long Beach are protected by the one-to-one ratio enacted by the California Coastal Commission. The law states that every low-cost housing unit torn down must be replaced on a one-to-one ratio with the newer units.
Long Beach hopes to expand the one-to-one ratio law throughout the city, instead of only protecting housing units off the coast of beach cities.
The council was not only focused on creating more cheaper housing options, but preserving the units that already exist.
Council members discussed preventing the conversion of affordable apartments into condos when vacancy rates are low. By doing this, apartments will be forced to lower their prices for the units available rather than creating more expensive ones.
The report on low-cost housing will come back to the council in the near future, where they will discuss and vote on potential policies to increase affordable housing for residents.