Leno Amendment Research Paper

The Los Angeles County Board has allocated $25 million dollars to spend on new programs that promote social justice. I have developed a proposal to allocate the money to create affordable housing complexes in communities within the city. The communities selected for housing developments are Boyle Heights, Watts, Chinatown, Pico-Union and Elysian Park. The proposal includes spending all $25 million in five developments of affordable housing. Each housing development will have twenty five 2-bedroom apartments. A total of one hundred low income families will benefit in total. My proposal includes asking each family to pay a monthly rent of 1/4 of their monthly earnings. The monthly rent collected from tenants can be used to maintain the developments,

In 2011, the Los Angeles Human Right to Housing Collective joined together with citywide residents to protest unfair housing practices, and increasing rents at Los Angeles City Hall. Over the past four years, Los Angeles residents have seen rapid increases in rent, which is leading to more and more people moving out of L.A. in the hopes of finding more affordable living arrangements. The three percent rental increases that Los Angeles residents are accustomed to have been climbing this past year, and in 2016 many Angelenos could be seeing a four or maybe even five percent cost of living increase. Studies from the U.S. Census will show that Los Angeles renters occupy not even 50 percent of Los Angeles county housing units. In comparison to the percentage LA renters are taking home per paycheck, it is now becoming more affordable to buy property in Los Angeles, rather than rent.

Tawna Sanchez is the director of family services at the Native American youth and family center and has served as a commissioner in a body that advises the department of human services. “ I do support increasing taxes on corporations. I do not support IP 28 and have deep concerns that IP 28 will increase costs for those who can least afford it,” (Tawna Sanchez for Oregon HD-43 Facebook, n.d.). Her platform includes addressing human inequality, creating long-term affordable housing and limiting campaign contributions. Her main task will be to deal with the issue of corporate taxes and income inequality, and create long-term affordable housing by creating a responsible department.

“All men are equal” Thomas Jefferson wrote in the declaration of independance. The 24th amendment later fulfilled that all men are equal by prohibiting the federal and state governments from imposing poll taxes before a citizen can participate in a federal election. This meant that some states charged a tax to vote. This was thought to keep poor and black people from voting. This amendment made it illegal to charge a tax, or any other kind of charge to vote.It was proposed by the Congress on August 27, 1962. Then later it was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964.

“Supporters of strict laws barring behavior associated with the homeless argue that allowing large numbers of homeless people to commit quality-of-life offenses in urban neighborhoods is unfair to those who work, live, and play in those neighborhoods” (“Homelessness”).Allowing homeless people to linger in communities is unjust to the people who live there and work there. “Proponents of housing first note that the cost of providing homeless people with apartments is far less than the cost of letting them remain on the street” (“Homelessness”).It costs less to house the homeless rather than to let them stay on the street. “Housing first, they contend, has demonstrated that chronically homeless people are not beyond help but just require permanent housing before they can properly address mental or physical disabilities” (“Homelessness”).Housing first will help address a homeless person’s problems and will have permanent housing for the

California’s housing situation is severe compared to the rest of the United States. California is included in the top three states with the most “housing cost burdened individuals” (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2015). In a list of 20 cities where rents were highest compared to income, 10 of the 20 cities were in California with Los Angeles, CA topping the list (Dewan, 2014). Opponents might say that households in poverty could never afford housing due to their impoverished state but poverty measures of California show that the abnormally high cost of housing in California makes matters more severe and causes the amount of households that are severely cost afflicted to increase. Furthermore, when poverty measures take into account California’s uniquely expensive and insufficient housing supply, the results show that housing costs contribute significantly to poverty. For example, when housing costs were included in the California Poverty Measure as well as federal Supplemental Poverty Measure, the poverty rates rose substantially (Wimer, Mattingly, & Levin, 2013) (Short, 2015). And when high housing costs were artificially substituted with low housing costs, poverty rates significantly dropped (Bohn, Danielson, & Levin, 2013). And it’s not just the poor who are affected! Even those who are moderate income earners are becoming financially burdened by high housing costs. Those who are moderately well off compared to low income earners are financially burdened by rent costs in expensive cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University,

As much as Proposition 13 has received criticism, it still has its advantages. The proposition has increased stability in the community and allowed predictability for property owners. Progressive income tax has an impact on higher incomes, whereas property tax affects those in the lower income bracket. Therefore, high property taxes affect those that have highly valued property, but earn low incomes. Reducing property taxes for such people is a great advantage to them. Furthermore, the proposition has enabled Californian taxpayers to save billions of dollars over the years (Smith, 1998).

Affordable housing has become the paramount issue of cities and dense urban areas. San Francisco is the posterchild of an unaffordable city that regardless of immense investment from blue chip firms like Google, Facebook, and their ilk of startups evaluated at $1 billion or more, policymakers and elected officials must wrestle with the housing affordability crisis that is considered endogenous to swaths of homelessness and record statistics on crime. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has made affordable housing the centerpiece of his legislation and championed the cause as a social justice issue—neighborhoods must remain affordable to maintain diversity for all races, ethnicities, and low-income families. A small sample of 827 New Yorkers by the NY1-Baruch College City Poll found the main concern of respondents was affordable housing while crime, jobs, and homelessness were peripheral problems (Cuza, 2016). The public discourse on how to address housing across the United States has pointed to negative externalities that surround rent-regulation and homeownership. Conversely, for this essay I will present various cases in order to illustrate the housing crunch is influenced less by housing and land regulations, or antagonistic homeowners but is induced by global market forces.

Detainees were kept in jails that needed power, supplies, and more. The Eighth Amendment protects individuals from "cruel or abnormal discipline." By keeping detainees in these conditions does not go against the Eight Amendment because the storm was not meant to be a punishment, it was something uncontrollable. Under the assumption that the officers did not get through their crisis preparation or departure arrangements, which brought about the detainees being kept in said conditions.

Given evidence of the effect of race on housing issues, even as it relates to home ownership, an exploration of the empirical evidence in how it manifests within rental markets is necessary. One of the leading researchers in the contemporary study of eviction is Matthew Desmond. In “Eviction and the Reproduction of Urban Poverty (2012), he combines statistical and ethnographic analyses to investigate the ramifications of eviction on the lives of the urban poor. The primary independent variable in this study was gender, while the dependent was eviction rates as a percentage. Half of his quantitative analysis involved extracting legal records or court-ordered evictions that took place in Milwaukee County between 2003 to 2007 (n=29,960) (“Eviction and the Reproduction” 91). Using addresses, eviction records were merged with population estimates of Milwaukee’s 880 block groups (“neighborhoods”), and yearly eviction rates for each block group were calculated by gender and pooled to calculate annual averages (Eviction and Reproduction 94). Then risk ratios and differences were determined using 3 different samples: all groups with at least 1 male and female evictee, high poverty block groups where more than 40% of the population lived at or below 150% of the poverty line, and hyper-segregated neighborhoods where at least 85% of residents were same race/ethnicity (Eviction and Reproduction 94). While these measures provided reliable and exact measures of incidence and location,

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that housing is a fundamental component to a decent standard of living, yet few city governments--even in the most developed economies--have proven themselves capable of ensuring such a basic right to their constituents (United Nations, General Assembly). Ranked 49th among the 50 U.S. states for its number of housing units per capita, California has notoriously struggled with chronic shortages in its urban housing market. With 118,142 homeless people recorded in 2016, California holds almost 22% of the nation’s homeless population (Fact Sheet: Homelessness in California 1).

When cities begin their journey of being gentrified, many locals become displaced. Displacement is when locals are uprooted from their homes, due to outside factors, and forced to move elsewhere. According to the Urban Displacement Project conducted by U.C. Berkeley, “Gentrification results from both flows of capital and people. The extent to which gentrification is linked to racial transition differs across neighborhood contexts... Displacement takes many different forms—direct and indirect, physical or economic, and exclusionary—and may result from either investment or disinvestment” (U.C. Berkeley). Many people are coming into San Francisco’s Bay Area because of how diverse each element is. However, according to Census numbers, between 1990 and 2010, 35.7% of San Francisco’s black population dwindled (Bliss). 35.7% of the black community within San Francisco suffered from displacement. An additional 53% of low-income households in the Bay Area are at risk for displacement and gentrification (U.C. Berkeley). This has definitely left a dent within the diversity reputation held up by the Bay Area. When such a strong large part of people leave, The City will experience a shift in culture and community. Whether, it is the real estate, the food, the different cultures, the Bay Area has always been known for being different. Perhaps, this is why so many outsiders are coming in and buying up every piece of land they can. Whether their intentions were to purchase land and

The excerpt we read from the book Evicted moved many people. It provoked powerful emotions and caused many to rethink they their feelings about the tails of told by far too many. Evicted the story of families on both side of the housing epidemic focusing on renters and landlords. I will be comparing my own views and using my experiences to gain a deeper understanding of: the people effected; the impact it has on families of both sides; the lesser and the lessee; the reason we are in this crises; and what can be done. Evicted is no doubt a piece that can stir the emotions of everyone who choices to sit down and read it.

Gentrification would have the potential to be good if the people who have been long-time residences got to live in and enjoy the new community. Unfortunately, the opposite often takes place with gentrification. Current residents often get evicted and displaced due to rising rent and new demands by the people coming in. The people getting displaced are often minorities who get evicted from their own neighborhoods before being able to experience the changes for themselves. Before people are forced to leave, the state gives them a voucher. A voucher is a discount the state gives you to leave and go to another town. With this voucher you can only go to certain places. You can only go where the voucher tells you to go. For example, if you currently live in South Central, Los Angeles and the voucher says you can move to Watts, then can

Gentrification is a problem that is occurring in many communities. The city of Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles is one of the communities that the citizens of the community are notice new apartments build, galleries owner by rich people, and high prices for apartment the people are not able to afford to live there. Because the renewal of neighborhood environments that transform and attract middle and upper-class households and investors, creating problems for those who cannot afford rises of rents. According to O’Regan, “some of the biggest concerns about gentrification-potential displacement and increased rent burdens-are driven by rent or housing cost increases” (152). The only way to