Unaffordable housing by Ray Calnan/LAist With all the recent hype about problems affording homes in Los Angeles and several of the Council members endorsing a plan to keep housing affordable, it appears that the City supports home ownership. However, in an email sent to mortgage brokers, the City has indicated that it will be discontinuing the down payment assistance programs that have been getting a lot of use recently. The standard problem of lack......

"Sister Cities" | Photo by Stephanie Asher via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr An update on yesterday's Harbor-Gateway shooting of a 6-year-old in a car. LAPD Chief Bratton announced: "We are very confident that we have the people who were involved in the actual shooting in custody." For the Lakers fans out there, LA City Councilman Bernard Parks declared today as "Derek Fisher Day." 1,817. That's the number of teacher layoffs so......

Don't be angsty like this lady...go out tonight! / Photo by Plankton 4:20 via LAist's flickr pool. FILM “Animation Nite: From Halifax with Love” is a program at the Echo Park Film Center that features short animated and semi-animated films by women who’ve all lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, eh. The screening includes work by host Siloën Daley and six others. Music by local band Foot Foot follows. 7:30 // Echo Park Film......

Tonight is round three of an ongoing David & Goliath battle between LA’s Eco-Village Community and the heavily funded Los Angeles Unified School District. The Los Angeles Eco-Village Intentional Community (LAEV-IC) is an internationally recognized sustainable community and is part of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED-Neighborhood Development pilot program. At issue the fact that in order to build Central Region Elementary School #20 in the neighborhood, the LAUSD wants to raze approximately 40 units......

Photo of crowd at Los Angeles debate in January by shredded77 via Flickr Last Friday, Sarah Miller's Open Letter to Barack Obama in the LA Times Opinion section caught my eye. Got me thinking. Had me nodding my head. I'm not the only one, as the comments on her letter are getting heated. As an Obama supporter, she raised some concerns about his seeming inability to be concrete and clear about how he is......

This past Saturday, the Boardmembers, stakeholders and guests of the Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council met at the WH Marriott for an all-day Retreat and Board Workshop. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky opened the session with a passionate dissection of SB1818 and the LA's City Council current approach to bringing the City into compliance with State law. Calling the law "a poorly thought-out effort to create affordable housing" Zev contends that LA's proposed ordinance "places......

In an effort to bring solar power to those who will benefit from it but simply can't afford it, a new partnership created between the nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners and BP donates one solar panel to a low-income residence for every solar panel purchased by a celebrity. As the Downtown News reports, Downtown's St. George Hotel, a housing facility operated by the Skid Row Housing Trust, is the first multi-unit project to receive panels through......

The sun sets on Lincoln Place Looks like the tenants and former tenants of Lincoln Place can, at long last, declare victory. The short-short version of the Lincoln Place ordeal: Over the last few years, Denver-based apartment management megalith AIMCO has succeeded in evicting nearly all the residents of Venice's Lincoln Place, a 700-unit, post-World War II affordable housing complex. They were hoping to bulldoze the place and build condos.......

The Malibu fire is now 25% contained. At least 35 structures have been destroyed and thousands were forced to flee as wind whipped flames ravaged the coastal town. The cause of the blaze is not known at this time, but crews haven't ruled out CNN's Glen Beck. In other fire-related news, two people died this morning when a house fire ripped through their Pasadena home. The cause of the fire is unknown. A woman......

How we love thee RIDE-Arc. You showed us a good time on a Friday night. You got nerdy on us. You got on sweaty with us. You rode long into the night with us. This past Friday, RIDE-Arc, a monthly event on the first Friday that combines night time bicycle riding with architectural themed tours, led a green tour of sustainable buildings, communities and ideas. The near 3-hour tour that began at City Hall......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

The Watts area of Los Angeles is located in South LA, and is fighting to change the infamous reputation the area has for gang violence, and riots. Named after Charles H. Watts, the area has always been a haven of affordable housing that attracts mostly the working class. With small single story one or two bedroom houses, and housing projects, the Watts community is tightly knit. And being home to the Watts Towers, one......

By week's end, LA is littered with dozens of free rags. LAist reads the weeklies so you don't have to. If there's anything we missed, let us know, or better yet drop it in the comments section below. Downtown News dedicated about half of its July 30 issue to the long-awaited opening of Ralph's at Ninth and Flower. The cover story is here with more here, here, and here. Kathleen Nye Flynn examined the......

Daily Show devotees will remember a recent episode in which special correspondent Rob Riggle was sent to Anaheim to report on a local dispute pitting a coalition of Anaheim business owners and residents against the almighty Disney over an affordable housing initiative in the Resort District (which the company firmly opposes). Allegations of possible gang-related violence, mugging, drug-dealing (and even fellatio) abounded in the hilarious report as Riggle questioned a befuddled Councilwoman Lorri Galloway......

As the Los Angeles city councilman who represents Hollywood, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Koreatown and many other neighborhoods, Eric Garcetti is quite popular. He's green, he's American, and he's not afraid to stand his ground. He's also very passionate about some issues coming to us this Tuesday. 1. In one sentence, what is Prop H? Prop H, a billion-dollar bond issue, would be the single biggest weapon against our housing crisis, helping us get......

- Who is this blonde bombshell at the Borat premiere at Grauman's Chinese? Answer after the jump. - Sky News - Why would a Kabbalahist want a Godfather for her son? - Daily Mail - Increased housing values create more affordable housing? - LAT via Martini Republic - Howard K. Stern is not Anna's baby daddy? - TMZ - USC discovers that The Pill does not cause breast cancer? - mediLexicon - Lee's is the......

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for? Austinist was in an entertainment state of mind as they covered the dickens out of the Austin Film Festival, depicted all the Big 12 football coaches as South Park characters, and interviewed Jose Gonzalez. Chicagoist talked about the passion as they bid adieu to Bell's......

First and foremost, the Final Four battle is on today beginning at 3pm on CBS (pregame starts at 1:00). Keep an eye out for a little team called UCLA. Irvine plans to establish permanent low-cost housing with a land trust for affordable housing. With this model, public and foundation funds are used to buy the land and build homes; homebuyers own only the buildings and not the property. Home prices can be lower and......

Hollywood hills residents have teamed up with preservationists to try to stop luxury homes from being built on the hillside above the Hollywood sign. The LA Times reports that the property was bought for $1.7 million by Chicago developers in 2002; activists are halfway to raising $6 million to buy the land back and turn it into a park. LA's median home price topped $500,000 in the last quarter of 2005, making our city......

The Small Lots, Smart Designs townhouse design competition was launched by the City of LA this fall. Architects, city planners, design professionals and students are encouraged to submit designs for affordable housing on narrow lots. The grand prizewinner design will be commissioned to build their design on a lot owned by the Enterprise Home Ownership Partners. The LA City Council passed a new zoning rule to allow for housing to be built into "infill......

In Los Angeles we sort of live in our cars, but we do have to have someplace to park them. And stretch out a bit, even sleep. And having that home sweet home is just not that easy for Angelenos. Average home price in Los Angeles County, September 2005: $494,000 Monthly payments on such a house, assuming 10% down, 6% interest, and 30-year fixed rate: $2,665/month Maximum portion of income under federal guidelines that......

Last week, Terra Non Firma took a look at the list of the most overvalued real estate markets in the country (courtesy of this USA Today article) and found California extremely overvalued. Los Angeles is ranked 20th on the list of markets (with nearby Riverside way high on the list at 3rd). So, for all you prospectors with big pockets and a desire to get in on the housing price bubble, you can do......

NPR ran a story last week by Luke Burbank about the newly built Midnight Mission at 6th and San Pedro downtown. The $17 million dollar facility has been getting criticism from some homeless organizations and some conservatives. The homeless organizations think the money could be better spent on affordable housing while conservatives think the amenities (which include a gymnasium and a barber shop) are too much. In the comments to one particular blog post,......

Finding a place to live in LA is easy — finding a place you can afford isn't. Blogging.la did a little math that showed you need to make twice the city's median income to afford to buy the city's median-priced house. Which means that those of us who can't afford to buy houses are sucking up a big share of the cheaper rental stock. Leaving poor folks, well, screwed. How screwed? Take Monday. The Hollywood......

The Architecture and Design Museum continues to showcase Los Angeles’s finest with "34 Los Angeles Architects." The exhibition opens tomorrow with a reception at 7:00 PM, 8560 W. Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood (exhibition remains on view through February 22, 2005). According to the A + D Museum, the exhibition contains "a wide representation of an open-ended view of modernist architecture in the fertile architectural ground of Los Angeles – a cutting edge 21st......

Tired of politics? You'd better get your second wind because local politicos descended on City Hall Monday to file the paperwork for the city wide election on March 8th. Should be a noisy fight as 26 incumbents and challengers launch campaigns for Los Angeles mayor, eight City Council seats and a handful of other offices. The Los Angeles Daily Breeze reported "the crowd of [mayoral] hopefuls included Mayor James Hahn and one of his......

The Los Angeles Daily News reports today that the City of Los Angeles's "Housing Authority "inappropriately" shifted $30 million to a nonprofit agency last year to avoid paying the cost of issuing excess rental vouchers, a new federal audit says. The Los Angeles agency transferred the $30 million from its reserve accounts, then told the federal government it didn't have the money to cover the cost of as many as 1,500 vouchers issued to......

Although the myriad of things to do and places to go gives Los Angeles its personality and culture -- the continuing expansion has taken one thing away from its citizens. No, it's not affordable housing...it's parking spaces. But just like a species of animals who adjust to their environment, so too have Angeleno businesses, which compensate for the lack of parking by increasing the number of valet stations all across town. Now, if you......

LAist has just learned that Pasadena's Fuller Theological Seminary, which is among the world's largest seminaries, has embarked on a 10-year, $79 million expansion project. The scarcity of affordable housing in Pasadena prompted the expansion effort, officials said. The campus has a 200-plus waiting list for the current 350 units of student housing in Pasadena. "The seminary's master plan calls for building 700 units of affordable housing on campus; a worship center with a......