Results tagged “housing”

A two-year study between the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and USC's Center for Community Health Studies and Housing found that housing the homeless is about $80,000 cheaper than leaving them on the streets. The survey found that taxpayers spent $187,288 a year those living on the streets because of their use of hospitals, jails and clinics. Putting people in permanent housing costs $107,032.

       

Dwell on Design officially started today with design, architecture and other industry folks visiting the convention center today. Come tomorrow and Sunday the public will be attending the large event full of booths, speaking events (read LAist's picks here) and a great mobile food event tomorrow evening at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.

Prince William and his girlfriend Kate Middleton were apparently spotted touring a "privately-sited $8 million 4-bed, 4.5-bath compound with a detached guest house, 4-car garage and beautiful ocean view." That particular home has already been sold, but there are plenty of other high class homes fit for a Prince in town. Before her death, his mother Princess Diana reportedly paid a deposit on a home in Paradise Cove.

After some of them spent two nights in a Red Cross shelter, the 18 residents of an earthquake damaged apartment building in Long Beach will return home today.

If you live in an apartment and you don't appreciate your neighbors' cigarette smoke drifting in from common areas into your area, is there anything you can do besides close your window? Or move? In Long Beach, landlords and tenants interested in finding out their options plan to meet this afternoon for the "Smoke Free Apartments Community Forum" hosted by the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, explains the Press-Telegram.

The folks over at Forbes are taking their cues these days from the late rap icon Tupac Shakur as they explain why they selected Los Angeles as their top pick of America's Most Overpriced Cities. But it's not the cost of pimping your gas-guzzling ride, decking yourself out in bling for a red carpet event, or bathing in champagne that makes life here so expensive. It's actually, well, just plain ol' life here that's overpriced, with our "bloated housing prices, lofty living costs and unemployment rates among the highest in the nation."

With the market so down, some are jumping into the ownership game. Via wire reports printed in the Daily Breeze: "A total of 4,590 homes sold in February, up from 3,468 for February 2008, while the median price of a home in Los Angeles County last month was $299,000, down from $460,000 in the same month a year ago, according to La Jolla-based MDA DataQuick. In Orange County, the median home price was $375,000, down 27.9 percent from the February 2008 median of $520,000, according to DataQuick. A total of 1,879 homes were sold in the county last month, up 27.7 percent from the 1,471 home sales in February 2008."

Hollywood's Cherokee Studios is poised to re-emerge as an innovative LEED-certified work/live space this year. The site itself is steeped in local music history; recording artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to David Bowie laid down tracks inside the walls, and before that it was home to movie's Republic Studios. After over 30 years of proprietorship, the Robb brothers closed the doors to the legendary studios in 2007, but now the REthink Development team is finalizing work on the space, which will now be called the Cherokee Lofts and will hopefully be legendary in its own time.

              

Last week Wednesday, the city demolished a single family home in the Northeast neighborhood of Glassell Park. 3304 Drew Street, known as the "Satellite House," was the center of gang activity and drug trade in the neighborhood for the Avenues gang.

Of the 79 units being auctioned off last night at the Rowan Lofts in Downtown Los Angeles, 63 of those found new potential owners, finds Curbed LA who was there: "The most expensive unit sold today was a penthouse that was originally priced at $785,000--it sold for $534,000. The minimum bid on that unit was $490,000. The three least expensive units sold for $207,000--two were originally priced at $335,000 and one at $317,900, respectively, and had minimum bids of $195,000." The 63 number could change as some people may drop out of the process.

Talk about disturbing: "Broadcrest Foothill Apartment Homes claims Alicia Ortiz broke her lease on an Upland apartment when she and her 17-year-old son were killed by her sister's disgruntled ex-husband. The landlord informed her former husband, Carlos Ortiz, that she gave 'insufficient notice to vacate.' The company says it is owed $2,821 in rent and penalties," reports the Associated Press today. And it's not just some oversight or a situation where they didn't know what happened, finds the Daily News. Worst of all, the property manager and the company won't even comment.

Fire officials have no idea what caused the front of a Harvard Heights apartment building to collapse last night shortly before 11 p.m., but it is believed that the building's age and construction may have been a contributing factor. Twenty to thirty people were inside, but only one woman was injured with non-life threatening wounds. Another 20-year-old man was trapped in the rubble, but after being rescued by firefighters, he refused to go the hospital. The four affected units and the other eight were evacuated until the structure would be cleared.

It's probably one of the biggest cultural shocks for people relocating to Los Angeles for the very first time: the high cost of living, specifically renting. While most natives don't bat a single eyelash at $1200 studio apartments or $2500 two-bedrooms, the recently arrived are dumbfounded by exorbitant rates for totally mundane, even run-down apartments (Westwood Village, anyone?).

The symbol of the housing boom and bust, Pasadena based IndyMac Bank that was seized in July by the federal government, has been sold to a group of seven investors for $13.9 billion. "We have assembled a group of experienced private investors in financial services to acquire the former IndyMac and operate it under new management with extensive banking experience," Steven Mnuchin, the leader of the holding company that bought the bank, said in a statement. "We will inject significant private capital into IndyMac so that it can once again effectively serve its customers and communities."

Neverland Ranch is now someone else's problem. Michael Jackson gave the Santa Barbara County pad earlier this year and has moved into the Playboy Mansion neighborhood of Holmby Hills. He didn't buy a new home, though, he's renting... for the reasonable price of $100,000 a month. The $38 million home has seven bedrooms, 13 baths, 12 fireplaces, a screening room a wine cellar, garden, swimming pool and guest house, finds TMZ.

With the foreclosure crisis happening, homeowners weren't the only ones finding themselves homeless. Renters were too. After all, someone owns those buildings and they can foreclose just as easily. But after a one-year moratorium placed on foreclosure-related evictions yesterday, it will be harder for banks to evict good tenants who pay rent on time.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UHDR), adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. The 30 articles of this declaration were written after the Second World War and represent the first global expression of human rights worldwide. The UHDR is the most translated document in the world and has inspired many international treaties and laws.

A mortgage broker contacted police on Monday about a North Hollywood house that was about to revert back to the bank at midnight. That broker's hunch that something was amiss was right: officers found the body of an unidentifiable person in age and gender, possibly mummified over the last year, according to the Daily News. Now identified as an elderly woman and suspected to be Barbara Hunt, who would be 86 years old, police are seeking the cause of death. The woman's son, Robert Hunt, lived with her and was there when police discovered the body, but he was not arrested. Rather, the case was forwarded to elderly abuse investigators. Trash on the property had not been thrown out for 30 years.

There's good news coming out of City Council President Eric Garcetti's district about a problem largely unreported in the home foreclosre crisis. When a landlord goes into foreclosure, renters, even the ones who are in perfect standing, are being pressured by the new property owner--banks--to vacate. Tomorrow, the 13th distric councilman will present a motion to halt this activity via a moratorium. From the press release:

Following remarks made by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just before 10 o'clock this morning, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke at a press conference held at Hansen Dam regarding the Sayre Fire.

Work is underway on the first phase of the Watts House Project, an ambitious and visionary project directed by Edgar Arceneaux and being tackled now by college students representing a wide range of backgrounds, as described by the LA Times: "[Y]oung men and women; white, black, Asian, Latin; some from USC, others UCLA, and still others from Cal Arts and Art Center [who] have set to work in front of a modest, cream-colored stucco bungalow on 107th Street."

Eric Richardson from blogdowntown was lucky enough to win a little lottery that allowed him to travel the construction elevators up the 26th and 45th floors of LA Live's 56-story hotel and condo tower. Not bad, save for the parking lots below.

A proposal to tax home owners of properties larger than 5,000 square feet at least $1,000 annually will be discussed at a Los Angeles city council committee meeting today. If it makes it through the city process, two-thirds of voters would have to pass the tax (low and middle class vs. the rich?). "There are 6,336 single-family residences that exceed 5,000 square feet and 534 houses larger than 10,000 square feet. Taxing those residences would generate $15 million a year," reports the Daily News.

LA Weekly has taken a deep look into the local Proposition B, "an extremely obscure measure on the Nov. 4 ballot [that] would wipe out the two-story height restrictions on poverty housing in Los Angeles, legally allowing tall towers containing low-income housing once again," writes Jill Stewart who explains that "the measure [...] would also wipe out the Los Angeles voter-approved cap allowing no more than 52,500 of these low-rent units, in carefully controlled dollops of 30 units or less per building, citywide." She goes on to call the popular and usually untouchable LA City Council President Eric Garcetti an "avid density hawk" who has engaged in "breathtaking spin" regarding the measure. So that's one side of it, at least. More to come.

A bill signed by Governor Schwarzenegger last night will encourage smarter growth for a California that's expected to largely increase in population in upcoming decades. The bill requires the California Air Resources Board to set regional targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions dovetailed into regional transportation planes resulting in a Sustainable Communities Strategy. It also hopes to give developers incentive to build high-density projects near transit hubs.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced today an ambitious $5 billion plan, called Housing that Works, to build 20,000 affordable units. “This City’s economic success and vitality depend on our ability to plan for a future of sustainability and stability in our housing market,” Villaraigosa said. “This plan lays the building blocks of housing our middle class can afford and takes the first steps toward building ‘housing that works’ for all Angelenos.”

Today at 2:00 p.m., Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will unveil a 5-year, $5 billion plan to double affordable housing units built in the city and will be announcing a $700 million housing investment from the Enterprise Community Partners. The plan called Housing That Works will "promote mixed-income housing, invest in new neighborhoods along public transit corridors, provide relief to families facing foreclosure and shift LA’s strategy from managing homelessness to moving people out of it." The full presser can be read here.

A condo near an Orange Line station dropped about $80,000 in Valley Village over the past month, but the epidemic is widespread. Property values of homes in the Valley have dipped 35 percent to leaving the median price of a previously owned house at $420,000 compared to the $650,000 seen in August 2007.

Eight California cities made it onto the 2008 US City Sustainability Rankings from SustainLane, a media network company based in San Francisco. Of the eight, four made it into the top 25 leaving the other four in the bottom 25. And it's no surprise that the bottom 25 list includes Central and Southern California cities with Northern California cities ranking at the top (full list here):