Building Affordable Housing In God's Backyards (And Other Headlines)

We often think of religious organizations, like churches, as places where people sing praises to a higher being, listen to a sermon and fellowship with like-minded people. Some churches engage in service-oriented projects, like feeding the unhoused or mission trips to foreign countries.

Now, some church leaders in Los Angeles want to do more than that: They want to build affordable housing for Angelenos right in their backyard. With less folks coming to worship and filling up the parking lots, they have the land and the resources to do so. If some of them had their way, there would be thousands of apartments on church property all over the city.

Churches want to build affordable housing, but it isn't easy

As my colleague David Wagner reported, there’s something that’s stopping this influx of apartments on the approximately 38,800 acres of faith-based property in California: It’s hard to get permission because of strict zoning laws. In L.A. County alone, according to people David interviewed, there’s more than 2,000 acres of religious land in upper-income neighborhoods where housing could be built.

“Roughly two-thirds of the congregations that have reached out to us can't do anything in terms of development because of poor zoning,” said John Oh, a community organizer with L.A. Voice who helps church leaders navigate this challenging undertaking. If churches can’t count on permission to develop more homes on their land, he said, “It’s really in many cases impossible to build.”

But there is some potential change on the horizon that could remove these barriers. Senate Bill 4 would make it so church leaders would not have to seek special approval and be able to say, “Yes, In God’s Backyard” (or YIGBY).

Read David’s article to learn more about where Senate Bill 4 currently stands in the legislature and how it could, if it passes, quiet the NIMBYs and give way to the YIGBYs.

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• The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s Board of Commissioners approved suspending utility shutoffs during a time when many Angelenos are struggling to pay bills. Read my colleague Erin Stone’s story to learn why it matters. 
• The L.A. County Board of Supervisors is supporting an expansion of a program where incarcerated peer caregivers work as mental health assistants to help people in jail who are struggling with mental illness. Read my colleague Robert Garrova’s story for more. 
• The L.A. City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to remove the man appointed earlier this year to take over the Skid Row Housing Trust, Mark Adams. A series of missteps by Adams, my colleague Nick Gerda reported, led to an erosion of trust. 
• Local environmental activists and community members in Sunland-Tujunga are speaking up against luxury housing developers who want to build where mountain lions live. Their argument: It could ruin their territory and displace them. 
• The remains found over the weekend on Mt. Baldy has been identified as belonging to actor Julian Sands. He went missing in January while on a solo hike. An investigation into the manner of his death is ongoing. 
• Marine Mammal vets are doing all they can to help save sea lions that’ve been sickened by a toxic algae bloom that’s been expanding off the coast. 
• Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state leaders announced a deal on a $310 billion spending plan that covers a $30 billion-plus shortfall. Read CalMatters’ Sameea Kamal and Alexei Koseff’s story with all you need to know about the budget deal and what happens next.  
• Students in juvenile court schools and alternative education schools could soon be seeing an increase of $80 million in state funding for their campuses. That is, if the proposed budget goes through. Want a breakdown on Newsom’s budget for education from  Transitional Kindergarten to Community College? Read EdSource’s John Fensterwald article to see what’s in store for childcare providers to higher education students, and everyone in between. 
• After years of social distance learning throughout the pandemic, a coalition of parents and advocates are pushing for a proposal to make a high-quality education a constitutional right. Read more about how this battle started in L.A. in Joe Hong’s CalMatters article.

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Baldwin Hills: The Black Beverly Hills

The Stocker Corridor trail runs through the View Park and Baldwin Hills neighborhoods.

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Chava Sanchez

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LAist

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Back when I was a teenager in the early aughts, there was this show on BET that centered on the lives of wealthy Black teenagers called Baldwin Hills. It served as the Black answer to MTV’s teen reality TV shows about the trials and tribulations of rich, white teens in Southern California like Laguna Beach and The Hills.

In the first few seconds of the first episode of the show, the teens express their pride in their neighborhood that shows a clear example of Black affluence and influence. In Baldwin Hills, these “sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers, athletes and entrepreneurs” live in “big houses with manicured lawns and amazing vistas.”

Even though I have family members who have always lived in Baldwin Hills, I personally knew very little about the neighborhood until that show. For today’s ride through history, Hadley Meares takes us on an even deeper dive into the neighborhood that is known as the “Black Beverly Hills” and has been home to the Black rich and famous, like Debbie Allen, John Singleton and Ray Charles. Even Mayor Karen Bass lived there.

Did you know that the community was one of the first racially integrated neighborhoods in the area in the 1950s? But soon white homeowners were convinced to leave by discriminatory real estate agents, leading to white flight. It became a predominantly Black neighborhood in the 1960s. Read Hadley’s story for more about the neighborhood's fascinating history.