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Application of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule: A Local perspective – Los Angeles

Application of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule: A Local perspective – Los Angeles. Chancela Al-Mansour Executive Director, Housing Rights Center Disability Rights Bar Association West Coast Conference October 24, 2018.

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Application of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule: A Local perspective – Los Angeles

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  1. Application of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule: A Local perspective – Los Angeles Chancela Al-Mansour Executive Director, Housing Rights Center Disability Rights Bar Association West Coast ConferenceOctober 24, 2018

  2. Nation’s largest non-profit civil rights organization dedicated to securing and promoting fair housing HRC was founded in 1968, the same year Congress passed the Fair Housing Act Over the past ten years, HRC has assisted more than 250,000 residents throughout Los Angeles and Ventura Counties Languages: English, Spanish, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Armenian, Russian and American Sign Language (ASL) Housing Rights Center

  3. Programs & Services Counseling & Outreach • Fair Housing Enforcement • Discrimination Complaint Investigation • Litigation & Advocacy • Landlord-Tenant Counseling • Outreach & Public Education • Free monthly rental listing

  4. Los Angles, CA • City of Los Angeles and Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (LA LA City and HACLA) –prepared a Joint AFH • County of Los Angeles and the Housing Authority for the County of Los Angeles (LA County and HACOLA) – prepared a joint AFH • Both AFHs due to HUD October 2017 • Different consultants used: LA County – Western Economic Services (WES); LA City – WES, then Lawyer’s Committee and Enterprise • LA City and LA County initially conducted joint community meetings and resident surveying.

  5. LA COUNTY’S 47 PARTICIPATING CITIES 1.City of Agoura Hills 2.City of Arcadia 3.City of Avalon 4.City of Azusa 5.City of Bell 6.City of Bell Gardens 7.City of Beverly Hills 8.City of Calabasas 9.City of Cerritos 10.City of Claremont 11.City of Commerce 12.City of Covina 13.City of Cudahy 14.City of Culver City 15.City of Diamond Bar 16.City of Duarte 17.City of El Segundo 18.City of Hawaiian Gardens 19.City of Hermosa Beach 20.City of Irwindale 21.City of La Canada Flintridge 22.City of La Habra Heights 23.City of La Mirada 24.City of La Puente 25.City of La Verne 26.City of Lawndale 27.City of Lomita 28.City of Malibu 29.City of Manhattan Beach 30.City of Maywood 31.City of Monrovia 32.City of Rancho Palos Verdes 33.City of Rolling Hills Estates 34.City of San Dimas 35.City of San Fernando 36.City of San Gabriel 37.City of San Marino 38.City of Santa Fe Springs 39.City of Sierra Madre 40.City of Signal Hill 41.City of South El Monte 42.City of South Pasadena 43.City of Temple City 44.City of Torrance 45.City of Walnut 46.City of West Hollywood 47.City of Westlake Village

  6. LACDC’S UNINCORPORATED AREAS

  7. Map of Los Angeles Urban County with R/ECAPs

  8. LA County’s Unincorporated Areas: • 72 UNINCORPORATED AREAS IN LA COUNTY • The estimated population is 1,095,592, out of a total of 9,818,605 of the entire county. Estimated Population - Unincorporated Areas" (PDF). Los Angeles County. Los Angeles County. Retrieved 13 December 2015.Jump up^"Los Angeles County QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau". quickfacts.census.gov. Archived from the original on 2011-07-14. Retrieved 2015-12-14. • More than 65 percent of the County -- 2,653.5 square miles -- is unincorporated. The Board of Supervisors is the "city council" and the supervisor representing the area the "mayor." County departments provide the municipal services. There are approximately 140 unincorporated communities, with the largest number located in the northern part of the County. • Well known areas include: Altadena, Baldwin Hills (not Baldwin Hills Estates – LA City), Ladera Heights, East Los Angeles, Catalina Island, Montrose, La Crescenta, Valencia, View Park • Lesser known: Avocado Heights, Del Aire, Valinda, Vasquez Rocks

  9. Housing Rights Center: Our Story Successful Cases

  10. Los Angeles - City Population of 3,971,896 (as of the 2015 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates) up from 3,792,621 as of the 2010 Census The metropolitan region (MSA has grown to 13,340,068 as of 2015 from 12,828,835 in 2010. The MSA includes some Ventura County cities, Long Beach and most of Orange County including the cities of Anaheim and Santa Ana. LA MSA is relevant as many Black and Latino LA City residents who are displaced from LA City tend to go to the Inland Empire (San Bernandino County, Riverside, Moreno Valley). In no other region of the country did subprime loans account for a bigger proportion of the overall mortgage market, according to a Federal Reserve study. Between 2008 and 2013, over 220,000 homes in the Inland Empire were foreclosed. One in every four mortgages was foreclosed. Others migrate to the Antelope Valley (Lancaster, Pasadena, Littlerock)

  11. California Fair Housing Law: Our History Community Participation Survey

  12. Questions Related to Disability Discrimination (LA City and LA County AFH Survey)

  13. AFH Questions We Must Answer

  14. Questions We Must Answer

  15. AFH Questions We Must Answer

  16. AFH Questions We Must Answer

  17. AFH Questions We Must Answer

  18. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 1 During the AFH process, the City, HACLA, Enterprise, the Lawyers’ Committee, and numerous community stakeholders led by Housing Rights Center and ACCE proposed several broad goals and specific strategies to address the types of fair housing issues and contributing factors affecting people of color, large families with children, and persons with disabilities discussed. These include: Goal 1: Increase the stock of affordable housing throughout the city, particularly in neighborhoods of opportunity. Strategies: 1. Adopt an Affordable Housing Linkage Fee to fund the City’s affordable housing programs and to encourage developers to produce affordable housing in new housing development. 2. Study the Affordable Housing Linkage Fee’s economic impact on the development market and make recommendations to Elected Local Officials for strengthening the inclusionary set-aside requirements of the policy for new housing developments. 3. Identify and allocate city-owned land for affordable housing, particularly in current and emerging high-opportunity areas.

  19. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 1 (cont.) 4. Remove barriers to producing affordable housing by streamlining the development process, including in high opportunity neighborhoods to decrease segregation and increase integration of protected classes (e.g., people with disabilities).   Advocates recommendation not included: The City should remove discretionary approvals that require public hearings where opposition based on stereotypes and fears about people of color, people with disabilities and low-income people make affordable housing difficult to locate in affluent or segregated neighborhoods. 5. Increase the stock of affordable housing for people experiencing homelessness using the following tools/resources: • Measure HHH • Transit Oriented Community Program • Updated Density Bonus • Unpermitted Dwelling Unit Ordinance • Shallow Subsidy Program • Comprehensive Homeless Strategy 6. Develop a siting policy for permanent supportive housing development projects and a geographic distribution policy to be presented to Local Elected Officials for consideration and adoption. 7. Explore the feasibility of adopting and implementing the city’s Motel Interim Conversion Ordinance as HACLA proceeds with its HUD-Veteran Affairs Supportive Housing motel conversion program.

  20. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 2 Goal 2: Preserve the existing stock of affordable rental housing and rent stabilized housing. Strategies 1. Develop a citywide no-net-loss of affordable housing policy that is included in land-use plans, local laws, community plans, and Requests for Proposals for funding for affordable housing. Language not included: In addition, these zones should incorporate a “first right of refusal” to allow displaced tenants the right to return when new affordable housing is created. 2. Increase dedicated City staff to support non-financial restricted affordable housing preservation initiatives including the maintenance of an early warning system to track at-risk housing, notification enforcement, as well as property owner and tenant outreach and education efforts.

  21. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 2 (cont.) 3. Extend affordability restrictions through loan extensions, workouts and buy-downs of affordability. 4. Strengthen and expand education and outreach to tenants and owners of affordable rental housing at risk of conversion to market rents that include options for nonprofits and/or tenants to purchase expiring properties. 5. Enhance enforcement of codes and regulations around habitability. 6. Preserve at-risk housing through the issuance of Tax-Exempt Bond financing. 7. Explore the development of a pilot multifamily over-the-counter rehabilitation loan program. 8. Support the implementation of mandatory seismic retrofits of soft-story buildings

  22. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 3 Goal 3: Prevent displacement of low- and moderate-income residents. Strategies: Expand and strengthen support against unjust evictions, including just cause evictions and rent control policies. 2. Develop and implement an acquisition and rehabilitation loan program for small multi-family properties located in areas experiencing displacement pressures. Use a set of identified metrics to help determine impacted areas in the City. 3. Explore the feasibility of a “Right to Counsel” Ordinance to protect tenants’ legal rights. 4. HCIDLA to collaborate with HACLA to examine the feasibility of achieving consistency between standards-- Housing Quality Standards, Systemic Code Enforcement Program violations and LA Municipal Code standards-- for privately owned housing to reduce displacement. Language not accepted: Under the RSO, housing accommodations owned and operated by HACLA are exempted. The City should end the exemption for HACLA-owned “market rate” units.

  23. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 3 (part 2 of 3) 5. Establish a working group comprised of tenants, landlords, attorneys and judges to explore the creation of a housing court. 6. Strengthen the Rent Stabilization Ordinance awareness comprehensive tenant outreach and education campaign on tenants’ rights, obligations, and resources in multiple languages; prioritize resources in areas most likely to experience displacement. 7. Stabilize families and neighborhoods by increasing homeownership opportunities to residents of the City of Los Angeles. 8. Study the feasibility of a flexible rent subsidy program to stabilize low-income renters and homeowners and/or elderly residents and tenants occupying below-market rate rent controlled units.

  24. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 3 (part 3 of 3) 9. Use best practice models for meaningful community engagement in planning and development decisions. 10. Coordinate with the Los Angeles Police Department on the review and potential revision of their training curriculum addressing landlord/tenant disputes and fair housing to ensure protections for all members of protected classes under. 11. Develop mechanisms to encourage landlords to accept third-party checks from tenants (e.g., domestic violence victims) to reduce payment discrimination through the creation of a task force.

  25. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 4 Goal 4: Ensure equal access to housing for persons with protected characteristics, lower-income, and homeless residents. Strategies: 1. Study the feasibility to develop a pilot County-funded Rental Assistance Program. 2. Expand source of income protections to include Housing Choice Vouchers and seek improvements to the Section 8 program to incentive landlords to participate in the program. 3. Establish a working group consisting of stakeholders to study the feasibility of implementing an anti-tenant harassment ordinance. 4. Ensure HACLA policies and practices advance equal access to housing (reasonable accommodation, eligibility discretion, partnership with law enforcement in evictions, use of arrest records).

  26. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 4 (cont.) Language not accepted: Before HACLA can propose subsidy termination for an individual with a disability due to program violations, HACLA should establish that the violations were not related to the person's disability and that a reasonable accommodation cannot be granted to correct that violation. 5. Enforce fair housing protections for LGBT protected classes, including gender non-conforming and non-binary persons. 6. Strengthen fair housing protections regarding ancestry and national origin (including immigrants and refugees) that prevent disclosure or threats to disclose tenants’ immigration or citizenship status to authorities. 7. Ensure the Coordinated Entry System matches people with physical disabilities with designated accessible housing units. 8. Ensure people with disabilities who cannot provide detailed personal/medical information still have access to the Coordinated Entry System.

  27. LA City AFH Adopted Goals - Language: More Language not accepted: • HACLA should remove eligibility restrictions based on bureaucratic compliance so people are not denied or terminated because of issues such as missing forms, late submissions, or missed appointments. Decriminalize homelessness • When individuals experiencing homelessness are cited for sleeping, sitting, or standing in public spaces or for sleeping in their cars, that creates further barriers to accessing housing. Similarly, if a the property of a person experiencing homelessness is destroyed and that property includes items related to obtaining housing (e.g. identification, Section 8 applications, job applications etc.), that creates further barriers to obtaining housing. The City should repeal any laws that criminalize sleeping, sitting or standing in public space or limit someone's ability to sleep in his or her car and should prohibit destruction of property belonging to someone experiencing homelessness

  28. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 5: Goal 5: Expand access to opportunity for protected classes. Strategies 1. Implement Equitable Transit-Oriented Development utilizing Measure JJJ and TOC. 2. Maximize and secure fair share of funding from the State of California’s Cap & Trade Program (the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund), to improve housing opportunities, increase economic investments and address environmental factors in disadvantaged communities. 3. Encourage mobility among residents living in subsidized housing in areas of poverty, particularly in R/ECAPs.

  29. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 5 (cont.) Goal 5: Expand access to opportunity for protected classes. 4. Enhance the City’s partnership with LA Metro and further the implementation of the City’s Memorandum of Understanding with LA Metro to expand the development and preservation of affordable housing and related programs as prioritized by the LA Metro Board. 5. Partner with Los Angeles Unified School District to expand access to proficient schools through housing and community development programs and activities. 6. Adopt the Clean Up Green Up ordinance’s regulations on new or expanding industrial operations and other increased land use protections to diminish the public health threats of subject uses in close proximity to publicly habitable space.

  30. LA City AFH Adopted Goals: 7. Partner with LAPD to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of creating a dedicated Hate Crimes Investigative Division. 8. Implement developer incentives to promote increased local hiring preferences on all housing projects. 9. Target workforce development resources in R/ECAPs to improve economic mobility. 10. Explore the feasibility of additional educational resources for public housing residents to improve educational outcomes including Saturday and Summer programs. 11. Enhance partnerships that improve environmental and health outcomes for low-income and public housing residents. 12. Partner with Los Angeles County to further explore ways to expand access to quality affordable housing through housing and community development programs and activities.

  31. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 6 Goal 6: Increase community integration for persons with disabilities. Strategies: 1. Require at least 10% of total units in all multi-family developments receiving public funds or funded with multi-family mortgage revenue bonds to be accessible to persons with mobility disabilities and at least 4% of total units to be accessible for persons with hearing and/or vision disabilities. 2. Require at least 10% and no more than 25% of units in all special needs developments or permanent supportive housing developments receiving public funds to be set aside for persons with disabilities, including individuals transitioning from institutional settings and individuals who are at risk of institutionalization.

  32. LA City AFH Adopted Goals – Goal 6 (cont.) Goal 6: Increase community integration for persons with disabilities. 3. Provide equal accessibility design training for housing developers, architects, and contractors as well as fair housing training for housing developers and property managers who receive public funds. 4. Increase access to integrated employment for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities by partnering with the regional centers to connect individuals to job opportunities with public entities. 5. Provide training to service providers on adapting their models to meet the needs of individuals with disabilities in scattered sites

  33. LA County AFH Timeline: • Completed and submitted the AFH in October 4, 2017. • HUD had until December 6, 2017 to review the AFH. HUD rejected the LA County AFH on the deadline. • HUD suspended the AFH rule in January 2018. • LA County revamped the AFH into an AI and finalized the document on March 2018. • The Executive Summary of the AFH/AI is available in English, Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin?), Russian and Korean on LACDC.org website. • LA County has since moved towards fulfilling several key recommendations into an AFH including a more robust fair housing program and Section 8 protection in unincorporated areas.

  34. LA City AFH Timeline (cont.): • Completed and submitted the AFH in November 7, 2017. • HUD had until January 6, 2017 to review, reject or approve the AFH. • HUD suspended the AFH rule in January 2018 without comment on LA City AFH. • LA City adoped its AFH as an AFH. • The Executive Summary of the AFH/AI is available in English and Spanish on the HCIDLA website. • LA City currently meeting with advocates on a few of the key components of its AFH (ex. Right to Counsel)

  35. Housing Advocates lessons and benefits from the AFH process: • Brought together fair housing strategies and organizing strategies • Engaged and developed community partnerships unfamiliar with fair housing and AFHs. Specifically, brought together advocates from diverse organizational areas. • Local advocacy efforts supported by national organizations and non-profits (Grounded Solutions, OSF, Policylink) • Continued engagement in the AFH process, and in working with LA City, LA County and CA state to address and complete the goals identified in the AFHs.

  36. Housing Advocates lessons and benefits from the AFH process (cont.): • Good News: • September 30, 2018, Governor Brown signed AB 686 (Santiago) making every city, county and state agency responsible for fighting discrimination in housing. • Starting on January 1, 2019, hundreds of cities, counties and state agencies in California will have to take proactive measures to fix housing inequality by starting the process of conducting an AFH. • Beginning in 2021, this new law will require each city and county to include an analysis and action plan to combat housing discrimination as part of its General Plan. The General Plan, required by the state, serves as the local government’s “blueprint” for how the local jurisdiction will grow and develop.

  37. HRC at 50! PLEASE CALL(800) 477-5977info@housingrightscenter.orgOR VISIT OUR WEBSITEwww.housingrightscenter.org • hrc_la • Housing Rights Center

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