PSA: We Need All of our Empty Spaces to House Our People

When I started digging into chronically empty buildings in early 2023, I found local officials basically unhelpful and useless (they are all more than welcome to prove me wrong), so I started digging on my own.

There are empty buildings, empty lots, and even chronically empty units in apartment buildings throughout greater Los Angeles. Some of these empty spaces are even owned by the city or county.

With so much housing destroyed or badly damaged and Southern California already having a housing usage crisis AND a shortage of qualified builders and contractors, it would be prudent to arrange an interim housing solution for displaced Angelenos. It is probably going to take YEARS to rebuild.

The rental market was already tough; now it’s hell. Greedy landlords are blatantly ignoring state price-gouging law (which DOES apply to rental housing), demanding obscene amounts of money for the privilege of being housed. I originally intended to write about the gouging, but the mainstream media is already shining a light on it. (As they should!)

It strikes me as particularly surreal that so many Angelenos have sought refuge in the very same short-term rentals that helped screw up its rental market so much in the first place…but this is, perhaps, not the time to boot Airbnb and their ilk from Los Angeles. (YET.) While I make no secret of my ire for turning housing into hotels (legal or not), I can certainly understand how a short-term rental would be easier on, say, a displaced family with children, pets, or at least one adult working from home.

Remember when COVID-19 forced cancellation of San Diego Comic-Con? Then-Mayor of San Diego, Kevin Faulconer, commandeered the empty Convention Center the very next day for emergency homeless housing. THAT is the kind of quick response Angelenos need and deserve.

This is NOT the time to leave habitable spaces sitting empty when thousands of people have been displaced.

So what are our elected officials going to do about it?