CITY RELEASES REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS AND PROPOSALS TO DEVELOP CITY-OWNED PROPERTIES TO CREATE NEW HOUSING FOR THE HOMELESS

LOS ANGELES – (RealEstateRama) — In another critical step in the City’s effort to combat homelessness, Mayor Eric Garcetti invited affordable housing developers to submit proposals to develop City-owned properties for homeless residents.

Today, the City Administrative Officer released a Request for Qualifications and Proposals (RFQ/P) for eight City-owned sites, with multiple parcels, that will either be sold or developed. These sites represent at least $47 million of the City’s plan to invest $138 million towards homeless programs, services, and housing in Los Angeles during this fiscal year.

The development or sale of properties comes as the City prepares to place a general obligation bond on the November ballot, which would raise $1.2 billion in new revenue for housing. Combined with Mayor Garcetti’s proposed affordable housing linkage fee, the City is raising enough funding to nearly double the City’s regular production of affordable housing and more than triple its production of permanent supportive housing for the homeless.

“Too many of our residents need help. It is our responsibility to act now and leverage every resource at our disposal — including our publicly-owned land,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “My office is working with the City Council to aggressively pursue new funding streams for permanent supportive housing, and address homelessness with the urgency that it deserves.”

With this effort the City will create a list of prequalified firms to develop parcels for Angelenos who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. The developers will be selected based on their capacity, level of experience, and the strength of their proposed development strategy.

“I am proud of the steps our City is taking to sell its assets to fund permanent supportive housing,” said Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson. “Making an impact on homelessness requires all the resources available to house and provide services for the most vulnerable among us.”

After this RFQ/P process is complete, the City will determine whether each site is better suited for sale or development. The properties will either be developed into affordable housing using the land value as a subsidy, or sold for fair market value to raise revenue for the construction of permanent supportive housing for the homeless.

“Solving homelessness and addressing our affordable housing crisis is a Herculean task, and everyone needs to have skin in the game,” said Councilmember Mike Bonin. “We need to look at every available piece of City-owned land and determine if we can use it for housing, or for revenue to build housing. I’m glad we’re starting this process by looking at vacant and under-used properties in my district.”

Along with this effort, the City is working in partnership with the County of Los Angeles and the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles to more effectively coordinate the funding of services and project-based vouchers for permanent supportive housing projects. The City’s Housing and Community Investment Department (HCIDLA) is also advancing a parallel effort to develop 13 City-owned parcels for affordable and permanent supportive housing.

For more information on the RFQ/P, please visit: http://cao.lacity.org/