Housing
Fix California’s Housing Crisis, Activists Say. But Which One?
As a controversy over vacancy in the Bay Area and Los Angeles reveals, advocates disagree about what kind of housing should be built, and where.
The week before Thanksgiving, housing Twitter exploded. The focus of the debate: the significance of vacancy rates.
In a tweet promoting the March for Housing Now rally in Oakland, comedian Kamau Bell wrote, “We've been led to believe that there’s a housing crisis in Oakland. But there are 4 VACANT units for every homeless person. This isn’t a housing crisis. It’s a crisis of greed.” One of the organizations hosting that rally, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), also contributed to a report released that week called “Who’s Buying Los Angeles?” The report highlighted extremely high vacancy rates in newly constructed luxury apartments in Los Angeles.