this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
88 points (96.8% liked)

News

23014 readers
7 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Twenty-one hotels have been cited so far. If the citations are enforced and upheld in court, hundreds of rooms could be turned back into low-cost permanent housing for the city’s poorest residents.

The Los Angeles Housing Department has ordered the owners of four buildings meant to house some of the city’s poorest residents to stop renting rooms to tourists, following a review that was prompted by reporting by Capital & Main and ProPublica.

The news organizations documented how some owners of the buildings, known as residential hotels, were advertising short-term rentals online despite a 2008 law aimed at preserving the rooms as residential. Landlords who convert the buildings to other uses or demolish them must replace the units or pay into a city housing fund.

The new enforcement actions bring the number of residential hotels cited by the Housing Department for violating the residential hotel law to 21. The agency had sent violation notices to 17 residential hotels within weeks of the Capital & Main and ProPublica investigation.

In all, about 750 residential hotel rooms could be turned back into low-cost permanent housing for LA residents who have few other options — if the city’s citations are upheld in court and if the city aggressively enforces the law.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

We've had the same problem in Vancouver (BC, Canada) for a long time now.

AirBnB didn't cause the problem directly, but it opened the doors to people seeing a speculative market (housing) as a commodity that they could take advantage of to enrich themselves further, while keeping people from getting a foot in the door because of reduced housing availability. We've introduced new legislation to combat it, and you should see how many hit-piece articles have come out about how this is going to:

  • "ruin some peoples retirement plans" - probably will, but that's a risk you take with a speculative investment
  • "give the hotel industry everything they want" - also probably yes
  • "won't actually fix the housing issue" - I'm curious how a lot more availability will fail to drive prices down, which will at least help the housing issue.

People are focusing on how much money they can get for their property in one of the largest housing bubbles on Earth, and not caring that some other people simply lose out because they're just.. not already rich.

We've also had foreign property ownership rules changed as of this year and it's helping a little bit already, we just need more focus on housing being.. for people who live here.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

"won't actually fix the housing issue" - I'm curious how a lot more availability will fail to drive prices down, which will at least help the housing issue.

The housing crisis is mostly due to not enough supply of housing.

Legislating short term rentals like airBnB helps some, but the real fix is just building a lot more housing. Letting neighborhoods densify from single family homes to row houses or small condominiums. Building more missing middle housing like duplexes and triplexes. Building 5 over 1s.

If prices haven't fallen, you haven't built enough units yet.

Because the stuff you hear about there being a ton of vacant housing is mostly due to the technical governmental definition of vacant housing not lining up with the colloquial.