The Housing Crisis: Why Affordable Cities Start in your Backyard
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a panel discussion called The Housing Crisis: Why Affordable Cities Start in your Backyard, hosted by Global Scholars Ian and Victor. They invited an architect, a board member of a housing nonprofit, an affordable housing policy maker and a tenants’ rights advocate and community activist to speak at the event, which activists, tenant groups and members of the Poly community attended. The panel was enlightening in a number of ways, primarily in bringing forth diverse perspectives on such a pivotal issue. By facilitating a dialogue between the experts in their respective fields and those in attendance, Ian and Victor advanced both the recognition of and familiarity with the matter of affordable housing, which is a necessarily global matter, especially here in Southern California. The issues facing Los Angeles, a city where over a third (3.5 million ) of residents are immigrants, shift constantly with the ebbs and flows of migrations. I pa