With thousands of houses and apartments lost against forest fires in an already tight housing market, owners of downtown Los Angeles are trying to court fire victims in a more urban setting far from the burning areas.
A campaign on social networks was launched by members of the Historical district of business improvement So that people are looking for housing to consider moving in one of the oldest Los An were converted into apartments.
The city center is outside the most inappropriate people, acknowledged the director general of District Blair Besten, but she said that she hoped that the availability and the price of the apartments could try to consider him.
“The Weststiside and the Pasadena region could be saturated with people wishing to move near the place where they lived before,” said Besten. “It may not be possible.”
A good number of displaced people were already tenants of apartments. The Costar real estate data provider said that 480 multifamilial buildings with 9,500 rental units were potentially damaged or destroyed in fire areas.
The affected properties are buildings of extremely older small-scale apartments belonging to MOM-AND-POP owners. Almost 75% of buildings contain less than 15 units, said Costar, and has an average age of 71 years. Many of them lack common modern equipment such as central air conditioning, fitness centers or swimming pools.
The cost of reconstruction Such a modest accommodation “poses an almost insurmountable challenge,” said Costar. “The construction of new apartments in Los Angeles biased luxury, with units completed last year with an average of $ 3,300 in rent, a contrast that striking with the rates associated with rental properties in fire zones” where the average demand rate was $ 2640 per month.
Modern seismic construction codes and construction costs focused on inflation further worsen the difficulty of redevelopment, which makes it financially prohibitive for many owners, said Costar.
The basic historic program has around 500 units available to an average of $ 2,046 per month, Besten said. To increase the call for fire refugees, the owners offer leases as short as three months and will organize furniture rental companies to provide units for new tenants.
“We tried to quickly provide certain houses, including essential elements of the kitchen and essential elements of Bath,” said Laurie Miskuski of the owner Ico Group. “There are a lot of people who have lost everything, and the last thing they need to worry is a toaster or a coffee maker.”
Among the properties of the ICO group is the Mercantile loftswhich opened its doors in 1907 and was transformed into accommodation over ten years ago. Ico also has the Broadway LoftsA renaissance style building of the 1907 Renaissance also dating from 1907.
The fires that made the people of their house were “an incredibly traumatic event,” said Miskuski. “We are trying to reach out and say:” Hey, we may not be the neighborhood you are used to, but we are a dynamic neighborhood with a lot to offer where more people are welcome. “”
Until now, the majority of the units included in the company's awareness -raising awareness program is in five historic buildings that have had their own problems as a new owner has taken the delayed maintenance and the ejected tenants who did not pay rent.
“Covid has done a lot of damage in the city center in many ways,” said Mark Sanders, co-founder of Landlord Fifteen Group. “Usually people did not pay rent and the expulsion moratorium did not help.
“It took us a long time to travel a lot of these units, which is why we have this vacancy” well above market standards, said Sanders.
He hopes that the sufficient vacancy project in its buildings which include the Marley Lofts and the Thurman Lofts This could even be an argument of sale for people displaced by the fire that might want to live near family members, friends or members of their church or their synagogue.
“Now they have a chance to stay together by renting in the same building,” he said.
The Business Improvement district seeks to add other owners to the call program, which, in hope, will also improve the public image of the historic nucleus.
The district Instagram advertising campaign focuses on the availability of short -term leases and the possibility of living in historical historical buildings in a neighborhood that has stores, restaurants, offices and entertainment from a distance from walking.
Once the city's commercial heart for business, purchases and entertainment, the district fell on difficult times at the end of the 20th century while businesses were traveling to a few houses in the west and the department stores followed their customers in the suburbs. He relaunched after 2000 with the arrival of apartments, fashionable stores, bars and high-end restaurants, but the tenor of certain streets has changed again during the pandemic while homelessness has become more widespread.
Stretching hands for people displaced by Fire offers the stakeholders in the district the opportunity to reach out to “people who have been curious to know what it is to live somewhere and not have to get into their car for an entire weekend,” she said. They can ask, “What is it like and would I be ready to try?”
