Covering housing in Los Angeles and California @politico. DMs open; https://nitter.cf/t.co/L88aHkveAi
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ALT Exploding brain meme
ALT LOS ANGELES — For Airbnb, the gold medal game in the 2028 Summer Olympics is on Tuesday. Since last year, the home-sharing giant and its nonprofit arm have spent at least $12.6 million building influence in Los Angeles and becoming one of the city’s top political contributors — backing Mayor Karen Bass and other candidates, lobbying City Hall and making charitable contributions at the behest of politicians. The company is pushing for friendlier regulation of vacation rentals in the games’ host city, and Election Day is its last chance to sway who’s in charge before the Olympics begin.
ALT The stakes are enormous. Airbnb executives have told investors they expect the Olympics to spur rapid and lasting expansion of its home-sharing business in Los Angeles. But should Airbnb’s candidates lose, the company may face a reckoning in one of its largest U.S. markets. Bass’ challenger, City Council member Nithya Raman, has cast Airbnb’s largesse toward the mayor as “pay-to-play” politics that hurts residents struggling with housing costs, and vowed to crack down on short-term rentals if elected. “Airbnb understands that the decisions made over the next few years could shape its business in Los Angeles for a long time,” said Jeremy Oberstein, a local Democratic political consultant. “The Olympics may be the immediate prize, but the bigger opportunity is influencing the rules of the game long after the torch goes out.”
ALT The agencies use different data systems, and even different Google spreadsheets, to produce their reports and often have different bureaus within them managing different housing programs
ALT For example, a senior director for Bass told the interviewers that the Inside Safe program uses an internal Google spreadsheet to manage its occupancy records and does not have access to the Homeless Management Information System, the countywide database that tracks street contacts with homeless people and housing placements.
ALT The Bass campaign has amplified Park’s remarks and leaned into the newfound friendliness from her critics. “Working alongside local leaders like Councilmember Traci Park and Rick Caruso, Mayor Bass has delivered tremendous progress in the Palisades,” campaign spokesperson Alex Stack said, citing the reopening of schools and businesses and home permitting. The mayor’s campaign manager told POLITICO this month that they intended to deploy Park as a “surrogate” to reach Pratt supporters. That was a bridge too far for Park, who is the only member of the City Council — aside from Raman — not to endorse Bass. Park reiterated her shots at Raman in a statement to POLITICO but added that she wasn’t anyone’s surrogate. “As an LA resident and councilmember, I have deep concerns about the leadership and effectiveness of both candidates,” Park said.
ALT Screenshot of Economist headline on developers learning to love Mamdani
ALT Nelson declined to say how much money SRO Housing needs to remain afloat. But she said some of the problems hurting the organization’s finances are bureaucratic. In the May meeting, Nelson said she complained of being unable to open a new, 81-unit affordable housing development outside Skid Row because the city-owned utility had yet to provide electricity. And, in early 2023, SRO Housing received $45 million in state dollars to rehabilitate three of its older buildings in Skid Row. Today, construction is complete, but 130 of the renovated units remain empty, she said. Nelson attributed SRO Housing’s vacancy problems to regional housing officials who are responsible for matching prospective tenants to its buildings.
