$50 MILLION FOR HOME PROJECTS AMOUNT CITY'S LARGEST HOUSING GRANT EVER.

Byline: Dan Laidman! Staff Writer

The city of Los Angeles distributed more than $50 million to affordable housing projects Monday as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pledged to create a consistent funding source to help poor and working-class families find homes.

The money, the city's largest housing grant ever given, will build 14 projects - a total of 686 new housing units - across the city, including a 60-unit apartment in Sylmar and a 49-unit building in North Hills.

``We're here in the midst of a housing crisis in Los Angeles,'' Villaraigosa said. ``We need an unprecedented investment.''

City leaders established the Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2000 as a way for Los Angeles to provide grants to developers through competitive bids. Builders of affordable projects then typically use the city money in conjunction with state and federal tax credits and bond funding.

The fund has now distributed $169 million since early 2003, but officials struggled to reach a goal of $100 million per year. Then Villaraigosa announced last fall that he would fully fund the trust by diverting money from other city departments and supporting a $1 billion bond.

While the date for that city housing bond remains uncertain, Villaraigosa has also been lobbying state officials to include money for local affordable housing in a bond proposal being promoted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this year.

Villaraigosa said he is also looking at other creative ways to provide more money, such as investing city pension funds in development projects. The strategy has been used by State Treasurer Phil Angelides, now a gubernatorial candidate, to fund projects including some in downtown Los Angeles.

Efforts to keep the trust fully funded at $100 million are important because building affordable units can be risky and developers need consistency, said Mercedes Marquez, general manager of the Los Angeles Housing Department.

``If developers don't feel there's enough money there for them to take a risk and do business then they won't,'' she said.

Builders are noticing what the city is doing, said Dora Gallo, chief executive of A Community of Friends, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit affordable housing developer.

``There seems to be a real commitment and things are moving,'' she said.

Gallo's organization received $4.1 million toward a $12.9 million project in North Hills. The Rayen Apartments, projected to open in November 2007, would mix 25 units for foster children who come of age and lack homes, some with special needs, and 24 general low-income units.

Villaraigosa also announced his appointments to the Affordable Housing Commission. He retained Second Baptist Church Rev. William Saxe Epps and activist Alice W. Harris from the previous administration and added Stewart Kim of PGP Capital Advisors, Stephanie Klasky-Gamer of the nonprofit Chrysalis, attorneys Pete Navarro and Evangeline Ordaz-Molina, and Lisa Sugino, former deputy director of the Little Tokyo Service Center.

Klasky-Gamer, who lives in Valley Village and used to be an affordable housing developer herself, said there is a need to add housing across the city.

``To date we've had a lot of concentration in particular districts,'' she said. ``I hope that having a diverse group of commissioners will help the city implement its housing goals throughout the city.''

Dan Laidman, [phone]

dan.laidman(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

box, map

Box:

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

SOURCE: The Mayor's Office

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist

Map:

El Dorado Family Apartments

Rayen Apartments