A program financed by Bloomberg Philanthropies will pay homeowners to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and rent them to the recently homeless.

The Los Angeles housing crunch has made affordable housing difficult to find in much of the city, a few programs are trying to address the issue by encouraging home owners to rent accessory dwelling units out of their back yards. "In separate pilot programs, officials are offering subsidies of between $10,000 and $30,000 to homeowners who commit to creating accessory dwelling units — more commonly called “granny flats” — and renting them out to the formerly homeless," Jennifer Medina and Inyoung Kang write for The New York Times.
The programs are in the pilot stages and would begin at a small scale. "It is unclear exactly how many units the city will pay for with this round of money, but much of the experiment will focus on just what it will take to convince homeowners that they should rent out their back houses to the homeless," report Medina and Kang.
FULL STORY: California Today: Los Angeles Tests Housing the Homeless in Its Own Backyard

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

San Francisco Suspends Traffic Calming Amidst Record Deaths
Citing “a challenging fiscal landscape,” the city will cease the program on the heels of 42 traffic deaths, including 24 pedestrians.

Adaptive Reuse Will Create Housing in a Suburban Texas Strip Mall
A developer is reimagining a strip mall property as a mixed-use complex with housing and retail.

Study: Anti-Homelessness Laws Don’t Work
Research shows that punitive measures that criminalized unhoused people don’t help reduce homelessness.

In U.S., Urban Gondolas Face Uphill Battle
Cities in Latin America and Europe have embraced aerial transitways — AKA gondolas — as sustainable, convenient urban transport, especially in tricky geographies. American cities have yet to catch up.
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