Los Angeles City Council members are considering a motion to codify Executive Directive 1 (Council File 23-0623), which aims to streamline affordable housing project applications. Making affordable housing easier to build is a good thing: the city desperately needs more affordable units, and we need to build those units faster. However, creating these new buildings often necessitates the demolition of existing rent-controlled housing. In such cases, we must be sure […]

On Friday, March 3, 2023, Carstens, Black & Minteer LLP filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles on behalf of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE), a UNIDAD coalition member, for failing to comply with the law when they overrode regulatory decisions and allowed publicly owned land in South Central Los Angeles to be developed into a luxury hotel. This over-33,000-square-foot vacant lot was formerly home to […]

Dear Mayor Bass, United Neighbors in Defense Against Displacement (UNIDAD) is a coalition of residents and organizations in South Central Los Angeles dedicated to keeping families in their homes and improving the health and economic well-being of low-income communities of color through responsible development. We applaud your recent decision to issue an Executive Directive to inventory vacant, surplus, or underutilized city-owned property and assess its suitability for permanent or affordable […]

In spite of opposition from the community, the City Zoning Administrator, and the South LA Area Planning Commission, LA City Council has voted to move forward with selling public land to a corporate hotel. The vote was 10 to 1 in favor, with Monica Rodriguez of Council District 7 dissenting.  On Thursday, Feb. 2, the UNIDAD coalition hosted a community meeting to discuss next steps on this campaign. More than […]

Today, Los Angeles City Council passed a motion sponsored by Council District 8 to appeal the South LA Planning Commission’s decision to deny a permit for a hotel on the vacant Bethune site in South Central. We just elected a new slate of folks on the grounds they are going to be progressive on housing, so this vote is especially disappointing. We are grateful to all who wrote or called […]

United Neighbors In Defense Against Displacement (UNIDAD) Coalition is a strong, proud, and diverse alliance of labor and community organizations with a history of building successful partnerships that secure real community benefits from large urban development projects.  Through our campaign work, we are committed to future development of South LA that includes and benefits all members of the community. This Affordable Housing Grant Program has been established because of past organizing efforts […]

In 2019, the City supported a change in plans to use the former Bethune Library site in Council District 8 for the development of a Marriott Hotel. The site’s initial plans were for affordable housing development, something the community had advocated for years to address the District’s increasing affordability crisis.   The UNIDAD coalition opposes the hotel project, which would serve tourists, not community members. The coalition would like to […]