Exposing Inclusionary Housing Policies for the Fraud They Are

  One would think everyone would know not to judge a book by its cover of “Inclusionary,” but people don’t look past titles.  If people looked beyond the nice sounding “Inclusionary” label, they would realize it is front for systemic predatory policies, which fall heaviest on the poor. 

The term inclusionary comes up most often in housing.  “Inclusionary housing programs are local policies that tap the economic gains from rising real estate values to create affordable housing for lower income families.”   In California, a law termed SB 1818, Density Bonus is considered a form of inclusionary housing.  Another term for the predatory housing policy is Affordable housing.  (See  Oct 26, 2020, CityWatch, Affordable Housing is a Scam! By LA Tenants Union) 

Inclusionary housing allows billionaire developers, who hand pick our city councilmembers, to buy up poor people’s homes and apartment complexes, tear them down and erect luxury apartments and condos, Then, developers promise to set aside a certain number of new units for the poor minorities. Developers focus on destroying the homes of the poor as those structures are usually the least expensive to buy and the tenants least able to fight predatory practices. Thus, inclusionary housing starts with the mass destruction of poor people homes, especially rent controlled apartments.  Once the family is evicted, where do they go? Do they exist in suspended animation until the new building is finished 4 years later?  A considerable portion end up homeless. 

The number one factor which has caused Los Angeles’s homeless crisis is inclusionary housing which starts with the destruction of poor people’s homes. 

Inclusionary Housing Policies Are a Fraud 

The scam worked perfectly until the federal court in Arizona stopped the worst part of it -- Bait and Switch.  Developers would get public money to construct affordable inclusionary housing, stick the tax payer dollars into their pockets and then declare bankruptcy.  A friendly bankruptcy judge would then rule that the project is not financially viable with the inclusionary units so that the judges makes the entire project into a market rate project. In other words, the public pays billionaire developers to tear down poor people’s homes and the developer end up with 100% high end apartments without a single unit for poor people.  See  January 15, 2018, CityWatch, Will Sunnyslope Bankruptcy Case Put the Brakes on LA’s Affordable Housing?, by Richard Lee Abrams.  

Not only do the predatory developers get the public subsidy, but also through the bankruptcy court, they did not have to repay the loan.  Meanwhile, the homeless population escalated as developers devoured more and more rent controlled properties.  The racist nature of inclusionary housing was documented in 2013 http://bit.ly/2YNLobE  Thursday, January 3, 2013, LA Weekly,  Hollywood's Urban Cleansing, 12,878 Mostly Latinos Are Pushed out by City Hall, High Rents and Hipsters, by Patrick Range McDonald  

Black Lives Matter’s opposition to the systemic nature of our problems shows how inclusionary housing is a prime example how the system is designed to harm people.  Los Angeles’ Homeless Crisis is not due to one or two bad apples in the housing industry, just as Ferguson, Missouri did not have just a few bad cops.   Both systems were predatory and the racism resulted in minorities being harmed more than others.  One irony of the O.J. Trial is that no one listened to Det. Mark Fuhrman who explained, “All true cops lie, cheat and set people up.”   Fuhrman did not like Blacks and was particularly upset at mixed race couples, but people missed the underlying reality-- the system was predatory.  Only one police officer came forward after Fuhrman denied using the N-word, but virtually everyone in the LAPD who had any contact with Fuhrman knew he used it habitually.  The silence of the LAPD in face of Fuhrman’s perjury is an example of systemic abuse.  Removing Fuhrman did not alter the LAPD’s nature.  Five year later, the LAPD was placed under a decade long Consent Decree with the US Department of Justice. 

Systemic Predatory Corruption is Destroying Los Angeles 

Although the LAPD made dramatic improvements under the Consent Decree, the rest of our government has become worse to the point that Los Angeles is actually  disintegrating.  Our judicial system is perhaps the most corrupt institution in society.  Why do judges, especially those judges who rule on zoning matters, need off shore bank accounts?  For example, whose family benefits from  (1) Provident Bank & Trust of Belize Ltd. Acct # BZ-BS-0001-00-91018206, (2) Atlantic Bank Belize Acct #: BZ-BA-00101-5304729-902?  We should not overlook the role of German and Luxembourg banks in money laundering.  Are we so naive as to think that Deutsche Bank only dealt with the bankrupt Donald Trump? 

As Black Lives Matters Says, the Problem Is Systemic 

The Los Angeles City Council is a criminal enterprise which has devastated the Black community and manufactured the Homeless Crisis.  As anyone who is familiar with LA city government knows, it operates according to an illegal vote trading arrangement which Penal Code § 86 expressly criminalized.  It is a felony to give a Yes vote in expectation that another councilmember will give a Yes vote in return on another matter.  Each Los Angeles Councilmember has to vote Yes on each and every project which another councilmember places on the city council agenda and in return he/she is guaranteed that each other councilmember will give him/her only Yes votes.  If one counts up all the traded votes in the past decade and if each councilmember received the maximum 4 year prison term for each illegal vote, the LA City Council as a whole has accumulated over one millions years of prison time! 

Not a single councilmember has objected. One can go and look at the City Clerk’s website which shows all the votes since Noah’s time, but you need only go back one year to see the pattern.  Of course, the worst people are the ring leaders. We have had two ring leaders of LA Corruptionism: former city council President and current  Mayor Eric Garcetti and former city council President Herb Wesson (we can still see the Garcetti-Wesson puppet strings attached to Council President Martinez) 

Black Lives Matter and District Attorney Jackie Lacey 

For years Black Lives Matter has objected to the manner Jackie Lacey has run the County DA’s Office without consideration that she is Black.  Abusive predators come in all colors and genders.

Now We Come upon a Quirk - Dr. Melina Abdullah, BLM cofounder, supports systemic, predatory racism! 

One cannot support Herb Wesson without supporting systemic racism.  Herb Wesson has devastated the Black Community by his enforcing the criminal vote trading system.   Every project which destroyed the homes of poor Blacks was approved unanimously.  While he was in the position of City Council President, Herb Wesson could have changed the nature of the system to protect poor Black people as well as every other Angeleno.  Instead, Herb Wesson chose to be the strongman who made certain that  developer corruption at LA City Hall ran non-stop.  

One cannot object to systemic, predatory racism and support Herb Wesson who ran the systemic, predatory racist system.   

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.)

-cw