On Monday afternoon I met the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa in his office. It was an interesting meeting, full of anticipation and a little comedy. I was part of a 10-person delegation from LA Voice. The meeting was set up through Helmi Hiserich, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, with whom we have a good relationship from her days at the Hollywood office of the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). I was one of three clergy in the group of ten. My friend, fellow Hollywood Adventist Church member and church board member, Mireya Pena, chaired the meeting and did a remarkable job. I was so impressed!
Our subject was affordable housing, which we have been working on for over a year, in different ways. The Mayor has a signficant speech coming up on October 17 in which he is presenting his strategy for addressing Los Angeles' housing crisis. So, our visit was time to follow up our 1,000+ person strong Town Hall and to preceed the Mayor's Housing Summit speech. I'll spare everyone the policy details (if you're interested I'm happy to tell you about it), but the meeting itself was interesting.
At first we were escorted to a small-ish conference room in the Mayor's wing of City Hall. Then, a few minutes later, the Mayor's policy advisor on housing came in to tell us there was a change. We would be meeting in the Mayor's office. We had introductions all around and Mireya began the meeting by explaining quickly who we were and that she would be facilitating the meeting. Well, that didn't go over too well with the Mayor, until he realized that he had confused us with another community organizing group in Los Angeles. After that confusion was clarified we had a very friendly and frank conversation in which he seemed to confide in us some of his challenges in getting his housing policy through City Council. All in all it was a very positive meeting in which Mayor Villaraigosa vowed to work with us to move important policy through City Council, such as permanent funding source for the HOusing Trust Fund, which will fund the production of new affordable housing units, as well as demanding that the Planning Department enforce an existing law to drastically reduce condo conversions and demolitions, which are destorying the cities existing affordable housing stock.
Oh wait, I said I wouldn't get into policy. Sorry about that. On Thursday, several from our church will go to a "Housing Forum" meeting in Hollywood in which the Mayor's staff will be listening to the communities concerns about the housing crisis. Then, on October 17, we'll see what the Mayor says about this plan.
I've met a few powerful people in my life: the Mayor of Philadelphia, several members of the US Congress and the State Legislature, but none compare to this meeting. Mayor Villaraigosa is definitely a powerful person and it was a significant moment for me to sit in a room with him and have such a frank, heart-to-heart conversation.
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