A home in West Adams. Measure S supporters have claimed their initiative would stop evictions and “house-flipping” in neighborhoods like this, which is a bald-faced lie. If anything, it would increase the pace of evictions and renovations in existing homes.
The Yes on S people would have you believe that, somehow, their misguided measure would stop gentrification. They’re lying. In fact, gentrification in West Adams, Boyle Heights, and other distressed neighborhoods will intensify if Measure S is passed. Here’s how:
As young adults graduate from university and join the workforce, as creative class workers move to LA, and as families have children and look for larger housing units, the demand for housing rises. Due to the region’s overall housing shortage, there simply aren’t enough housing units to accommodate the growing number of Angelenos.
Desperate, these Angelenos look to adjacent neighborhoods for more affordable accommodations: neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights, Highland Park, and West Adams. They are now competing with locals of these and many other neighborhoods for the limited amount of housing. As a result, the price of homes and condos rise, and landlords in these areas see the opportunity to make more money and raise rents. This prices out many locals, leading to dissatisfaction and anger.
If Measure S is passed, all of that will get even worse, because there won’t be any new buildings in higher-income areas. All those wealthy families who would have moved into new condos and apartments on the Westside will instead go to the East and Southside, displacing low income families along the way. We need to build more, not less, if we’re going to reduce displacement.
Vote NO on Measure S to reduce gentrification and displacement.
You can find more rebuttals to Measure S lies and misrepresentations below:
- Reality #1: Measure S would increase evictions
- Reality #2: Measure S would worsen traffic in Los Angeles
- Reality #3: Measure S would destroy more than 12,000 jobs a year
- Reality #4: Measure S wouldn’t affect campaign finance in LA
- Reality #5: The Measure S construction ban would raise your rent
- Reality #6: Measure S would make a bad housing shortage even worse
- Reality #7: Measure S would intensify gentrification and displacement (you are here)
- Reality #8: Measure S would stop wayyy more than 5% of new housing
- Reality #9: Measure S would even ban 100% affordable housing projects