Housing Justice
Sign up for LA Forward’s Housing Working Group
We meet every Thursday on Zoom from 6-7pm
THE STATE OF HOUSING JUSTICE WORK IN LA, 2026
A Panel Series from LA Forward's Housing Justice Working Group
This February, join us for a special panel series examining the critical housing justice fights shaping Los Angeles in 2026. Each week, we'll bring together organizers, advocates, and policy experts to discuss where we've been, where we are now, and what's next in the struggle for safe, affordable housing for all Angelenos.
The Series Includes Discussions about:
Housing Justice 101 — New to housing justice work? Brush up on the basics and learn some important terms to get the most out of the series
Rent Control — The ongoing fight to protect tenants and expand rent stabilization
Senate Bill 79 — A Controversial Law that will bring more housing to transit hubs
Social Housing — Exploring community-driven housing models, the path forward, and what it all really means
Measure ULA — The ‘Mansion Tax’ Voters passed in 2022. Taking stock of Measure ULA's implementation, past wins and the battles ahead
All panels will be held on Thursdays at 6 PM on Zoom, followed by informal discussions where you can connect with fellow housing justice advocates.
Whether you're a seasoned activist or just getting involved, this series will equip you with the knowledge and connections to make a difference in 2026's most important housing fights.
Stay tuned for confirmed panelists and registration links!
About the Housing Justice Working Group: The mission of LA Forward’s Housing Justice team is to ensure that every person in Los Angeles has access to safe, accessible, sustainable, and permanently-affordable housing. While there are many organizations in Los Angeles fighting for specific areas of Housing Justice, we choose to holistically address equitable and affordable housing from a “yes, and,” multi-pronged perspective when fighting for legislation. We focus on solidarity with communities historically impacted by institutionalized racism, segregation, and disinvestment. We support a Homes Guarantee nationally and locally.
Want to get involved in this kind of work? Sign up for our Housing Justice Action Team.
Our Principles:
Protect renters & low-income homeowners: We must strengthen renters’ rights and eliminate loopholes that unscrupulous landlords frequently exploit to drive up rents, harass & unjustly evict tenants, and remove affordable units from the market.
Prevent people from being displaced: We support the empowerment of racially & economically marginalized communities to shape the planning of the neighborhoods they inhabit. We must remove the speculation that places housing’s value as a commodity above its value as a home.
Preserve existing affordable housing: We must institute programs that prioritize Tenant and Community Opportunity to Purchase, disincentivize the corporate redevelopment of existing multifamily housing, and use government resources to permanently extend affordability for units whose convents are expiring.
Produce new permanently affordable housing in every neighborhood: We must focus on the creation of, and conversion to, non-commodified types of housing, including Community Land Trusts and Social Housing. We must produce more housing overall, but we need to create new units at the lower-end of the market. For far too long, production has been mostly expensive and located in working class areas.
Permanently house people experiencing homelessness: We need services and supportive housing in every community and to fight against the criminalization of our unhoused neighbors.
A few of the housing justice coalitions we work with
Resources
Cap the Rent at 3% - 5/12/25
San Fernando Valley: Let's Win a New Social Housing Site for LA! - 4/23/2025
Upcoming LA City Planning Ordinances - 9/17/24
Teach In - Social Housing 101
Teach In - Path to Housing Stability & Justice - August 2020
Tenant Protections Teach In - September 2020
Featuring Carla De Paz, the director of Community Power Collective, Katie McKeon, an attorney with Public Counsel, and Francisco Dueñas, the director of Housing Now, California’s leading housing justice coalition.
This session explored how the process of guiding public investment in transit lines, open space, and elsewhere can be attentive and responsive to concerns regarding housing affordability, speculative investment, and potential displacement. Featuring panelists Mariana Huerta Jones (ACT-LA), Irma Muñoz (Mujeres de la Tierra), and Tafarai Bayne and Jason Foster (Destination Crenshaw), with facilitator David Levitus (LA Forward)
What our Housing Book Group has read:
3. Social housing policy paper: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialHousing.pdf
4. Evicted
5. Communities over Commodities: People-Driven Alternatives to an Unjust Housing System
6. The Death and Life of the Single Family Home
7. Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership
8. Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State
10. The Color of Money
11. Papers and reports on Opportunity Zones


