The Shame Of The City

LA's Hidden Health Crisis (and what SAJE and our partners are doing about it).

There is a fundamental crisis of health and human rights in Los Angeles, particularly in Downtown and South Los Angeles. These communities have a population of mostly working class Latino immigrants and African American families who have limited access to health care services and safe and healthy, affordable housing.

Contributing to the crisis are substandard and slum housing conditions that permeate these communities causing direct and serious health consequences for residents who are primarily mostly tenants and children.

The negative health outcomes which result from living in slum housing conditions represent a substantial public health hazard.

Despite substantial evidence and experience that links poor health and slum housing, the public agencies responsible for housing conditions and health outcomes have yet to work together to remove the hazard. Contrary to the evidence, many public officials continue to regard slumlords as legitimate business people who suffer at the hands of ‘problem tenants,’ rather than lawbreakers who repeatedly violate the public trust and the human rights of hard-working families.

One of the lesser-known facts about slum housing is its relationship to gentrification--as property values in working-class communities skyrocket, slum-housing conditions actually get worse.

Before we explain how this works, it is important to define our terms: slum housing and slumlord.

Slum housing is often apartment rental housing that does not meet building code laws for an extended period of time, jeopardizing the health and safety of tenants who live in the building.

Slumlords are people who produce these conditions. They are a criminal class of landlord whose business plan depends on collecting rents without making repairs. Along with this behavior, many slumlords milk equity from their buildings without reinvesting a cent. This, in turn, causes blight and disinvestment in our city's neighborhoods.

Although only about 1% of Los Angeles landlords fit this definition, their holdings are vast, impacting many thousands of Los Angeles residents, creating unhealthy conditions that ultimately impacts public health for everyone in the city.

United by the needs of our common constituents, SAJE, LACAN, Esperanza Community Housing and St. John's Well Child and Family Center built a community-based public health initiative called Better Neighborhoods, Same Neighbors: A Public Health Approach to Slum Housing and Neighborhood Stability.

Four key findings of our work are: