Low-Cost Building Opens for Homeless

Housing advocates, saying it is time for Los Angeles corporations and prominent citizens to tackle the city’s rental housing crisis, on Monday opened Triangle House, a low-rent apartment built for 40% less than what it would cost the city to construct.

The high-tech, eight-unit complex in Boyle Heights, looking more like a designer building in Marina del Rey than a refuge for eight previously homeless families, was privately financed and built with low-cost techniques by the L.A. Family Housing Corp., a nonprofit group specializing in family-oriented housing for the poor.

“I feel very fortunate this is happening to me,” said Felisa Perez, 33, a mother of two who lost her apartment a year ago and had been living at an emergency shelter owned by L.A. Family Housing.

As part of its program to fight homelessness, the group provided Perez with classes in parenting, keeping a budget and daily problem-solving before selecting her as a tenant for Triangle House. “This is the best thing that ever happened to me in my life,” Perez said.

More important for the future of low-cost housing efforts was the $320,000 price tag on a building that would have cost $561,474 if built by government housing agencies, according to construction estimates released by the group.

In essence, while the new building meets all city codes, the developer saved money by not exceeding those standards and by cutting labor costs.

The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, Community Development Department and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development all require housing standards that go well beyond the usual building codes--a practice that for many years has driven up the cost of affordable housing and helped to discourage private developers from entering the field.

Parking Requirements

In addition, city requirements of two parking spaces for each one-bedroom apartment built in Los Angeles, with even more parking required for additional bedrooms, has vastly inflated the cost of apartments here, according to many housing experts.

Monthly rents in Triangle House range from $325 to $375, considerably less than those charged at other newer apartments in the area.

Unlike major East Coast cities, Los Angeles has not embraced any program to reduce construction costs in affordable housing programs. If such costs were reduced, many housing experts believe the city could build 40% to 50% more units than presently contemplated.

However, Sydney Irmas, chairman of L.A. Family Housing, conceded that some of the techniques employed at Triangle House are controversial, such as the use of non-union labor for certain aspects of construction.

“This is why the private sector has to get into affordable housing in a big way very quickly to save Los Angeles as a livable place,” Irmas said. “ . . . Government will always balk at non-union labor, even though we are constructing housing that would never even be built if we didn’t do it this new and sensible way.”

Other low-cost aspects of Triangle House have not generated controversy.

“Instead of cast-iron plumbing, it is plastic piping, and instead of expensive pipe railings outside, I used chain-link detail that comes across very high-tech,” said Arnold Stalk, an architect and officer of L.A. Family Housing who designed Triangle House.

While the attractive white and pink stucco building meets space requirements for private housing, he said, “The apartments are small in size--not up to HUD standards--there is no garage or covered parking, and no pitched roof as required by the government. Instead, it is a flat roof, and it works very well in L.A.”

Stalk, a custom-home designer, said he used details taken from custom homes, such as lofts in the upstairs units instead of bedrooms. By constructing lofts, Stalk got around city codes that link the number of bedrooms to the number of parking spaces required, and avoided construction of eight additional parking slots.

But for the families moving into Triangle House, the bureaucratic details of city housing codes were worlds away. Mothers were thinking of the large cement playground being set up where a parking garage would normally have gone.

“It will be so good for my family,” said Alma Osuna, 28, a mother of three. “Will this really be for the children to play? It is fantastic!”