Mayor Bass Continues Focus on Driving Down Costs and Cutting Timelines Through Creative Housing Construction Models to Bring More People Inside

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LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass' Office held its first-ever Innovative Construction Expo today to showcase creative housing construction models to drive down costs and timelines to build more housing across the Los Angeles region. The Expo brought together more than 150 affordable housing developers, companies who specialize in innovating housing, general contractors, architects, and city and county leaders from across the leaders to share cost-saving construction solutions and practices. See photos and broll from the Expo here.

"We are moving L.A. in a new direction by working to drive down the costs and cutting the time it takes to build more housing," said Mayor Bass. "It's vital that we take a regional approach to the homelessness crisis by working with all 87 cities and our county partners to scale up innovative and creative housing solutions to bring more people inside and ensure that they can stay housed for good. There are creative housing models out there that we need to embrace and scale, and we must do this in partnership with our neighboring cities."

The Expo featured companies who specialize in innovating housing models and shared their products with a wide range of policymakers and department officials from across the region. The Mayor's Office partnered with LA4LA, an organization founded by Mayor Bass earlier this year to bridge the private and public sectors, to bring leaders together to examine innovative solutions that can be scaled and collaborate on concrete ways to save time and bring down costs of interim and permanent housing construction. Through recent work with LA4LA, thousands of jobs, hundreds of new homes and a Costco with a healthy foods grocery store and pharmacy are coming to South Los Angeles.

"In Baldwin Park, we rolled up our sleeves and found innovative ways to build housing that meets the needs of our most vulnerable residents. We brought people inside through Esperanza Villa, the first non-congregate tiny home emergency shelter in the San Gabriel Valley and built on that success by opening a tiny home shelter specifically designed for families with young children, said Baldwin Park Mayor Emmanuel Estrada during today's event. "The work we're doing in Baldwin Park is proof that when we get innovative, collaborate with our communities and stay focused on the needs of our residents, we can find solutions that work."

"LA4LA is proud to support Mayor Bass' multi-pronged approach to urgently house Angelenos and prevent homelessness by focusing on cost efficiencies, innovation and transparency to explore new solutions and cut red tape, " said Sarah Dusseault, Lead Strategist, LA4LA. We are bringing the tools of philanthropy and the private sector to create scale and speed."

Mayor Bass is leading a comprehensive strategy to confront the homelessness crisis by cutting through red tape to build more affordable housing faster and cheaper. Her Executive Directive 1 is accelerating the building of more than 25,000 units of affordable housing across the city. Since Mayor Bass signedExecutive Directive 3 to better use publicly owned land for housing, the City has been able to identify sites that can be utilized for up to 500 tiny home beds through a $33 million State grant and moved the long-awaited Go For Broke and First Street North Project to fruition after more than 20 years of predevelopment on city-owned land. In May 2023, the City opened its first permanent housing infrastructure with 294 units of interim housing at the Mayfair.