Image sources: The Six, Brooks + Scarpa Architects¹

Hypothesis

This design intervention aims to provide healthy, adaptive spaces for the homeless population of Los Angeles, CA. Specifically, it will focus on design methods that encourage rehabilitation and healthy decisions among the residents of LA’s homeless shelters and low-income housing projects. Rather than placing efforts on relocating the homeless population into shelters, this intervention will focus on already-established residents of the city’s homeless shelters and low-income housing projects. The proposal will explore methods of design that encourage growth and rehabilitation among residents and ways of preventing residents from returning to unsheltered lives.

• How?
  In the last year alone, Los Angeles has experienced a 16% increase in its homeless population, the latest sign of severe income inequality and a worsening housing crisis plaguing California. There are now more than 36,000 homeless people in the city of LA, and nearly 59,000 across LA county, a 16% and 12% uptick respectively, according to an annual LA county report.¹ There are now over 58,900 homeless individuals in all of Los Angeles county and over 36,300 in the city alone, making it the third most homeless city in the world. 2 Over the last year, LA voters have agreed to tax themselves $4.6 billion to build housing — 10,000 units in 10 years — and provide supportive services for homeless people. A developer fee that’s expected to pump out $100 million annually for affordable housing was finally adopted, which quadrupled homeless outreach teams, added 600 shelter beds, expanded winter shelter hours and ramped up hotel vouchers. Some 1,000 new employees are being hired at every level of homeless services, including support for people in the new housing projects³. 

• What?

The proposed intervention will focus on implementing

1. open-air, green spaces and courtyards
2. providing private, adaptive living spaces
3. establishing a network of safe walking paths throughout LA’s homeless shelters and supportive housing projects will provide previously homeless individuals will a sense of responsibility and purpose, and encourage more healthy lifestyles, therefore allowing an otherwise overlooked population to contribute to the social and economic framework of Los Angeles.

• So What?

Granting residents a sense of responsibility to their own living spaces as well as shared properties will foster more healthy choices throughout the community and provide them with a sense of importance and relevance within the greater city context. By establishing green spaces and shared courtyards, along with safe walking paths, residents of LA’s homeless shelters and supportive housing will be able to reconnect with the urban structure and more accessibly contribute to the city’s economic and social makeup.

As efforts are being made to provide shelter to LA’s homeless population, it is important to consider ways of design that prevent individuals from reverting to homelessness. The intervention examines modes of design that encourage healthy behaviors on both the individual and collective scales. I explore methods that promote a sense of community and responsibility in order to harbor more healthy choices by LA’s supportive housing residents.