Los Angeles, CA – Endeavor Real Estate Group (EGRE), a Wyoming-based real estate firm, announced a call to action on behalf of all Californians displaced by the fires recently. As some estimate, upwards of 50K people are now seeking housing, whether their house burned down, or even if it survived it is likely uninhabitable.
Richard Rubin, a Managing Partner at Endeavor, and local LA resident, has an extensive background of converting empty office spaces, malls, and hotels, into affordable and workforce housing without the use of LIHTC (Low-Income Housing Tax Credit) or any other federally funded programs. He sees a chance to help displaced people among the ruin of the fires, and to keep rents from skyrocketing as they are currently doing, with some suggesting landlords are raising rents by as much as 200%+.
“Currently, there are empty office buildings all over Southern California that could be converted into housing,” said Rubin from his LA home. “Rents are also spiking to the north and south of LA. We have millions of square feet of empty space. If the developers, landlords, housing organizations, and government, could all come together to work to convert this empty space, we could alleviate what is turning into the greatest housing shortage in recorded history, provide affordable housing, and make sure there is no price gouging in the wake of this disaster.”
“When I arrived in Los Angeles 10 years ago I thought I could really assist in a meaningful way to addressing the housing crisis through adaptive reuse. Now I see a real moment to help the people of LA County and that’s what we are going to do,” said Rubin.
Not only have offices largely sat empty since early COVID days, but currently there is historically low demand for office space, historically high vacancy rates, and even higher default rates. Landlords find themselves in a tough situation. This could be alleviated by converting into housing, which would not only solve the landlord’s vacancy problem, but would help alleviate a never seen before housing crunch.
“Typically, when we have worked with office buildings in the past, we are told no because of parking, or density, but now those problems simply don’t exist. It seems an obvious and logical solution to begin immediately converting empty and unused spaces for displaced and homeless following the fires,” said Rubin.
Rubin has previously managed the conversions of projects across the United States from empty or unused properties into affordable or workforce housing. Prior to that, Rubin did the same thing in his native South Africa.
Southern California currently faces a unique problem with unhoused numbers at historic levels. This will likely only get worse with the Olympics and the World Cup incoming to LA. EGRE is hopeful developers, landlords, housing organizations, and government will all work to convert and adapt empty space into housing.
Endeavor Real Estate Group (EGRE) is an independent property developer and a pioneer in non-Federal funded, non-LITC (Low Income Tax Credit) commercial marketplace solutions to achieve quality workforce housing, affording student housing, and 55-plus senior housing through adaptive re-use in communities nationwide.
I recall reading an article about an attempt to convert some office towers in downtown SF into housing, and the realization that the difference in how the building is constructed for office rather than housing would have made the conversions impossibly expensive. This seems on the surface a obvious solution, but the reality of the cost may be prohibitive.