The vote happened. The money's authorized. So why is $177 million still nowhere near a renter's hands? Today, the gap between the check and the cash. If you're just joining: Measure ULA is LA's high-value real-estate transfer tax, pitched as a funding stream for affordable housing and tenant aid. The running fight has two fronts — whether that money's reaching programs fast enough, and whether the tax is chilling new housing. City Council's already moving toward a 10-year exemption for newly built multifamily and mixed-use projects. This is LA Politics and Urbanism Daily. Today — four nonprofits, a county permit shortcut, and a pro-housing wish list. Odd little mix. First, where the money jams. Opportunity writes:
The LA County SmallBiz Permit Express Program is an initiative by the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) in partnership with other County departments aimed at streamlining and simplifying the permitting process for small, community-serving projects. The program is designed to expedite critical community benefits for local residents by providing a single point of entry and assistance for eligible small businesses seeking permits.
Here's a clean one out of LA County — the Department of Economic Opportunity has a thing called SmallBiz Permit Express. It offers expedited permits, entitlements, licenses, and inspections, with a single point of entry, for small businesses in unincorporated county areas. No ballot measure, no annual expenditure vote. Just a faster lane at the permit counter. After a week of governance spaghetti, that's almost refreshing. Sure — but read the fine print. Unincorporated county only. So if your taco spot's in the actual city of LA, you're still standing in the same line you were standing in last year. And a “single point of entry” is a great brochure line. Does it actually clear the counter faster, or did they just put a friendlier door on the same jammed building? Fair. It rhymes with the SBA eligibility change LA Local and Hanna Kang flagged — green card holders cut out federally, and the local response is to patch the gap with a county lane. Different mechanism, same instinct. Right, and a lane isn't a fix. You build a fast track for the lucky few on unincorporated land while the main counter stays broken. I'll believe the streamlining when a project that used to take eighteen months takes three. L.A. keeps announcing these big tenant aid numbers — hundreds of millions of dollars — so why are renters and landlords still waiting? What actually has to happen between the headline and the check? There are a few separate choke points, and the city one is pretty glaring right now. Back in March, the City Council voted to distribute $177 million in Measure ULA — that's Measure United to House LA — revenue to four nonprofit providers: the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Liberty Hill Foundation, Strategic Action for a Just Economy, and the Southern California Housing Rights Center. But per LAist reporting from earlier this month, the contracts still aren't final, because City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto hasn't signed off on them. That's months after the Council's authorization, and city officials are publicly disagreeing about why. Meanwhile, at the county level, there's a separate pipeline: LACAHSA, the county's affordable housing solutions agency, approved $11.4 million in emergency rental assistance in December, bringing its total Measure A prevention spending to $29.5 million for 2025, targeting roughly 1,750 people. And the county's DCBA just launched a $2.1 million eviction diversion pilot in the Compton Courthouse service area, offering up to $10,000 per household in rental assistance — but only for eligible households in that specific jurisdiction, and only through a mediation process with the Superior Court. So before money reaches a renter, it has to clear the vote, the legal and contract stage, and then the handoff through a nonprofit or agency. Any one of those can stall. So on that city-level jam — the Legal Aid Foundation and the others are basically sitting there with a Council green light but no signed contract. Who's on the hook for that delay? LAist and the Legal Aid Foundation's own public statement both point directly at City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, whose office has to finalize the contracts before any of that $177 million can actually move. A City Council committee called for a formal explanation in mid-June, so her office is now on the record — watch whether Feldstein Soto's office produces a timeline, and whether the Council uses any leverage to force one. Abundant Housing LA writes:
For decades, we haven’t built enough homes to meet our needs. This has caused home prices and rents to skyrocket, creating financial pressure on households and putting homeownership out of reach. Some families have responded by moving to exurban areas, enduring long commutes and worsening carbon emissions.
So Abundant Housing LA puts out this whole pro-housing agenda — build more, build near transit, break down the exclusionary stuff — and I'm reading it right after the tenant aid piece we just hit, where $177 million is stuck at the contract stage. Their scorecard is all about faster approvals and more units. Then you look at the city's actual record this year, and it's a jammed pipeline. The part that sticks with me is the diagnosis itself — AHLA pins the 66,000-person homeless count, that 2020 LAHSA number, directly on decades of not building. They're making a supply argument there, not asking for another relief-check program. Right, and that's the tension. ULA is revenue you raise and then redistribute. AHLA's asks are about supply — actually letting units get built. Do any of their specific demands even survive the ULA math we've been running all week? Put that question on the table. We've spent the week on reactive tools — carveouts, threshold tweaks, ballot mechanics. This is the only document in the rundown that's actually proactive, and it doesn't mention a tax structure at all. If you follow Los Angeles politics, you might also like California Governor's Race — daily 2026 race coverage on candidates, polling, debates, fundraising, and policy for voters who want more than horse-race takes. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
You'll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes, so if something stuck with you, they're there for a closer read.
That's Los Angeles Politics and Urbanism Daily for this Friday. This is a Lantern Podcast.