Our Vision / Nuestra Visión
Addressing our housing crisis
Lynwood is not exempt from the housing crisis facing all of California. Our city (and state) have not built sufficient housing units that are affordable to all income levels. The Regional Housing Needs Assessment requires cities to build a certain amount of units for each income level. Lynwood is required to build 1,558 units by 2029. We need to ensure that we do everything possible to increase our housing supply by encouraging equitable housing development. We must update our city’s zoning to attract more dense housing development along our city’s main corridors and near areas best served by transit, like the Long Beach Blvd. Station. We must encourage redevelopment of blighted or vacant properties across the city. Lynwood must also work to produce a reliable stream of funding to ensure affordable housing developments come online.
Protecting Lynwood Renters
The majority of Lynwood residents are renters. Renters are spending an unsustainable portion of their incomes on making rent. According to a 2024 UCLA survey, Nearly 4 in 10 renters in Los Angeles County have worried about losing their homes and becoming homeless in the last few years. While encouraging the development of more housing will increase the number of available units, we must also do everything we can to protect existing renters, many of whom are living one paycheck away from being unhoused. We also cannot allow our residents to be priced out of Lynwood, forcing them to move farther and farther away from their jobs and families. Lynwood must pass renter protections, including an annual cap on rent increases and “just cause” protections. The city must do more to educate renters about current statewide protections that Lynwood tenants fall under and work to provide a tenant “right to counsel.”
Keeping our Community Safe
We deserve to be safe in our city. By far the largest expense in Lynwood’s budget are our public safety contracts. We need to ensure that our dollars are being used effectively and being maximized so that our residents receive quality service and fast response times. We also need to be looking at ways to supplement our police, such as funding additional security services at our public facilities to respond to safety concerns that occur at our parks and playgrounds, without having to bring in armed deputies that could be responding to other calls. With that said, policing is not the only thing that keeps us safe. We must invest in recreation and other youth programs, offer internships, and other community service opportunities that will keep youth engaged on bettering Lynwood.
Creating an economy that works for all
Lynwood deserves jobs that pay a living wage and give workers the opportunity to be in a union. When workers have an opportunity to join a union, their lives significantly improve. Lynwood has many union represented jobs in Lynwood (more than 3,000) and we must demonstrate support for them as they aspire to improve their workplaces because it directly feeds into our city’s economy. Lynwood also has an opportunity to create better jobs given that it contracts for many municipal services. The city must ensure that any city contractors are truly responsible bidders that will bring the high-quality jobs we need. With inflation at an all-time high, we need to make sure that our jobs are keeping pace, so we must support living wages. The Council has led on this issue by adopting the $25 healthcare minimum wage and by passing a worker retention law, but it can do much more.
Making Our Local government Transparent & Ethical
Lynwood residents should be able to trust our city government. It is evident that more guardrails are needed at City Hall. Lynwood must create an Independent City Ethics Commission and study other reforms such as campaign finance reform, a lobbyist registry, and ex-parte meeting disclosures. We must work to encourage resident participation because ultimately the decisions our council is making are on our behalf. We must create a participatory budgeting process, where residents can provide their input on how our tax dollars are spent. It also means we must live stream our meetings and permanently allow for remote participation via Zoom. Not everyone can rush from work or secure childcare to be there for an evening meeting. We also need to invest more in our City Clerk’s Office to ensure that residents can easily obtain public records. Many cities across LA County have websites and databases with easily retrievable information. Finally, we must ensure that our contracting process is fair and transparent.