Eva Longoria is desperate for some affordable housing.
The “Desperate Housewives” actress, who has long been involved in politics and various social causes, has joined forces with L.A. financier Bobby Turner to promote his housing fund that preserves low-income housing across the country.
“If you are spending 50 percent of your income on rent, you’re not spending on health care, not spending on education, not spending on nutrition and not where it needs to go,” Longoria told the L.A. Times. “That directly hits the community I represent.”
Longoria will be spokeswoman for the Turner Impact Capital housing fund. Turner has previously worked with former Lakers Magic Johnson to invest in shopping malls in economically desolate areas.
The Impact fund is in the process of acquiring $1 billion worth of units in mid-level apartment complexes. Instead of improving them with granite countertops, upscale appliances and other amenities developers use to raise rents, the income fund keeps the rents more affordable and offers social services to blue-collar and middle-income workers, according to the Tmes.
Renters can make no more than 80 percent of a neighborhood’s annual median income.
So far, Turner has collected properties in Maryland, Florida, Texas and Nevada. He said he’s actively looking in Southern California, but to no avail thus far.
According to a Harvard study, half of all tenants in the U.S. live in unaffordable homes, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent in 2014. In L.A., it’s especially bad. Nearly 60 percent of L.A. renters live in unaffordable homes, and among them, about half spend more than more than 50 percent of their income.
The National Association of Home Builders named Los Angeles the second least affordable housing market in the country Thursday. [LAT] — Cathaleen Chen