Despite a pledge made by Los Angeles City Council members last year to support new homeless supportive housing projects in each of their districts, there were zero approved in the northwest San Fernando Valley — otherwise known as Council District 12 — until last week.

Just days after the district’s residents elected John Lee as their representative in City Council, a Prop HHH-funded supportive housing project was approved by the city’s Housing and Community Investment Department, slated for potential development on Topanga Boulevard in Chatsworth.

The project is proposed as a supportive housing development for homeless individuals with 63 affordable studio apartment units and a unit for an on-site manager. The site is 10243 N. Topanga Canyon Boulevard, currently a car sales lot and garage.

If approved by City Council, Affirmed Housing Group, Inc. would develop the property and receive $8.3 million in money from Prop HHH, the $1.2-billion bond measure to build housing for the chronically homeless passed by voters in 2016.

That amount is only 29% of the development cost, with the other $20-plus million coming from state tax credits, state supportive housing, and federal Section 8 dollars.

Nearly three years after passing Proposition HHH, no units of the 10,000 promised to house the city’s most vulnerable homeless population have opened. Challenges of building housing in California from costs to bureaucracy have slowed the pace of development.

As described in an HCIDLA staff report, the Topanga Canyon Boulevard apartment complex would include office space for case management and social service providers, a rooftop terrace, a computer room and a bicycle garage. Construction is estimated to start in February 2021 and be completed by the following August.

The city’s Housing and Community Investment Department said in a statement that because this project was proposed in a city council district without previous Prop HHH development, it was “awarded points” to encourage geographic diversity.

The possibility of supportive housing in the northwest Valley was a campaign issue this year as Lee and his opponent from the district, Loraine Lundquist, competed for the CD12 seat.

They found common ground on the data, and the scope of the problem:

A report by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority said the number of people without permanent housing in the city surged 16% (to 36,300) this year across the city, and 2% in Council District 12 (from 647 to 660), despite a massive infusion of taxpayer money.

The homeless population in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys has grown about 4% to 8,047 in January, compared to the previous year, according to Los Angeles County data.

But their approaches to deadling with it differed.

During the campaign Lee, a former chief of staff for Englander, said he planned to “find ways to get some of these people who are on the street due to addiction into recovery centers. But we can’t do that until we start using some of the funding that is available to us,” he said.

But he was also sceptical of the city’s ability to deal with the issue, instead touting the nonprofit community’s success in dealing with people without shelter.

“These programs that we’re running in the city are not working and instead they are doing the opposite,” he said in June. “I believe they are driving more people into homelessness. We’re pushing the middle class into poverty with all the different fees and regulations that we put on apartment buildings that pass through to renters.”

Bringing such shelters to L.A. neighborhoods is not always a smooth ride.

L.A. City Councilman David Ryu, who represents Sherman Oaks, got a taste of that whe he had to face an angry crowd last year during an open house meant to provide information on homeless housing in Sherman Oaks. This month, Reseda leaders asked city officials to look beyond just their neighborhood in the search for parking lots that could be used to house people without shelter. And other city leaders have faced similar issues, before projects were ultimately approved. Most recently in the Valley, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission granted approval to Mercy Housing California’s proposal to build a permanent supportive housing complex for formerly homeless seniors at 14534-14536 Burbank Blvd., near the corner of Van Nuys Boulevard.

The potential Chatsworth project is scheduled to be discussed and voted on in the city’s Homeless and Poverty Committee on Sept. 18, with a possible vote at City Council thereafter.