Rising housing costs, increased homelessness, and the debate over illegal immigrants residing in publically assisted housing have renewed media and public interest in immigration's contribution to the Los Angeles, California area's problems of scarce low-cost housing, homelessness, and housing code violations. Recent data suggest that immigrants are disproportionately both the victims of and contributors to the housing crisis, although the problems are also aggravated by commercial conversion of low-cost housing, stagnating federal aid, and diminished tax and loan incentives. As the Los Angeles percentage of poverty-level residents has risen, the area's low-cost housing has become more scarce and increasingly costly. Mexico's and Latin America's problems continue to encourage an increase of immigrants, whose powerlessness has allowed unscrupulous landlords to rent properties to them that violate codes of safety and zoning. Suggestions for improvements include: (1) increased coordination between immigration and urban development policies; (2) rigorous immigrant screening for publicly assisted housing entitlements; (3) a national level concern and assistance; (4) policies to help ease the clustering of immigrants in major urban centers; (5) a reduction in low-wage, labor intensive urban industries that depend on foreign labor; and (6) stronger anti-housing discrimination laws, housing code enforcement, and assistance to newly legalized citizens in asserting tenants' rights. (JHP)