This is on point, I'm Magna Chakra party, and you know there's a housing squeeze in the United States,

especially with affordable housing.

In Los Angeles, the city says it needs to build 57,000 new homes every year for the next eight years,

if it wants to put a roof over everyone's head. But,

not even one third of that number is actually being built annually.

Not even a third. And why?

Well, one reason the cost of construction is sky high.

In LA, the cost to build a single unit of affordable housing under the city's bond program

jumped to $600,000. That's $600,000 per unit just to build it.

So, I mean, let's be frank here, right? That is not an attractive investment for many, many developers.

Unless your Martin Muoto.

He's CEO of Solar Impact, a development company building affordable housing in South Central Los Angeles.

And Muoto says he can build housing at $250,000 per unit.

Not that $600,000 per unit, but $250,000 per unit, which is less than half of what it usually costs.

So, how is he doing it? Does this sound too good to be true?

Or has this immigrant American capitalist seen through the bureaucratic inefficiencies of the nonprofit housing sector?

And is he a nonprofit housing sector and found a better way to deliver on urgently needed homes for historically underserved Angelinos?

And if Muoto's doing it, why aren't other developers in other cities doing it too?

Well, he joins us today to tell us this story. Martin Muoto is with us from Los Angeles.

Mr. Muoto, welcome to On Point.

Thank you for having me.

First of all, before we get into how you unlocked, seemingly unlocked the secret of building affordable, affordable housing,

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