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Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

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Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

#81

Post by quartesixte »

mullingitover wrote: post #68
sevenf0ur wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberal policies is why Los Angles has been dealing with a homeless crisis for so long. Spending $837,000 to build a single studio to house a single homeless person seems insane to most of the country.

It's nothing to do with liberal policy. It was pure corruption that happened right under the noses of voters. The sales tax ballot measure to fund housing had an innocent-looking line which restricted the contractors eligible for the jobs. The contractors had to have experience building this type of housing. The problem with this is that there were only two contractors that met the requirement, and as a result they c…

God. And it was Democrats who pushed for it too IIRC.

Corruption deep on both sides of the aisle.

Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

#82

Post by [deleted] »

antihero wrote: post #34
rmason wrote: post #32

Do you realize that you could give that homeless person a first class ticket to Detroit? Put them up in a hotel until an abandoned house could be totally rebuilt for them. Pay their electricity, water, heating costs and taxes for the next ten years and still save California taxpayers $600,000!

Yes but would they want to go?

[deleted]

Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

#83

Post by wolverine876 »

dealforager wrote: post #59
mikeg8 wrote: post #39

I'm finishing construction next month an 1,100 sq/ft single family home in the north bay area; a very high cost-of-living region. We started construction in Sept 2021, after an intentional delay of a couple months to let lumber prices drop after peaking in May-June. My home will be built for about $350k (less land acquisition). I'm acting as contractor and have connections in the industry so very few can build at my…

The solution is real free markets. Constant government intervention in the housing market, the stock market, education, healthcare, and everything else under the sun has led us to where we are today. It always feels nice for a bit when the government bails you out, but the long term consequences are always much more severe. Prices are information and when all the information is polluted, it becomes very difficult to…

Why would free markets help homeless people? Is there any basis for this, other than claiming that one's favorite solution is the best? Free markets serve those who pay the most, which is good for allocating iPhones, but not for healthcare, basic housing, basic food, education, safety, etc., which should not depend on ability to pay.

> It's the same thing that happens in social media, trolls and bots pollute the information so it's impossible for most people to tell the truth apart from fiction.

Isn't that 'real free market', unregulated?

Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

#84

Post by kyleblarson »

GrantYE wrote: post #23
kansface wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40000 * 837000 = 33.48 billion dollars. This solution, as implemented, can not possibly solve the problem, ever. The upkeep on the housing alone would be a billion dollars a year!

Its because they don't actually want to house the unhoused. They want to make it seem like this impossible challenge to provide affordable housing that doesn't cost the average person in LA $1M+

It is the homeless industrial complex. A massive grift.

Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

#85

Post by rglover »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #69
pooper wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One question is, would that 800K + $100K/year go further somewhere else? Where is that money going now? Who gets this money now and why would they give it up?

Before it went into people's pockets, so they could care for their families and improve their life conditions.

Exactly.

Government stole it from tax payers to then act as a poorly run pseudo-charity, which is actually just a way for them to skim cream like mobsters while pretending to "do good." The foolish lap this up and immediately get defensive at anyone who proposes that, maybe, just maybe, politicians are lying to them and using their good nature against them. Maybe.

So, we get a consistently declining standard of living for everyone, decaying urban centers, and increasing numbers of homeless people, or, the truth: real lives that need real help being used as political chess pieces by a cadre of narcissists who are master manipulators.

Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

#86

Post by wolverine876 »

tempnow987 wrote: post #29

$837,000 is just the cost of the unit. If you are housing actual homeless, you MUST offer supportive services on-site or have some other types of supervision or these units are going to be trashed. You MUST budget for a lot of ongoing costs. I'd say $800K+ per unit + maybe $100K+/year for supportive services / maintenance etc? One question is, would that 800K + $100K/year go further somewhere else?

It's not the cost of the unit, per the article:

14% of the units build exceeded $700,000 each, and one project in pre-development is estimated to cost almost $837,000 per unit.

Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

#87

Post by mistrial9 »

jseliger wrote: post #36

L.A. is fighting against CEQA, Prop 13, and its own bureaucracy and process: https://seliger.com/2017/08/30/l-digs-hole-slowly-economics-... . If we're actually going to do something substantial about homelessness, we need to focus on abundance, not scarcity, and supply-side progressivism: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/opinion/supply-side-progr...

" fighting against CEQA" this is like identifying the color of the shirt that a security guard is wearing, and declaring it to be the problem. CEQA was enacted because, under the banner of "free markets" .. unbelievable, extreme, vast, sustained chemical pollution was laid out into the open air, soil and water, for profit, again and again and again.. Ordinary people literally cannot believe things that have been done in California and elsewhere, for short-term profits

Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

#88

Post by zdragnar »

RIMR wrote: post #73
linksnapzz wrote: post #15

I'll cut them a deal. LA can send me a check for merely $500,000; and I'll agree to never camp out on their streets. I also expect some sort of formal recognition for helping them meet their targets of reducing homelessness.

We get it, your socioeconomic status makes you confident that you'll never be affected by this problem, and you have no interest in improving the world for the people who are.

There are a lot of places in the country where you can live very comfortably for years on 500k.

The idea that the only solution to homelessness in LA is to build $500-800k units is plain pure foolishness.

Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

#89

Post by vkou »

scantron4 wrote: post #67
vkou wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it's worth noting that building a house isn't a hole that you throw money into, it's an asset that appreciates.

Not if it gets trashed by the residents.

In a world where housing prices grow in an unbounded, absolutely detached from reality manner, it is.

Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person

#90

Post by rcpt »

Dig1t wrote: post #78
nimbius wrote: post #17

the fact that any housing is getting built is frankly a refreshing turn of events. for people unfamiliar with los angeles, is very much a city of landed gentry. republican legislation designed to curtail rising taxes for elderly residents 40 years ago wound up creating a cloistered elite of land-owners that pay nearly nothing in tax and resist any attempt to create additional housing. They coast on a bubble of six-fi…

I think you're talking about this in pretty black/white terms and the partisan framing doesn't do much. Prop 13 is a double edged sword IMO. It does have the problem you describe of landed gentry not getting hit with high property taxes, but also it does protect middle class people from getting kicked out of their homes due to the popularity of the area they live in. My parents are the perfect example of this, my dad…

Low income seniors who hit the real estate jackpot can defer taxes indefinitely.

It's called the California Tax Postponement Program and solves exactly the problem you're discussing.

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