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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

#151

Post by slg »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #137
slg wrote: post #70

>The audit found 14% of the units build exceeded $700,000 each, and one project in pre-development is estimated to cost almost $837,000 per unit. It sounds like that "up to" in the title is doing a lot of work if 86% are below $700k. I would also like to throw in the added context that the median home price is roughly $915k[1]. Also be mindful whether we are discussing LA county or LA city. The article is about an LA…

I think comparing to the median SFH price is a bit apples to oranges. Keep in mind that (as far as I know?) the city isn't building actual houses. Most of these developments are more like college dorms or fancy campgrounds (e.g. a parking lot with a bunch of one room 8x8 shelters and a communal bathroom- granted those "tiny homes" are probably not the ones costing over $700k).

The sentence before that quote I pulled was "Most [emphasis mine] of the units are studios or one-bedroom apartments." That seems to imply that the 14% above $700k are probably 2 or more bedrooms and are designed for families. The article has no details on the costs per unit for the other 86% that likely include those dorm room style units.

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

#152

Post by buzzert »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #37
the_optimist wrote: post #25

The primary measure of success in the last two generations in the United States has been an ability to combine plausible incompetence and graft, while remaining protected under a banner of nouveau political theory. Los Angeles has a tremendous pool of talent in this regard, perhaps some of the best in the world. Areas which are very obviously less afflicted include areas of 'Los Angeles County' outside of --and quite…

Wildly superior in the physical realization of governance? Please. The reason why you don’t see homeless in these places is their policy is to use their police to force these people into LA. Go to venice and note how the tents stop immediately at the border with santa monica, and no its not because everyone who sets up in santa monica gets put into a shelter.

Be careful trying to spin this as a negative thing. A lot of people would actually be quite happy with their police force moving homeless people out of their town, regardless of where they end up.

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

#153

Post by pbuzbee »

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…

If property taxes were level across properties, wouldn't we likely see property values drop, given the presumed higher taxes in the future?

I'd rather see us adopt lower but uniform property tax rates that are revenue-neutral with Prop 13 rates.

Of course I'm only an aspiring property owner so I have a significant bias here.

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

#154

Post by wolverine876 »

ravenstine wrote: post #115
wolverine876 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Liberal policies Do you have any evidence of that? > Spending $837,000 to build a single studio to house a single homeless person seems insane to most of the country. That's not what is happening, in any meaningful way.

> Do you have any evidence of that? This is a totally valid question. Wouldn't the overwhelming liberal majority rule in California be evidence in and of itself? I guess there could be liberals in name who enact conservative policy (or maybe little policy at all), but I haven't seen evidence of that.

> Wouldn't the overwhelming liberal majority rule in California be evidence in and of itself? I guess there could be liberals in name who enact conservative policy (or maybe little policy at all), but I haven't seen evidence of that.

Good points.

First, what do the outcomes depend on? Policies of California state and local government are only limited factors. They do not create the economy, migration, weather, real estate development, etc. etc. (though they some limited effect on all of them). There are many other powers in the world. The government's power to control events is pretty limited.

Second, do we see any correlation between California government and these outcomes? Homelessness has existed worldwide probably for all time. A fundamental question is, with what is increased homelessness correlated?

Third, we don't know what the outcomes would be without the policy or with other policies. Negative outcomes don't indicate bad decisions - things could be worse. If you are dying of terminal disease, you don't assume the doctor's decisions are the cause, and therefore we'd be better off without healthcare. We are dealing with a difficult problem.

Finally, not all decisions and policies are partisan; people and publics are not politically consistent anwyay, and make policies for all sorts of reasons. And California has had Republican government on and off for a long time, and anything effects of government policy you see now are the outcome of decades of governance.

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

#155

Post by dangStupid »

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…

[flagged]

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

#156

Post by asdff »

rhizome wrote: post #111
mwint wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, we’d be better off if the government had done nothing. Seems like that happens a lot.

Well, what should have been done is enforce laws (and pass legislation if necessary) to prevent the SROs from being allowed to decline into slums.

Well they were often considered slums by politicians by who lived there, not by the craftsmanship of the build.

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

#158

Post by asdff »

legitster wrote: post #118
kjkjadksj wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voters didn’t order the SROs in bunker hill destroyed. Follow the money. Who stood to gain in the time when that SRO was raized into a parking lot then turned into the hotel Bonaventure in downtown LA? It wasn’t voters, it was a handful of politically connected people.

I think you may underrate how much people in the local community hated SROs. It was definitely politically popular at the time to remove them.

Yeah, voting whites hated the low income blacks latinos and asians who rented these, doesn't mean it was the right thing to do.

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

#159

Post by sfe22 »

jvanderbot wrote: post #109
long_time_gone wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like, we'd be better off if voters didn't demand short-term actions with negative long-term effects.

Precisely this. In LA there are constant referendums about homelessness, in CA massive budget increases, and yet, nobody will allow a shelter or multi-family unit to be constructed in their neighborhood, lest their soaring land value peak. In CA, it's my firm belief that people have a tad too much power over the minutae of government operations. What did we even elect people for if we are going to try to solve everyt…

So CA is too democratic in your opinion? It should slide more towards tyranny?

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

#160

Post by wolverine876 »

legitster wrote: post #145
wolverine876 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These units for the homeless are basically luxury condos. What is luxurious about them? Or are you referring to the price?

My grandparent's first apartment in SF didn't have it's own kitchen or bathroom. They thought it was a nice enough place, but you literally couldn't legally rent it out today.

> My grandparent's first apartment in SF didn't have it's own kitchen or bathroom. They thought it was a nice enough place, but you literally couldn't legally rent it out today.

Are you defining a unit with a kitchen and bathroom as a 'luxury apartment'? Would you live without them?

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