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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

#231

Post by seanmcdirmid »

legitster wrote: post #223
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This...is not wrong. Pioneer Square in Seattle used to have a lot of flop houses, part of it being the original "skid row" (logs skid to the saw mill, really muddy and not a desirable place to live). My grandfather in Spokane unwittingly ran a rooming house we cousins called the "empty arms" (inherited from his sister), which housed a lot of people who were just barely getting by. Seattle's flop houses are mostly gon…

Publix in Seattle is a perfect example. A developer bought them out, them combined every 2-3 SROs to make a (still small) luxury apartment. I do not begrudge the developer. If you were to propose the opposite (taking an existing set of luxury apartments, and subdivide them into more rent paying units), it would probably be more profitable, but you would never get the plans approved.

> it would probably be more profitable, but you would never get the plans approved.

I'm not sure it would be in this market. Catering to people with money is pretty profitable. Catering to lower income tenants...even with more scale on your side, might not work out, especially with the extra overheads involved (with Seattle's strict eviction laws, for example). Most small-scale landlords in Seattle are trying to get away from even moderate income housing that might require them to fund moving costs because of future rent increases (as well as rising eviction costs...it doesn't make much sense to rent to anyone but a very well funded and low risk techie).

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

#232

Post by tgflynn »

wolverine876 wrote: post #169
tgflynn wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free markets serve those who pay the most As someone who has spent years in a low income situation due to health issues that hasn't been my experience. At least up until the pandemic food as well as many manufactured products, which are relatively unregulated, were quite affordable even for the lowest incomes. There's a large enough market of low income people so that companies like Walmart, dollar stores and even…

I am not doubting your experience, but I don't think we can project that to the larger situation. > At least up until the pandemic food as well as many manufactured products, which are relatively unregulated, were quite affordable even for the lowest incomes. The data shows otherwise, that many people haven't been able to afford food (think of school lunch programs) and especially quality food. Also, large 'food dese…

Well, I know that I could live spending less than 50% of my monthly income on food. Ignoring other subsidies however my rent would cost over 80% of my monthly income, so if I paid my rent, as people are likely to do first, it's true that I wouldn't have enough money for food.

So what I am saying does not contradict the claim that many people can't afford enough food, since most of their money is going to rent.

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

#233

Post by throwaway1777 »

mmoche wrote: post #40
throwaway1777 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We required everyone to get COVID treatment. (Especially in california)

Not only was it not "required," nearly 30% of the state of California remains short of full vaccination and restrictions are dropping daily. You can demand an end to "mandates" and public health emergencies, but you must then applaud when those things end.

Not technically required, but required for many workplaces. I do applaud an end to mandates even though I support vaccination and am vaccinated and boosted. And therein lies the problem.

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

#234

Post by peter303 »

A conservation think tank issued a report saying Denver spends about $400,000 per year per unhoused person.

https://commonsenseinstituteco.org/the-economic-footprint-of...

But drilling down finds 10% of that is direct budgeted other other 90% indirect like the cost of police sweeps, mental health, etc.

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

#235

Post by dionidium »

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.

Then you're just back to where you began -- a situation where government is going to need to takeover, because nobody can make a profit selling flophouses to indigent single men if they're required by law to make them as nice as middle-class apartments.

What modern Westerners seem entirely unwilling to acknowledge or accept is that if you require by decree that all accommodations look like middle-class accommodations, then you'll absolutely be able to get rid of all those worse accommodations, but you won't have done anything to address the reasons they existed in the first place.

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

#236

Post by dahfizz »

wolverine876 wrote: post #76
spicyusername wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spending $837,000 to build a single studio to house a single homeless person seems insane I don't think it was known, in advance, that this would be the resulting cost, assuming that figure is accurate. I don't think any rational person would put forward such a program and that $837,000 to build a single studio house seems insane to everyone, not just non-Californians. I think the point OP is trying to make is that…

> $837,000 That's not what is happening. 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.

This is a meaningless nitpick. Spending "over $700,000" to house an individual is just as insane as spending "up to $837,000". Its embarrassing and ridiculous either way.

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

#237

Post by tshaddox »

nine_k wrote: post #189
wolverine876 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

If the other option is living on the street, why not? The problem is that not everyone has a well-paid IT job, and some people barely make ends meet. These people need a place to live, too, a cheap, non-advanced place, with many corners cut for the sake of it being cheap to build and maintain. It's still much better than living in a tent as your primary residence!

> If the other option is living on the street, why not?

That's a big "if." Surely not a significant portion of this $800k or the cost of any "luxury" apartment is due to it having a kitchen and bathroom.

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

#238

Post by tshaddox »

dionidium wrote: post #235
rhizome wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then you're just back to where you began -- a situation where government is going to need to takeover, because nobody can make a profit selling flophouses to indigent single men if they're required by law to make them as nice as middle-class apartments. What modern Westerners seem entirely unwilling to acknowledge or accept is that if you require by decree that all accommodations look like middle-class accommodations…

> nobody can make a profit selling flophouses to indigent single men if they're required by law to make them as nice as middle-class apartments.

What exactly do you mean when you say "as nice as middle-class apartments"? Are you talking about how nice the carpeting and hardwood flooring is? How nice the building looks from the outside? How likely the roof is to leak or collapse? How safe the electrical wiring and fire suppression systems are?

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

#239

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

lisper wrote: post #149
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah communism is bad because it expects people to be fed and housed on state expenses while capitalism throws freeloaders off the wagon. sure its such a difficult proposition to implement in a free country. i mean i am in india and every poor household gets basically free rations every month, free healthcare in government hospitals and now even a medical insurance for treatments in private run hospitals at no cost.…

> communism Who said anything about communism? I was talking about forcing people to undergo mental health treatment against their will simply because they can't afford a place to live.

i was talking about "Free country". i feel sympathy for mental health treatment, that is why i said in india, medical treatment is essentially free now for rich and poor alike which is kinda big deal when it comes to increasing the overall health of communities. if you have less people who are sick, only because they did not have money for procedures otherwise, that is great.

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

#240

Post by polalavik »

jeffbee wrote: post #46

This is not a story about government waste, it's a story about the high cost of building housing. If you want this price to be lower, lower the general cost of housing. The median sale price in Los Angeles is about 1 million dollars, and new construction sells for more. New construction at $837k is a comparative deal. Also, if you read the report, a significant part of the cost is intragovernmental transfers, i.e. th…

It’s definitely both. LA taxpayers set aside some 1 billion dollars to address homelessness and instead of coming up with a viable solution the city chose to build 20-50 units at a time at the tune of 500-800k each to address a problem that exists orders of magnitude greater than that solution (~1000x). The number of homeless in Los Angeles is in the range of 60-70k if not more.
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