Live data from Hacker News

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

ktla.com

311–320 of 368 posts

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

#311

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?

I lived for 3 years in a college dorm with no kitchen or bathroom. I even had to have a roommate. Some of the best times in my life. For my senior year I moved into an apartment with my own bathroom and kitchen. It turned out to be a step down.

I’m sure if we offered folks without homes the opportunity attend university and live on campus instead, then some would definitely accept the offer!

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

#312
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 livin…

> Government stole it from tax payers Actually, we agreed that it was a good idea and organized our government to carry it out, and we broadly support it. > The foolish Commenters and citizens who disagree with you are "foolish"? People can't possibly disagree with you for legitimate reasons? Is your opinion the standard by which we measure legitimacy? Lucky I met you! > decaying urban centers Urban centers have been…

It's the wrong way since there is no independent entity monitoring these programs for efficiency. Government officials by and large don't care how much they spend and don't question when stuff like this happens. There is no way that small rooms in dense housing buildings should cost more than single family homes. There is either grift involved or homeless housing is WAY over regulated/zoned.

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

#313
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not quite Prop 13 but you can't have high increases in property values, and simultaneously have affordable housing. Sure you can, you just also need to build new housing. The key is that the new housing has to be higher density than the old housing — the value is primarily in the land, not the house. If a developer could legitimately and easily build a 4-plex where any single-family home exists right now, the price…

As of recently, you will be able to build a fourplex on any SFH plot, with the passage of SB9! It's not perfect, but it is a massive step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, for SB9, this is only true for you, not a developer -- it requires that the owner retain one of the units as a primary residence. That will make it much less applicable.

Definitely a step in the right direction though!

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

#314
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a single guy and a software engineer, I would pay full price for a pod housing if the area is safe convenient. I'd rent a co-working desk nearby and save a ton of money. These types of housing just aren't available in Vancouver (or NA in general), but I can totally see a market for it.

Saddens me that the top earners in our world have to dream of affordable housing so they can save a bit of money. Probably not enough to buy a house in that same area. Sigh.

No post body was provided.

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

#315
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a single guy and a software engineer, I would pay full price for a pod housing if the area is safe convenient. I'd rent a co-working desk nearby and save a ton of money. These types of housing just aren't available in Vancouver (or NA in general), but I can totally see a market for it.

Yeah I'm past this point in my life but there was nearly a decade post-college where I would have really enjoyed continuing to live in dorm-style housing with other people at a similar stage of life. Saving money on top of it would've made that a no brainer. It's a bit tangential to the discussion on SROs to address homelessness, but I wish that SROs were a more acceptable housing style for a variety of use cases.

My girlfriend lives in a household with 11 people in it by choice. It's not for me but I get the attraction.

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

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this proposition made it "less illegal" to be poor and a homeowner. Now poor people can keep their homes even if, through no fault of their own, property values rise around them. Property taxes in general are a complete sham, what other item do you continually need to pay for after you own it? And why is the amount you need to pay pegged to what other people in the neighborhood around you are doing?

> Property taxes in general are a complete sham, what other item do you continually need to pay for after you own it? City infrastructure needs constant maintnence, city services need to be constantly funded. And local schools (where most property tax in much of the USA goes) keep going even after your house is built (suffice it to say, areas with the best schools have the highest property taxes). > And why is the am…

This is demonstrably false, just because my property is "developed" (I'm not sure what developed vs non-developed means in this context) does not mean I consume more services. Homeowners are under no obligation to consume more city services because their property is nicer.

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

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this proposition made it "less illegal" to be poor and a homeowner. Now poor people can keep their homes even if, through no fault of their own, property values rise around them. Property taxes in general are a complete sham, what other item do you continually need to pay for after you own it? And why is the amount you need to pay pegged to what other people in the neighborhood around you are doing?

> Property taxes in general are a complete sham, what other item do you continually need to pay for after you own it? A sham? Unless you argue that most people are buying property under false pretenses, especially given the public nature of property taxes, the expectation would be that those purchasing land do so understanding the existence of on-going financial duties. As to why land is potentially materially differ…

A sham? Unless you argue that most people are buying property under false pretenses, especially given the public nature of property taxes, the expectation would be that those purchasing land do so understanding the existence of on-going financial duties. You're right, everyone knows it's a sham, that doesn't make it NOT a sham.

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

#318

In the last 50 years, cities across the country closed down over 1 million SROs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy ) in an effort to remove slums or just neglect at increasing property value. There are now over half of a million homeless. It's honestly impressive the number is not more. For the 1.2 billion dollars they are spending, if all of the apartments were built to the spec of a roadside mote…

SROs have returned as urban co-housing dorms for z-llenials. They consist of a cramped bedroom, sometimes with a private bath. But shared cooking, dining and recreation spaces.

The only thing is they often cost a lot relative to what they are and therefore aren't exactly a viable solution to someone who can't even manage rent with roomates

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

#319
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…

The city isn't spending $837K to house one homeless person, they've spent that on housing the first homeless person in that unit. Unless they're planning on these people never improving their situation to the point of moving out and for the unit to be destroyed in the process, the units can be reused. We'll see if the paper writes a story on how the cost of housing a homeless person has been cut in half after the uni…

Uhh, but isn't this how every build is calculated per unit? Its still expensive per unit, which is the whole point. Every unit can be used gain, apartments are never disposable.

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

#320
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Prop 19 more or less eliminated the landed gentry problem. Previously children could inherit their parent's primary residence and get their parent's tax base, even if they didn't want to live in the home. Before we bought a house we rented and my landlord was in that position. He already owned his own home in addition to several other properties in SF... yet he inherited his mom's house at a 200k tax basis, a house t…

Prop 19 only passed because it did not of course affect the landed gentry. You just register your home as an LLC.

https://www.hollisterlawoffice.com/the-llc-loophole-in-the-a...

Post reply on HN