The title (which comes directly from the article) is surely clickbaity at best. It is not the case that there is one homeless person, whom LA is spending $837k to house; it is the case (so says the article, anyway) that LA has a massively overspending project whose amortised cost works out to "up to" (what a weasel word) $837k/person.
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
#132In 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…
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Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person
#133> Our European visitors are important to us.
> This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.
Thanks, I guess?
Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 info…
> 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 Amazon can make money serving that market.
Housing and medical care, on the other hand, are completely unaffordable for a significant fraction of the population without government assistance.
Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person
#135the 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…
> 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-figure increases in equity per year with little to prevent a ramshackle bungalow in inglewood from fetching a cash-only two million dollar price.
yeah right... this is all 'the republicans' fault. Say what you will about conservatives, but a party that has held majority since the nineties (and more recently a supermajority) has no one but themselves to blame.
Obviously prop 13 / single family zoning has had an effect on housing, along with taxes, onerous building codes and environmental regulation. However, as long the Homeless Industrial Complex controls the narrative with well-intention voters, and gets to call the shots on where / how to 'address' to problem, the problem of pervasive homelessness is not going to be fixed. We've simply created the wrong set of incentives.
Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person
#136Part of the problem is that due to the mild climate, LA inherits a large part of the homeless population of the whole country. They come from all 50 states to the west coast. So this isn't entirely a problem of LA's making, even though they have to bear the costs.
Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person
#137>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).
Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person
#138I'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…
Now build that in downtown LA explicitly for housing homeless folks, and let us know how your permitting process goes.
Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person
#139Do 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!
Do you realize that forced relocation is a crime against humanity?
Re: Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person
#140>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…
A large part of the cost is ongoing things like 24/7 security, sharps disposal, maintenance, etc. The costs per placement will hopefully go down over time but I don't think they will scale linearly