The Way Los Angeles Is Trying to Solve Homelessness Is ‘Absolutely Insane’
The New York Times, October 23, 2022: The Way Los Angeles Is Trying to Solve Homelessness Is ‘Absolutely Insane’
“In 2016 the people of Los Angeles overwhelmingly passed Proposition HHH, a ballot measure that raised $1.2 billion through a higher property tax to create 10,000 new apartments for the homeless. ‘The voters of Los Angeles have radically reshaped our future,’ Mayor Eric Garcetti said, ‘giving us a mandate to end street homelessness over the next decade.’
“Six years later, neither the mandate nor the money has proved to be nearly enough. In 2016, Los Angeles had about 28,000 homeless residents, of whom around 21,000 were unsheltered (that is, living on the street). The current count is closer to 42,000 homeless residents, with 28,000 unsheltered. Prop HHH has built units, but slowly, and at eye-popping cost. The city says that 3,357 units have been built, and the most recent audit found the average cost was $596,846 for units under construction — more than the median sale price for a home in Denver. Some units under construction have cost more than $700,000 to build.
“Karen Bass and Rick Caruso, the candidates vying to replace Garcetti, don’t tend to agree on much, but they agree that HHH hasn’t lived up to its promise. ‘To spend that kind of money per unit makes no basic common sense if you know anything about building,’ Caruso told me.
“Bass wasn’t much kinder. ‘If I’m elected as mayor, I want to go in and deal with homelessness like it’s a hurricane,’ she said. ‘I want to say: In ordinary times we have all these requirements, but this is a hurricane — we need to get people off the streets immediately. A lot of the rules and regulations that are there in ordinary times need to be relaxed.’
“But it’s not as if Garcetti wanted his signature effort to go down as an object lesson in government fecklessness. Listen to him now and there’s an unmistakable air of fatalism, of fights lost and limits learned. ‘Most of the causes into homelessness and most of the solutions out of homelessness are beyond the jurisdiction of the mayor,’ he told KCRW, a local radio station.”
Additional reading:
Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2022: Editorial: A fact check on Rick Caruso’s magical thinking about L.A. homelessness
Fox5 San Diego, October 24, 2022: This is how California could better approach the homelessness crisis, homeless advocate says
San Francisco Examiner, October 18, 2022: The causes of homelessness go way beyond the city limits of San Francisco
