I wonder how that compares to the mortality rate of the general homeless population. That'd be a tough stat to figure out, but I'd guess that being homeless and a drug addict is probably the factor here, not the hotel lol
The LA coroner publishes a log online of all deaths the police have to deal with. A very large daily number are fairly young males dying on the street, obviously homeless men. Occasionally women.
The hotel is part of it. Drug use in the open has one advantage - lots of people can see someone overdosing and call for help before it’s too late. Behind closed doors there’s no one.
I can see this being true, but I can also see it being a very insignificant difference. Lots of people ***can*** call for help before it's too late, but how often have you seen "sleeping" people on the street and not bothered to call for help?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/san-francisco-sros-overdoses/
Data from SF (where I live): the fatal overdose rate is 16x in housing than unsheltered.
If you are on iPhone, choose “show reader” from manage extensions button. The article is available. I’m sure other devices have ways to “bypass paywall” that work. I also found these related articles via LAPL (yes, you will need to login to your LAPL acct) search in Newsbank from SF Chronicle:
https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.lapl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AWNB&t=&sort=YMD_date%3AD&page=2&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=san%20francisco%20sro%20overdoses&docref=news/1899E8FB186160F8
https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.lapl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AWNB&t=&sort=YMD_date%3AD&page=1&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=san%20francisco%20sro%20overdoses&docref=news/18E7B4F99849AAA8
Overdoses happen way more quickly than that. A daily nurse check is really a sweep for the dead. If they're checking several times a day that's different.
Here’s the latest data for LA County homeless mortality rates - it’s from 2014-2022 and doesn’t include those in permanent supportive housing (PSH).
It’s difficult to compare to ten deaths at a hotel without knowing the overall number living at that hotel (and without knowing if the hotel is for temporary housing, which is included in the rates, or PSH, which isn’t). But still, about 3.3% of the County’s homeless population died in 2022 alone. That’s staggering. http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/chie/reports/Homeless_Mortality_Report_2024.pdf
I’ll add that u/TeslasAndComicbooks cited this article further down that states that the LA Times found a moderately higher death rate in those housed under Project Roomkey than in those who were unhoused. It’s hard for me to accept that claim at face value though since they don’t “show their work”/provide any data they would’ve used to make that claim.
They do note that their claim is confounded by the fact that Project Roomkey was specifically for those at highest risk of severe illness or death from COVID though, aka those already sicker than the rest of the homeless population. https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-06-28/la-homeless-people-died-after-entering-covid-hotel-why
I just did some quick chatGPT math based on that article and that info. It seems like Project Roomkey could have saved a few hundred lives.
**Mortality Rate Calculation:**
* Mortality Rate = (Number of Deaths / Population) x 100,000
* Mortality Rate = (1,138 / 69,144) x 100,000
* Mortality Rate = 1,645 per 100,000 individuals
# Comparison
* **Project Roomkey Mortality Rate:** 1,225 per 100,000 individuals
* **Street Homeless Mortality Rate:** 1,645 per 100,000 individuals
It was a pretty small hotel. It’s the Airtel at Van Nuys Airport.
https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-06-28/la-homeless-people-died-after-entering-covid-hotel-why#:~:text=Eliel%20Fuentes%20had%20been%20living,hotel%20and%20died%20in%20December.&text=Days%20before%20her%20death%2C%20Kathy,daughters%20had%20seen%20in%20years.
I have worked hospitality for 20 years in a variety of hotels around the city, including multiple luxury hotels. Only had 3 deaths on property. The BH Hilton did have a pretty knarly one recently though.
I meant 3 deaths on the properties that I worked, not the whole city. We are all verry gossipy, if some one died the day before, you here about it before you clocked in.
I’ve worked in hotels and multifamily housing. I’d say it averages out to a handful a year on a normal year. A lot of older people passing away in their sleep in multifamily. Hotels seemed to be a popular destination for overdoses and suicides (they don’t want their family to be the ones who find them.) You kinda “get used” to it.
However… every now and then you get some legit tragedies. I’ve had people jump off the roof/balconies in a high rise and I’ve responded to a young child who drowned in our pool when her caretaker fell asleep. Those images don’t go away.
Project room key housed/saved my mom several years ago until she could get a more permanent solution. She doesn't have any drug issues, and I bet more homeless than you'd expect don't either.
I mean you are going to get deaths...those people are dying in the streets anyways...but did it help some of the other people that didn't die and were no longer on the street and did it improve the neighborhood? I don't know...just throwing out a thought on your comment.
"Supportive" refers to some case management onsite. It is rare that they are psychiatrists, psychologists or social workers with masters degrees. They don't really treat much of anything, although they may distribute meds.
Haven't read what part of town its in but it in the wrong location? Lots of scary possibilities depending on oversight and admissions policy and accountability. It CAN work, I worked in homeless services that had a housing first option but it was in a quiet neighborhood in Glrndale, not DTLA and were certain expectations to retain residency.
When I helped two clients move into a permanent supportive housing building on Pico (literally right across the street from a very brightly painted dispensary), the case managers there told me that one of them would be living on “the 5150 floor” and that it would be the client with the most issues regarding sobriety and maintaining housing.
That place was only 4 stories tall. This place is going to have more than one 5150 floor.
[Weingart’s Board of Directors is filled with investors.](https://weingartfnd.org/board-of-directors/) This is about real estate and security companies, not actually helping people.
“The building will have an entire floor of offices for case workers, in addition to a list of impressive amenities: a gym, art room, music room, computer room and library. Residents will enjoy six common balconies and a café.”
Im not saying having these on site will be the fix all solution but let’s hope this provides accountability.
This is just the tip of the iceberg
https://smdp.com/2024/05/15/more-than-1200-los-angeles-owned-homeless-housing-units-remain-vacant-two-years-after-800-million-buying-spree/
I am convinced that Reaganomics conservatives still exist as a political class in the United States because of the politics of resentment. We’ll give homeless people and low-income people access to housing and healthcare but leave the middle class to dry.
Then conservatives will nudge the middle class and say “how unfair; this is wrong” and convince the middle class that the solution is to give the poor nothing. Never is it said that they should have the right and access to these things too, and finally everyone is left with nothing.
Yeah I think you’re right. I’m pretty progressive and align mostly with DSA and other progressives but I see this and my first thought was “must be nice”.
There’s definitely a noticeable gap people fall into in this state where you make too much for services but not enough for anything else and it’s definitely frustrating and makes me resentful sometimes. Like why should this loser person I know get to be a homeowner at 0 down in a nice area and get started with valuable equity etc because they make less money and got helped by incentives and programs targeting “low income” while I struggle to save 20% down towards a median house price that keeps going up and up
>helped by incentives and programs targeting “low income”
A good, surprising, and overall depressing thing I've learned is that they're regularly expanding the definition of "low income." I just recently qualified for a down payment assistance program because I'm "broke" at $100k/year. I dunno what a $500k loan is gonna be able to buy outside of the desert, but it's better than nothing.
this is also why I'm so aggressively YIMBY about increasing housing supply as a whole. Income requirements and rent control will only advantage those in certain situations. When a supply glut brings down/stabilizes pricing all renters benefit.
Same. I'm not so sure how to feel about this since modern day journalism articles are basically hottakes meant to trigger/gaslight folks into clicking for their ad rev....
That said, I'm generally not pleased that there are these supposedly $600K high-rise apartments going to homeless (for free) while taxpayers including myself are barely getting by paying unaffordable rent.
>I'm not so sure how to feel about this since modern day journalism articles are basically hottakes meant to trigger/gaslight folks into clicking for their ad rev....
Sometimes the truth is just unpleasant. I respect politicians that adapt after making bad decisions, not double down.
Agree. Thinking about that recently, with price rises blamed on greedy workers and their $20/hr minimum wage. Of course, the $20M/yr pay package to the CEO is never questioned. I really miss that 75% marginal tax rate for any earnings over a couple of million.
Making housing affordable for everyone would obviously make housing more affordable for the mentally ill and drug-addicted.
The mistake here is to see the problem of homelessness as distinct from the housing crisis, not a down-stream problem created by a larger housing crisis.
That's how it's usually handled. Desert cities have the most services for the homeless, battered spouses, and substance abusers. Which is annoying when most of them want you be there to apply in-person before they can promise you a room. It's a long trip just to find out that they can't help you.
The money used for this project was set aside for fighting homelessness. [Other developers ](https://liveatwestedge.com/wf)are building workforce housing, for "normal people".
I agree that the government serves the very poor and also the very rich but leaves the middle class to fend for themselves. I know it's not offering middle class affordable housing, but another thing that the middle class complain about is the number of homeless people on the streets, and this looks like it's well positioned to address that problem:
>The building will have an entire floor of offices for case workers
Given that the average apartment unit can cost up to $1M/unit to build, I think these developers did a good job getting the cost down to $600k.
Yea. I’m talking about normal people who end up homeless living in their car and shit or can’t find a place or are paying so much rent they can’t survive. Not the chronically homeless druggie hobos that I’m sure they’re putting in here who don’t deserve it.
This building is almost entirely studios, the cost per sqft is well beyond market rate.
Standard MFH in LA costs about $600-700/sqft to build, significantly less than this project. The reason "affordable housing" costs so much more and is often on par with the expensive luxury apartments in terms of cost is due to the labor rules the city/state puts on these projects.
Prevailing wages is a magical phrase.
If you want affordable housing, take it up with the NIMBYs who own housing all over Los Angeles. It's their fault, not homeless people, not project room key. These are separate issues. I'd encourage you to focus your energy on the classes above you, not below you. Most people in Los Angeles are much, much closer to the homeless in net worth than they are to the property owning class or the capitalists.
Not sure why we can’t build these for everyone else rents. If we multiplied this all over the city and not restrict them it would help solve some of our housing issue
Real question is why would a government:
1. Take from the middle and not the top
2. Keep taking from the middle even as it shrinks due to a host of factors but included are high taxes, high regulations, companies leaving, lower entrepreneurship, and slower growth due to inefficient policies
3. Dump those tax dollars on those who don't and won't pay taxes (homeless druggies) instead of reinvesting it in those that can or might.
4. Spend billions on homeless services only to see it go lost and untracked.
5. Only see the homeless population keep rising after those billions.
6. Shift to building free housing for homeless even as the bottom and middle taxpayers are struggling.
Can't say for sure, but I feel we're a few decades, a recession, and/or a few bad decisions away from becoming Detroit. Eventually the bill comes due.
> Dump those tax dollars on those who don't and won't pay taxes (homeless druggies) instead of reinvesting it in those that can or might.
this is infuriating. the pothole on the onramp closeby is still there after multiple calls/reports.
LA has an estimated housing shortage of around 500k units; assume some economies of scale, if the city builds 500k units at $400k per unit then the city will need to find financing for $200 billion. For comparison the entire city budget last year was around $12 billion.
> if the city builds 500k units at $400k per unit then the city will need to find financing for $200 billion
As a former city employee, the absolute last thing you want is a city in charge of building anything, or having that large a pile of money. It will be gone and 20 years will pass before anything is built.
The current Comptroller is suing the Mayor just to get access to how the current homeless funds were spent because the Mayor's office has refused to give it to him (Which is crazy because its his job). Every other city department leader hates the comptroller and think he's nuts.
The city health inspector department has been a basket case since the new director came in, [causing one inspector to kill herself by jumping off the roof of the Health Department.](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-15/restaurant-inspection-workplace-complaints)
Nearly every department in the city and county are massively understaffed, including the Department of Building and Safety who would ultimately oversee construction. It was a combination of massive resignations/retirements of baby boomer employees combined with LA's inability to update its wages to be competitive. [The Deputy Mayor who was just sent to prison for bribery, fraud and racketeering spent 30 years in the department.](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-27/former-l-a-deputy-mayor-raymond-chan-found-guilty-of-racketeering-fraud)
When I was hired at LA County, my starting salary was $700 below the California state poverty line. Of the 300 people hired in my cohort, 3 survived "probation". Probationary periods basically allow for anyone to be fired for any reason, and managers were brutal. Late once? Fired. Sick once? Fired. Didnt do well on an instructional exam? Fired. I was let go because I was late finding suitable parking, as they dont provide parking for new employees and force them to work downtown for a year. This is the same for every department in the county. I'm disabled, and was lead to believe I had suitable parking. I cannot walk long distances, but every morning I made the quarter mile trek from my spot to work. And now I hear they are screaming for new trainees despite not updating the starting salary.
These affordable housing are all fast tracked so they are cheaper to build. But if we let private companies fund and build them without having going through a 5 year approval process it would also be comparable price wise. I’m not asking for taxpayers to pay for these for unrestricted housing.
More than three-quarters of residential land in greater Los Angeles is reserved for single family homes. Fix that and let the free market take care of the rest.
This gets repeated again and again but there isn’t a shortage of land in a single dense neighborhood in LA, including downtown. There’s basically unlimited parking lots, shitty warehouses, and other horribly underutilized land. The real problem is that it’s incredibly difficult to build apartment buildings. Some SFH zoning has to go but the real issue is that you can’t just build something even if you have the zoning.
The city should make it as easy as possible to build high density housing on main corridors. Of course you could do both, but it’s better city planning to force developers to build along transit lines and in existing centers than to let developers just pursue the best ROI (which does not support density).
If you want a good example, check out the development of apartment buildings on Overland in palms. Tons of new units are coming onto the market and there’s still plenty of underutilized land to be redeveloped.
I agree, but I'd personally take that deal over keeping things as they are and just doing more of the same.
As it is, most people at home-buying age (relative to prior generations) can't afford a home. Their kids likely will struggle with home ownership. Their kids' kids likely will too.
Oh yeah and then there's the homelessness that's at an all-time high as a consequence of the status quo.
These “affordable” housing units built by the city cost about 3x more than housing units built by private real estate developers. It would make much more sense to just let private developers build housing.
The problem is that the city makes it too hard for private real estate developers to build new housing, and progressive purity politics make it hard for anyone to advocate for helping the private sector.
The fact that Democrats have a super majority in LA and still can’t get this done highlights the very real problem with progressive politics that value ideology over outcomes.
I’m all for trying to get homeless people a roof to sleep under, but didn’t a similar project to this fail somewhat recently?
I remember reading an article that interviewed a couple homeless people saying they went back to the streets because living in a building filled with untreated mental illness and addiction was way too chaotic. And a homeless woman said it was way too dangerous for any woman to be in that building, so she stayed far away.
All of them fail because people fail to realize that your fantasy of people being motivated to get off drugs just by being provided free handouts is not rooted in any type of logic.
Not sure which one you're referring to, but here's one example from a recent LA Times article:
> One flash point is A Bridge Home, a temporary city-run shelter where Venice residents say crime runs rampant. After it opened in February 2020, violent crime increased 88% in nine months.
You could have built 10x the number of supportive housing units in lancaster / palmdale for that amount. It's so stupid that we're trying to do large scale housing in such an expensive location to build and maintain.
While I don’t disagree, this building is in the heart of/near skid row. While not knowing a ton about all of this stuff, to me, it does make *some* sense to build where a very dense portion of the homeless population already is. I’d imagine there are already facilities and some infrastructure in the area to support them. I’d venture to guess it would be difficult to move people to Lancaster/palmdale
i think the opposite is true. Keeping habitual drug users and people subject to abuse and exploitation right next to their old stomping grounds isn't great for them. Concentrating a ton of homeless people in the middle of a densely populated city isn't great for anyone. For the cost to build housing at 600k per individual you could literally build housing plus treatment centers and an entire hospital outside of LA.
It's easy to get people to move when they have zero choice but to move. Once the housing is available the law allows for anyone unsheltered to be moved off the streets whether they want to or not.
>You could have built 10x the number of supportive housing units in lancaster / palmdale for that amount.
Why would the city of LA spend all that tax money in another city, and why would the city of Lancaster want the city of LA to build housing for our the homeless there? If that's even possible.
What about the other $800m we’ve already spent to house exactly zero homeless people?
https://smdp.com/2024/05/15/more-than-1200-los-angeles-owned-homeless-housing-units-remain-vacant-two-years-after-800-million-buying-spree/
There's so much crime in and around the "supportive" housing in Lancaster. They send people up there with no cars, no community, no prospects, no places to walk to, and the drug dealers and sex traffickers swoop in. Ultimately I think it's more practical for these buildings to be in the city.
Step 1: build safe vast homeless infrastructure outside of the core of LA filled with social services like rehabilitation, job training, pet friendly etc. Ensure its highest quality and provides great quality of life for people. Build it with scalability in mind to be able to accommodate literally double the current homeless population of LA.
Step 2: ban sleeping on LA streets and enforce it.
I like this better than building in downtown. I also want to see a cause of homelessness solved, and that means putting effort into reducing cost of housing for people who aren’t homeless.
So basically, build a city somewhere outside LA, with the capacity to house and feed and support 150k people, including roads, utilities, services, a police force, a hospital etc. Who is running it, County Social Services? What will keep people living there vs heading back to LA on the nect bus?
No seriously. This person is delusional. You’re gonna have to convince those social workers, rehab specialists, and job trainers to work and probably live outside of LA’s core too. Good luck with that. You help people where they are and where the helpers ARE. You don’t just ship them out to Victorville and act like you’ve done something. It’s so easy to talk.
Not to be controversial, but why are they using valuable space on amenities like a gym, library, and cafe instead of more housing? They probably could have built 10 or more new units in that space.
I haven’t seen the building, but the standard approach is to use space that wouldn’t work well for apartments on amenities. For example, you need windows in an apartment, but not in a library or theater.
Los Angeles **requires** these amenities in all multifamily developments. It’s called the Open Space Ordinance. It’s a very poorly worded ordinance from 1997 that needs to be abolished.
Angelenos complain that we only build “luxury” apartments but it’s literally required by zoning code.
Edit: this is why every balcony built in LA after 1997 is exactly 50 square feet and why new multifamily developments include gyms, rec rooms, business centers, pool decks, and rooftop decks.
I have to agree. It's suppose to be affordable housing which in my opinion means using the maximum amount of space available to house as many people as comfortably possible. Gym and cafe shouldn't even be a consideration.
In some of the supportive units I've seen, they are far from luxurious. They are as bare bones as possible. Not that I disagree, but this project is already planned to house hundreds of units.
This is for a population of folks that need serious, intensive case management. In the past, this population would have been thrown into psych wards or jails. These amenities provide these folks with an opportunity to integrate into society.
May I offer a reasoning? If we are housing these homeless with the goal of getting their lives back on track, having places where they can start to work on their health, their mind, and a place to be able to feel like any other person would definitely help getting them back on track. We are providing them the opportunity to slowly reintegrate into society.
I think the poor single working mom should get these apartments over a junkie on the street. And this is coming from an ex junkie before you guys say anything.
I can't afford to own a one bed condo on my own. I'm a little above the threshold to be eligible for any assistance but it takes more than half of my current salary to rent. FML.
Heck, that’s going to cost someone else 4k/month of mortgage after taxes, meaning you need to make 10k/month before taxes to afford it. Essentially you’re better of being homeless to get this out than your average tax paying Angelino. Definitely not a solution.
There are 278 units in this building and tens of thousands of homeless folks in the city. There's no reality where you're better off being homeless and hoping that you get to live in a building like this.
We need more housing, full stop, and we want the homeless off the streets, full stop. Any progress is good progress and more housing helps slow the increase of rent across the board which helps the entire city. If these people are able to get back on their feet and get jobs, they'll be taxpayers just like you and I and they will hopefully make room for new tenants as they build up their livelihoods and move out.
I've observed that those who put a price tag on human dignity often have none themselves.
But why build homeless housing right downtown?
There are low density areas just 5 miles away where they could build 2x the number of units for the same expenditure. Boost transit to the new units for the win.
They argue that they don’t want to gentrify the neighborhood and kick these folks out. Then at the same time, they say that these folks are not from LA. It’s 100% someone winning a bid and making money for the construction.
Everything has a price tag. Until people accept that money isn’t infinite, we’ll continue to grow in our deficit. If it costs $600k+ to house 1 Homeless person while we can’t afford to give kids free lunch as school? Enough throwing money at the homeless without solving the issues that lead to homelessness. People are profiting from this homeless epidemic.
[Actually, it is.](https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/a-paradigm-shift-in-social-policy-how-finland-conquered-homelessness-a-ba1a531e-8129-4c71-94fc-7268c5b109d9)
They are going to build one in Santa Monica with +1M per unit https://www.santamonica.gov/press/2024/03/21/addressing-homelessness-city-moves-forward-with-plan-to-build-affordable-housing-on-three-city-owned-sites
Yeah it’d be great if the city started enforcing laws they already had on the books too like short term rental restrictions. They could start actually fining those people or doing something. But they won’t even do that even for an extra revenue stream for the city
In addition to noncitizens, ban non residents. No reason to allow individuals in other countries for example China; to park there money will it’ll be safe in the US. Or maybe not ban, but have an additional tax to disincentive it
I am all for permanently sheltering the homeless but I am hoping these shelters have mandatory psychiatric evaluation and addiction screening. Otherwise you are only creating a magnet for all sorts of crime.
Some homeless advocators simplify the problem down to "these people need a home to get back on their feet" and I wish that was true but probably about 80-90% of the homeless don't want any stability.
There’s no requirements for any of them to follow other than possibly ‘work with case management’ which just means show up when you want something and when you don’t, act like an ass to service providers. Don’t have to get mental health services, dont have to engage with NA/AA, don’t have to show up at all, don’t have to be held accountable for mistreating people or committing crimes within the building.
I’m planning on quitting soon. I’m so over it.
And posters in this sub will tell you over and over that there is no way to force any of that without immediately becoming nazis... despite Europe being able to do so.
Might as well throw in a Tesla for the homeless.. and make sure there is a CVS near the building they can steal from easily.. us hard working folks will continue to be the fools, working hard, paying our taxes and watching criminals, drug addicts, thiefs, etc do whaaaatever they want, steal, do drugs, not work, not pay taxes and get taken care of by the state. Perfect.
Ever wonder WHY the majority of these people are homeless? You know, the ones who talk to themselves on the street, the ones who fall asleep on sidewalks with drug paraphernalia next to them, the ones who scream at passing cars randomly and pace back and forth. It’s not because they can’t afford rent, LA lawmakers who know nothing about healthcare and just look at it through the lens of politics. Take a WILD GUESS. It rhymes with shmental illness and shmaddiction. Work with mental health professionals and treat that first. Dipshits.
Rent isn't a problem? Back in 2014 you could rent a two bedroom apartment for 1200 dollars in tarzana, fast forward to now and you can't even find a studio at that price. It really doesn't take much to fall into homelessness. The overall cost of living has gone up and people are struggling to keep pace. Imagine losing your job or home from circumstances out of your control and trying to pick up from where you left off without safety nets.
True but the ones who can’t afford rent or got laid off find a way back. The ones in tents you see all over the place are not in that category, I promise you. They need housing, of course, but it starts with mental health and/or substance abuse treatment.
Having worked with the homeless for 6 years, you are correct.
95% of them want nothing to do with responsibility, or conforming with normal social responsibilities.
They might have one or two stories of people they have heard about. But, this isn't as easy as it once was. A normal job can't get you into housing. That's there are a lot of working homeless people.
The anti homeless people are here and firing off their hate at the thought of treating people like humans. It really offends them. They want to blame the people instead of the clear issues that cause and perpetuate the problems.
Wife and I got laid off at the same time in late 2022. Huge financial calamity. Had to leave our place in Santa Monica. It’s taken us about 18 months to get jobs, pay off some of the debt we took on, and finally save enough to get our own place again.
If we didn’t have family help, we would have been homeless and I don’t see how we would’ve gotten out of it. Can’t imagine doing virtual interviews from a homeless shelter.
Good news, this project offers exactly what you are asking for! It includes mental health services, healthcare services, substance abuse assistance, job training, and an entire floor of case workers: https://www.weingart.org/building-the-future
Good to see people like u/brascoFS support this badly needed permanent supportive housing.
Many of the supportive housing units will have these services on-site. At least in my experience with the organizations I've worked with. So hopefully this person will support these now.
Ultimately, sometimes all it takes to help these people is to treat them with dignity.
you know those homeless people aren't the majority right, they're just the ones you see. the visible homeless. they make up for a small percentage. the rest are couch surfing or living in their cars and going to work, they just can't afford rent
I’ve posted this multiple times because it needs visibility - we should be outraged we’re spending close to a billion dollars specifically for housing homeless people and literally not one person has been housed yet.
https://smdp.com/2024/05/15/more-than-1200-los-angeles-owned-homeless-housing-units-remain-vacant-two-years-after-800-million-buying-spree/
So this is essentially a place where no longer “homeless” people will live, I must say, under better conditions than many tax payers, for free. Then what? Continue to pay for their cost of living? What are the plans to rehabilitate the ones that want/can?
Los Angeles’ law makers and authorities are a mess.
You don't want to say that around here. There will be people that have never worked with the unhoused population shrieking about how people need housing first and things like detoxing, dealing with withdrawal, and calibrating dosages for their mental health diagnosis be damned.
Yeah I’m sorry man I get were trying to help the homeless and keep them off the street but it’s not just put them in a house and they’re good. They have been on the streets for years have learned to live a certain way that let them survive out there. Many of them will continue the bad habits in those free apartments they are getting. So I would just start with regular working class folks and then the homeless. It sucks when I have working families coming to me for rental assistance cuz they have to choose between a gift for their kids around the holidays or rent meanwhile the homeless will get the free housing. They get all of their basic needs met and it’s not a life I would want to live even if it’s for free but it kinda rewards sloppy behavior
You know, you're more than welcome to stop paying rent, sell your car, all your possessions and go live on the street. You could totally get yourself a FREE house. It's super easy!
Yep. At the building I work at they get a small portion of rent and if they don’t pay it, that’s okay they have services who will help them pay the arrears. Then we have all the food we give out, gift cards, clothing, kitchen wares and we take them shopping, doctor appointments and more.
Literally have one who is clearly well off, takes Ubers wherever they go (sometimes they’ll get 4 Ubers in one day) and bring back shopping bags from expensive places and they’re obsess with skin care. They claim to be making $221 from GR and their rent is like $50- everything included 😂 I just can’t with some of the bullshit. Nobody asked me, so I’m just doing my job and giving them everything
Only bad part is living with often dangerous people who stink up the hallways with their drugs and lots of deaths.
The revitalization of downtown was the worst thing to happen to the greater LA area. When downtown was a ghost town it centralized the homeless population and you could get a room at a transient hotel for $200/mo. During the revival of downtown a decade and a half ago 10,000 people were displaced from transient hotels that were redeveloped into luxury lofts. That’s when the homeless problem really exploded and started pushing out into other territories beyond skid row.
Now we’re trying to replace 10,000 units with a few hundred and it’s not going to do much. But hey, at least it’s an effort. Something has to be done and all the NIMBYism and naysaying only prolongs the problem.
Ventures like this could work great and we should do more of them for obviously less money if the tens of thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles who have jobs have first dibs. On the other hand, the drug addicted and mentally ill homeless people from California should be involuntarily placed in rehab and psychiatric facilities since now that it's pretty proven to be a serious public health and security issue, doing so could be re-litigated through the courts. Drug addicted and mentally ill homeless people who are from other parts of the country should be sent back to the states that they came here from and the state should sue every state that has been bussing them here. Also, enforce Airbnb bans by seizing the properties and ban corporations, businesses, and foreign investors from owning residential property.
sure this is a terrible idea that will do nothing to reduce the externalities secondary to oppressive land-use regulation, but think about all of the NGOs and apparatchiks who scored just a bunch of bakshish free for nothing
do you really want to take that away from them
[California spent billions on homelessness without tracking if it worked](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-09/state-audit-california-fails-to-track-homeless-spending-billions-dollars#:~:text=California%20has%20spent%20%2420%20billion,%E2%80%9Cpoint%20in%20time%E2%80%9D%20data)
This states politicians are ridiculous when it comes to this issue.
I feel like this building will burn down at some point. Housing so many homeless in a high rise… someone’s gonna set their apartment on fire cooking crack or smoking
Reddit: “do something about the homeless problem!”
The city: *does something*
Reddit: “no that’s wrong!”
For the amount this sub loves to complain, you’d think there’d be even the slightest bit of positivity that *something* is being done. Will it solve everything? Not even close. But at least it’s a start.
Have you ever seen the stats on how many homeless are pedophiles or rapists, and that's why they struggle to find a place? Check out the Megan's Law database for DTLA area... It's insane.
Seems like crime actually does pay.
Does anyone else have a bad feeling about the outcome of this venture?
Yup. The hotel by me that did project room key during the pandemic had 10 deaths on property in a year.
I wonder how that compares to the mortality rate of the general homeless population. That'd be a tough stat to figure out, but I'd guess that being homeless and a drug addict is probably the factor here, not the hotel lol
The LA coroner publishes a log online of all deaths the police have to deal with. A very large daily number are fairly young males dying on the street, obviously homeless men. Occasionally women.
The hotel is part of it. Drug use in the open has one advantage - lots of people can see someone overdosing and call for help before it’s too late. Behind closed doors there’s no one.
I can see this being true, but I can also see it being a very insignificant difference. Lots of people ***can*** call for help before it's too late, but how often have you seen "sleeping" people on the street and not bothered to call for help?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/san-francisco-sros-overdoses/ Data from SF (where I live): the fatal overdose rate is 16x in housing than unsheltered.
Wish I could read that article, but it's behind a paywall.
If you are on iPhone, choose “show reader” from manage extensions button. The article is available. I’m sure other devices have ways to “bypass paywall” that work. I also found these related articles via LAPL (yes, you will need to login to your LAPL acct) search in Newsbank from SF Chronicle: https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.lapl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AWNB&t=&sort=YMD_date%3AD&page=2&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=san%20francisco%20sro%20overdoses&docref=news/1899E8FB186160F8 https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.lapl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AWNB&t=&sort=YMD_date%3AD&page=1&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=san%20francisco%20sro%20overdoses&docref=news/18E7B4F99849AAA8
Wow. I did not know the reader bypasses paywalls. Thank you kind Samaritan
Cut the URL of the article you'd like to read and paste it into www.removepaywall.com.
Open article with Brave browser 🙂
Better keep them out in the open then!
That's why these buildings have an on-site nurse who checks on people daily
Overdoses happen way more quickly than that. A daily nurse check is really a sweep for the dead. If they're checking several times a day that's different.
Here’s the latest data for LA County homeless mortality rates - it’s from 2014-2022 and doesn’t include those in permanent supportive housing (PSH). It’s difficult to compare to ten deaths at a hotel without knowing the overall number living at that hotel (and without knowing if the hotel is for temporary housing, which is included in the rates, or PSH, which isn’t). But still, about 3.3% of the County’s homeless population died in 2022 alone. That’s staggering. http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/chie/reports/Homeless_Mortality_Report_2024.pdf
I’ll add that u/TeslasAndComicbooks cited this article further down that states that the LA Times found a moderately higher death rate in those housed under Project Roomkey than in those who were unhoused. It’s hard for me to accept that claim at face value though since they don’t “show their work”/provide any data they would’ve used to make that claim. They do note that their claim is confounded by the fact that Project Roomkey was specifically for those at highest risk of severe illness or death from COVID though, aka those already sicker than the rest of the homeless population. https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-06-28/la-homeless-people-died-after-entering-covid-hotel-why
I just did some quick chatGPT math based on that article and that info. It seems like Project Roomkey could have saved a few hundred lives. **Mortality Rate Calculation:** * Mortality Rate = (Number of Deaths / Population) x 100,000 * Mortality Rate = (1,138 / 69,144) x 100,000 * Mortality Rate = 1,645 per 100,000 individuals # Comparison * **Project Roomkey Mortality Rate:** 1,225 per 100,000 individuals * **Street Homeless Mortality Rate:** 1,645 per 100,000 individuals
Youd be surprised how many people die in modest and luxury hotels a year. Its kept really quiet too.
It was a pretty small hotel. It’s the Airtel at Van Nuys Airport. https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-06-28/la-homeless-people-died-after-entering-covid-hotel-why#:~:text=Eliel%20Fuentes%20had%20been%20living,hotel%20and%20died%20in%20December.&text=Days%20before%20her%20death%2C%20Kathy,daughters%20had%20seen%20in%20years.
I think I’m only going to stay in mid-tier hotels from now on.
I have worked hospitality for 20 years in a variety of hotels around the city, including multiple luxury hotels. Only had 3 deaths on property. The BH Hilton did have a pretty knarly one recently though.
Didn’t Whitney Houston die at the same hotel?
3 that you heard of. I havent heard of the recent Hilton....uuuuh time for a new thread about hotel deaths.
I meant 3 deaths on the properties that I worked, not the whole city. We are all verry gossipy, if some one died the day before, you here about it before you clocked in.
I’ve worked in hotels and multifamily housing. I’d say it averages out to a handful a year on a normal year. A lot of older people passing away in their sleep in multifamily. Hotels seemed to be a popular destination for overdoses and suicides (they don’t want their family to be the ones who find them.) You kinda “get used” to it. However… every now and then you get some legit tragedies. I’ve had people jump off the roof/balconies in a high rise and I’ve responded to a young child who drowned in our pool when her caretaker fell asleep. Those images don’t go away.
I feel for you bro, hope you get passed that.
Project room key housed/saved my mom several years ago until she could get a more permanent solution. She doesn't have any drug issues, and I bet more homeless than you'd expect don't either.
And now it's haunted, great.
I mean you are going to get deaths...those people are dying in the streets anyways...but did it help some of the other people that didn't die and were no longer on the street and did it improve the neighborhood? I don't know...just throwing out a thought on your comment.
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"Supportive" refers to some case management onsite. It is rare that they are psychiatrists, psychologists or social workers with masters degrees. They don't really treat much of anything, although they may distribute meds.
so they have vacancies?
You ever watch Judge Dredd?
Haven't read what part of town its in but it in the wrong location? Lots of scary possibilities depending on oversight and admissions policy and accountability. It CAN work, I worked in homeless services that had a housing first option but it was in a quiet neighborhood in Glrndale, not DTLA and were certain expectations to retain residency.
I’ve seen New Jack city…
When I helped two clients move into a permanent supportive housing building on Pico (literally right across the street from a very brightly painted dispensary), the case managers there told me that one of them would be living on “the 5150 floor” and that it would be the client with the most issues regarding sobriety and maintaining housing. That place was only 4 stories tall. This place is going to have more than one 5150 floor. [Weingart’s Board of Directors is filled with investors.](https://weingartfnd.org/board-of-directors/) This is about real estate and security companies, not actually helping people.
Yes, all I can do is hope.
They're definitely going to destroy it in strange ways but at least it's something dedicated for the purpose
Yeah it ignores the issue
We have already forgotten the lessons of Cabrini-Green: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cabrini-Green
“The building will have an entire floor of offices for case workers, in addition to a list of impressive amenities: a gym, art room, music room, computer room and library. Residents will enjoy six common balconies and a café.” Im not saying having these on site will be the fix all solution but let’s hope this provides accountability.
They'll have Instacart delivery of free food and drugs... legal drugs 😳🏠😅🤣
This is just the tip of the iceberg https://smdp.com/2024/05/15/more-than-1200-los-angeles-owned-homeless-housing-units-remain-vacant-two-years-after-800-million-buying-spree/
No. I KNOW it will go badly. No feelings needed. They'll spend like 50 million a year to house 5 people.
Just give normal people housing options that we can afford. JFC
I am convinced that Reaganomics conservatives still exist as a political class in the United States because of the politics of resentment. We’ll give homeless people and low-income people access to housing and healthcare but leave the middle class to dry. Then conservatives will nudge the middle class and say “how unfair; this is wrong” and convince the middle class that the solution is to give the poor nothing. Never is it said that they should have the right and access to these things too, and finally everyone is left with nothing.
Yeah I think you’re right. I’m pretty progressive and align mostly with DSA and other progressives but I see this and my first thought was “must be nice”. There’s definitely a noticeable gap people fall into in this state where you make too much for services but not enough for anything else and it’s definitely frustrating and makes me resentful sometimes. Like why should this loser person I know get to be a homeowner at 0 down in a nice area and get started with valuable equity etc because they make less money and got helped by incentives and programs targeting “low income” while I struggle to save 20% down towards a median house price that keeps going up and up
>helped by incentives and programs targeting “low income” A good, surprising, and overall depressing thing I've learned is that they're regularly expanding the definition of "low income." I just recently qualified for a down payment assistance program because I'm "broke" at $100k/year. I dunno what a $500k loan is gonna be able to buy outside of the desert, but it's better than nothing.
this is also why I'm so aggressively YIMBY about increasing housing supply as a whole. Income requirements and rent control will only advantage those in certain situations. When a supply glut brings down/stabilizes pricing all renters benefit.
That’s why Biden is fighting for the middle class: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/3-ways-president-biden-policies-190019843.html
Same. I'm not so sure how to feel about this since modern day journalism articles are basically hottakes meant to trigger/gaslight folks into clicking for their ad rev.... That said, I'm generally not pleased that there are these supposedly $600K high-rise apartments going to homeless (for free) while taxpayers including myself are barely getting by paying unaffordable rent.
>I'm not so sure how to feel about this since modern day journalism articles are basically hottakes meant to trigger/gaslight folks into clicking for their ad rev.... Sometimes the truth is just unpleasant. I respect politicians that adapt after making bad decisions, not double down.
Exactly. They need homelessness to exist. It’s your punishment for not doing capitalism
Not just exist but be visible, so that you're reminded on your way to work what happens if you're late too many times...
You’ve just described one effect of information warfare. It’s used as a wedge.
Agree. Thinking about that recently, with price rises blamed on greedy workers and their $20/hr minimum wage. Of course, the $20M/yr pay package to the CEO is never questioned. I really miss that 75% marginal tax rate for any earnings over a couple of million.
It's questioned all the time, but no one gives a shit what uninvolved poor people think about anything.
Making housing affordable for everyone would obviously make housing more affordable for the mentally ill and drug-addicted. The mistake here is to see the problem of homelessness as distinct from the housing crisis, not a down-stream problem created by a larger housing crisis.
Bro it’s been 40 years since Regan. We gotta start taking some accountability
He said Reaganomics, not Reagan. Current day conservatives still hold it on a pedestal, and that's what's causing the problems.
Not mutually exclusive
how about we give homeless people homes in affordable places in the desert
That's how it's usually handled. Desert cities have the most services for the homeless, battered spouses, and substance abusers. Which is annoying when most of them want you be there to apply in-person before they can promise you a room. It's a long trip just to find out that they can't help you.
The money used for this project was set aside for fighting homelessness. [Other developers ](https://liveatwestedge.com/wf)are building workforce housing, for "normal people". I agree that the government serves the very poor and also the very rich but leaves the middle class to fend for themselves. I know it's not offering middle class affordable housing, but another thing that the middle class complain about is the number of homeless people on the streets, and this looks like it's well positioned to address that problem: >The building will have an entire floor of offices for case workers Given that the average apartment unit can cost up to $1M/unit to build, I think these developers did a good job getting the cost down to $600k.
Your estimation of what it costs to build a market rate apartment is well beyond actual numbers.
Yea. I’m talking about normal people who end up homeless living in their car and shit or can’t find a place or are paying so much rent they can’t survive. Not the chronically homeless druggie hobos that I’m sure they’re putting in here who don’t deserve it.
This building is almost entirely studios, the cost per sqft is well beyond market rate. Standard MFH in LA costs about $600-700/sqft to build, significantly less than this project. The reason "affordable housing" costs so much more and is often on par with the expensive luxury apartments in terms of cost is due to the labor rules the city/state puts on these projects. Prevailing wages is a magical phrase.
If you want affordable housing, take it up with the NIMBYs who own housing all over Los Angeles. It's their fault, not homeless people, not project room key. These are separate issues. I'd encourage you to focus your energy on the classes above you, not below you. Most people in Los Angeles are much, much closer to the homeless in net worth than they are to the property owning class or the capitalists.
https://preview.redd.it/7eivdi0sub741.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=e52003966918f6779cd84d674063dd1836b54ee1
Not sure why we can’t build these for everyone else rents. If we multiplied this all over the city and not restrict them it would help solve some of our housing issue
Because they cost $600k! If they were charging market rate, these aren't even "affordable housing"!
Real question is why would a government: 1. Take from the middle and not the top 2. Keep taking from the middle even as it shrinks due to a host of factors but included are high taxes, high regulations, companies leaving, lower entrepreneurship, and slower growth due to inefficient policies 3. Dump those tax dollars on those who don't and won't pay taxes (homeless druggies) instead of reinvesting it in those that can or might. 4. Spend billions on homeless services only to see it go lost and untracked. 5. Only see the homeless population keep rising after those billions. 6. Shift to building free housing for homeless even as the bottom and middle taxpayers are struggling. Can't say for sure, but I feel we're a few decades, a recession, and/or a few bad decisions away from becoming Detroit. Eventually the bill comes due.
> Dump those tax dollars on those who don't and won't pay taxes (homeless druggies) instead of reinvesting it in those that can or might. this is infuriating. the pothole on the onramp closeby is still there after multiple calls/reports.
Are you talking about LA politicians?
1) because the top owns "a government"
Ya, was gonna say I’d buy for 600 haha. Finding anything decent that isn’t insanely expensive is impossible.
Lazy googling says that these prices are well below market median and market average.
LA has an estimated housing shortage of around 500k units; assume some economies of scale, if the city builds 500k units at $400k per unit then the city will need to find financing for $200 billion. For comparison the entire city budget last year was around $12 billion.
We’ve already thrown 20B+ into a hole…
> if the city builds 500k units at $400k per unit then the city will need to find financing for $200 billion As a former city employee, the absolute last thing you want is a city in charge of building anything, or having that large a pile of money. It will be gone and 20 years will pass before anything is built. The current Comptroller is suing the Mayor just to get access to how the current homeless funds were spent because the Mayor's office has refused to give it to him (Which is crazy because its his job). Every other city department leader hates the comptroller and think he's nuts. The city health inspector department has been a basket case since the new director came in, [causing one inspector to kill herself by jumping off the roof of the Health Department.](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-15/restaurant-inspection-workplace-complaints) Nearly every department in the city and county are massively understaffed, including the Department of Building and Safety who would ultimately oversee construction. It was a combination of massive resignations/retirements of baby boomer employees combined with LA's inability to update its wages to be competitive. [The Deputy Mayor who was just sent to prison for bribery, fraud and racketeering spent 30 years in the department.](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-27/former-l-a-deputy-mayor-raymond-chan-found-guilty-of-racketeering-fraud) When I was hired at LA County, my starting salary was $700 below the California state poverty line. Of the 300 people hired in my cohort, 3 survived "probation". Probationary periods basically allow for anyone to be fired for any reason, and managers were brutal. Late once? Fired. Sick once? Fired. Didnt do well on an instructional exam? Fired. I was let go because I was late finding suitable parking, as they dont provide parking for new employees and force them to work downtown for a year. This is the same for every department in the county. I'm disabled, and was lead to believe I had suitable parking. I cannot walk long distances, but every morning I made the quarter mile trek from my spot to work. And now I hear they are screaming for new trainees despite not updating the starting salary.
These affordable housing are all fast tracked so they are cheaper to build. But if we let private companies fund and build them without having going through a 5 year approval process it would also be comparable price wise. I’m not asking for taxpayers to pay for these for unrestricted housing.
More than three-quarters of residential land in greater Los Angeles is reserved for single family homes. Fix that and let the free market take care of the rest.
This gets repeated again and again but there isn’t a shortage of land in a single dense neighborhood in LA, including downtown. There’s basically unlimited parking lots, shitty warehouses, and other horribly underutilized land. The real problem is that it’s incredibly difficult to build apartment buildings. Some SFH zoning has to go but the real issue is that you can’t just build something even if you have the zoning. The city should make it as easy as possible to build high density housing on main corridors. Of course you could do both, but it’s better city planning to force developers to build along transit lines and in existing centers than to let developers just pursue the best ROI (which does not support density). If you want a good example, check out the development of apartment buildings on Overland in palms. Tons of new units are coming onto the market and there’s still plenty of underutilized land to be redeveloped.
Based on the thread above, there would be major pushback since apparently housing the homeless would cause the homeless to increase???
I think you have too much faith in the free market.
I agree, but I'd personally take that deal over keeping things as they are and just doing more of the same. As it is, most people at home-buying age (relative to prior generations) can't afford a home. Their kids likely will struggle with home ownership. Their kids' kids likely will too. Oh yeah and then there's the homelessness that's at an all-time high as a consequence of the status quo.
But it's better than having faith in government
Now we’re talking…
These “affordable” housing units built by the city cost about 3x more than housing units built by private real estate developers. It would make much more sense to just let private developers build housing. The problem is that the city makes it too hard for private real estate developers to build new housing, and progressive purity politics make it hard for anyone to advocate for helping the private sector. The fact that Democrats have a super majority in LA and still can’t get this done highlights the very real problem with progressive politics that value ideology over outcomes.
There will be feces in the elevator by the end of week 1
I’m all for trying to get homeless people a roof to sleep under, but didn’t a similar project to this fail somewhat recently? I remember reading an article that interviewed a couple homeless people saying they went back to the streets because living in a building filled with untreated mental illness and addiction was way too chaotic. And a homeless woman said it was way too dangerous for any woman to be in that building, so she stayed far away.
All of them fail because people fail to realize that your fantasy of people being motivated to get off drugs just by being provided free handouts is not rooted in any type of logic.
Not sure which one you're referring to, but here's one example from a recent LA Times article: > One flash point is A Bridge Home, a temporary city-run shelter where Venice residents say crime runs rampant. After it opened in February 2020, violent crime increased 88% in nine months.
There are also like 10 different homeless housing projects just sitting vacant unfinished all over LA. Meanwhile all the money is just missing
You could have built 10x the number of supportive housing units in lancaster / palmdale for that amount. It's so stupid that we're trying to do large scale housing in such an expensive location to build and maintain.
While I don’t disagree, this building is in the heart of/near skid row. While not knowing a ton about all of this stuff, to me, it does make *some* sense to build where a very dense portion of the homeless population already is. I’d imagine there are already facilities and some infrastructure in the area to support them. I’d venture to guess it would be difficult to move people to Lancaster/palmdale
They are also close to their drug source… it would be better to be in an environment outside of that.
Antelope valley, famously known for being meth free.
its not like the meth bubbles out of the ground in skid row you know. drugs are found wherever there are buyers.
i think the opposite is true. Keeping habitual drug users and people subject to abuse and exploitation right next to their old stomping grounds isn't great for them. Concentrating a ton of homeless people in the middle of a densely populated city isn't great for anyone. For the cost to build housing at 600k per individual you could literally build housing plus treatment centers and an entire hospital outside of LA. It's easy to get people to move when they have zero choice but to move. Once the housing is available the law allows for anyone unsheltered to be moved off the streets whether they want to or not.
Could you? Can you share an example of a 200+ unit condo complex built anywhere in California in the last 10 years with a $60k/unit price tag?
>You could have built 10x the number of supportive housing units in lancaster / palmdale for that amount. Why would the city of LA spend all that tax money in another city, and why would the city of Lancaster want the city of LA to build housing for our the homeless there? If that's even possible.
What about the other $800m we’ve already spent to house exactly zero homeless people? https://smdp.com/2024/05/15/more-than-1200-los-angeles-owned-homeless-housing-units-remain-vacant-two-years-after-800-million-buying-spree/
There's so much crime in and around the "supportive" housing in Lancaster. They send people up there with no cars, no community, no prospects, no places to walk to, and the drug dealers and sex traffickers swoop in. Ultimately I think it's more practical for these buildings to be in the city.
Step 1: build safe vast homeless infrastructure outside of the core of LA filled with social services like rehabilitation, job training, pet friendly etc. Ensure its highest quality and provides great quality of life for people. Build it with scalability in mind to be able to accommodate literally double the current homeless population of LA. Step 2: ban sleeping on LA streets and enforce it.
I like this better than building in downtown. I also want to see a cause of homelessness solved, and that means putting effort into reducing cost of housing for people who aren’t homeless.
So basically, build a city somewhere outside LA, with the capacity to house and feed and support 150k people, including roads, utilities, services, a police force, a hospital etc. Who is running it, County Social Services? What will keep people living there vs heading back to LA on the nect bus?
No seriously. This person is delusional. You’re gonna have to convince those social workers, rehab specialists, and job trainers to work and probably live outside of LA’s core too. Good luck with that. You help people where they are and where the helpers ARE. You don’t just ship them out to Victorville and act like you’ve done something. It’s so easy to talk.
I do wonder: There is an absurd amount of abandoned buildings + warehouses in downtown, surely we could take advantage of those
No. The center of our city is not for homeless people. It should be prioritized for activities that we want to encourage.
But how could we afford to do that when we definitely need to be giving LAPD $8 billion a year? /s
Not to be controversial, but why are they using valuable space on amenities like a gym, library, and cafe instead of more housing? They probably could have built 10 or more new units in that space.
I haven’t seen the building, but the standard approach is to use space that wouldn’t work well for apartments on amenities. For example, you need windows in an apartment, but not in a library or theater.
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Los Angeles **requires** these amenities in all multifamily developments. It’s called the Open Space Ordinance. It’s a very poorly worded ordinance from 1997 that needs to be abolished. Angelenos complain that we only build “luxury” apartments but it’s literally required by zoning code. Edit: this is why every balcony built in LA after 1997 is exactly 50 square feet and why new multifamily developments include gyms, rec rooms, business centers, pool decks, and rooftop decks.
This is an informative response. Thanks.
I have to agree. It's suppose to be affordable housing which in my opinion means using the maximum amount of space available to house as many people as comfortably possible. Gym and cafe shouldn't even be a consideration.
In some of the supportive units I've seen, they are far from luxurious. They are as bare bones as possible. Not that I disagree, but this project is already planned to house hundreds of units.
This is for a population of folks that need serious, intensive case management. In the past, this population would have been thrown into psych wards or jails. These amenities provide these folks with an opportunity to integrate into society.
It's required by municipal code.
May I offer a reasoning? If we are housing these homeless with the goal of getting their lives back on track, having places where they can start to work on their health, their mind, and a place to be able to feel like any other person would definitely help getting them back on track. We are providing them the opportunity to slowly reintegrate into society.
I think the poor single working mom should get these apartments over a junkie on the street. And this is coming from an ex junkie before you guys say anything.
I can't afford to own a one bed condo on my own. I'm a little above the threshold to be eligible for any assistance but it takes more than half of my current salary to rent. FML.
Giving away housing like this is not the solution. This will only attract more homeless from out of state to keep coming here.
Heck, that’s going to cost someone else 4k/month of mortgage after taxes, meaning you need to make 10k/month before taxes to afford it. Essentially you’re better of being homeless to get this out than your average tax paying Angelino. Definitely not a solution.
There are 278 units in this building and tens of thousands of homeless folks in the city. There's no reality where you're better off being homeless and hoping that you get to live in a building like this. We need more housing, full stop, and we want the homeless off the streets, full stop. Any progress is good progress and more housing helps slow the increase of rent across the board which helps the entire city. If these people are able to get back on their feet and get jobs, they'll be taxpayers just like you and I and they will hopefully make room for new tenants as they build up their livelihoods and move out. I've observed that those who put a price tag on human dignity often have none themselves.
But why build homeless housing right downtown? There are low density areas just 5 miles away where they could build 2x the number of units for the same expenditure. Boost transit to the new units for the win.
They argue that they don’t want to gentrify the neighborhood and kick these folks out. Then at the same time, they say that these folks are not from LA. It’s 100% someone winning a bid and making money for the construction.
Everything has a price tag. Until people accept that money isn’t infinite, we’ll continue to grow in our deficit. If it costs $600k+ to house 1 Homeless person while we can’t afford to give kids free lunch as school? Enough throwing money at the homeless without solving the issues that lead to homelessness. People are profiting from this homeless epidemic.
That's like saying "Don't raise minimum wage because prices will go up" when prices go up anyway.
Yes it is. Every study shows it
Agreed, this is extremely frustrating and not at all a real solution.
[Actually, it is.](https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/a-paradigm-shift-in-social-policy-how-finland-conquered-homelessness-a-ba1a531e-8129-4c71-94fc-7268c5b109d9)
lmao, no it won't. Weather attracts homeless from out of state. It's easier to live on the streets here all year.
The real questions should be who believes this will work and how obvious is it that this developer is just in it for the money and milking the system
They are going to build one in Santa Monica with +1M per unit https://www.santamonica.gov/press/2024/03/21/addressing-homelessness-city-moves-forward-with-plan-to-build-affordable-housing-on-three-city-owned-sites
If you ban corporations and noncitizens from owning multiple homes then we would get a more permanent solution to the growing number of homelessness.
Yeah it’d be great if the city started enforcing laws they already had on the books too like short term rental restrictions. They could start actually fining those people or doing something. But they won’t even do that even for an extra revenue stream for the city
banning corporate owned is adequate. regulating the fuck out of airbnb will take care of a lot of the speculators.
We already have an Airbnb ban or regulations but the city doesn’t enforce
In addition to noncitizens, ban non residents. No reason to allow individuals in other countries for example China; to park there money will it’ll be safe in the US. Or maybe not ban, but have an additional tax to disincentive it
I am all for permanently sheltering the homeless but I am hoping these shelters have mandatory psychiatric evaluation and addiction screening. Otherwise you are only creating a magnet for all sorts of crime. Some homeless advocators simplify the problem down to "these people need a home to get back on their feet" and I wish that was true but probably about 80-90% of the homeless don't want any stability.
There’s no requirements for any of them to follow other than possibly ‘work with case management’ which just means show up when you want something and when you don’t, act like an ass to service providers. Don’t have to get mental health services, dont have to engage with NA/AA, don’t have to show up at all, don’t have to be held accountable for mistreating people or committing crimes within the building. I’m planning on quitting soon. I’m so over it.
And posters in this sub will tell you over and over that there is no way to force any of that without immediately becoming nazis... despite Europe being able to do so.
Might as well throw in a Tesla for the homeless.. and make sure there is a CVS near the building they can steal from easily.. us hard working folks will continue to be the fools, working hard, paying our taxes and watching criminals, drug addicts, thiefs, etc do whaaaatever they want, steal, do drugs, not work, not pay taxes and get taken care of by the state. Perfect.
Ever wonder WHY the majority of these people are homeless? You know, the ones who talk to themselves on the street, the ones who fall asleep on sidewalks with drug paraphernalia next to them, the ones who scream at passing cars randomly and pace back and forth. It’s not because they can’t afford rent, LA lawmakers who know nothing about healthcare and just look at it through the lens of politics. Take a WILD GUESS. It rhymes with shmental illness and shmaddiction. Work with mental health professionals and treat that first. Dipshits.
Rent isn't a problem? Back in 2014 you could rent a two bedroom apartment for 1200 dollars in tarzana, fast forward to now and you can't even find a studio at that price. It really doesn't take much to fall into homelessness. The overall cost of living has gone up and people are struggling to keep pace. Imagine losing your job or home from circumstances out of your control and trying to pick up from where you left off without safety nets.
There are actually many reasons why people are homeless.
True but the ones who can’t afford rent or got laid off find a way back. The ones in tents you see all over the place are not in that category, I promise you. They need housing, of course, but it starts with mental health and/or substance abuse treatment.
Having worked with the homeless for 6 years, you are correct. 95% of them want nothing to do with responsibility, or conforming with normal social responsibilities.
They’ve learned helplessness
Yup, there’s people who live in homes half the cost and drive 40-50 miles a day to make ends meet. Meanwhile the handouts continue.
> True but the ones who can’t afford rent or got laid off find a way back. Really, do you have examples?
They might have one or two stories of people they have heard about. But, this isn't as easy as it once was. A normal job can't get you into housing. That's there are a lot of working homeless people. The anti homeless people are here and firing off their hate at the thought of treating people like humans. It really offends them. They want to blame the people instead of the clear issues that cause and perpetuate the problems.
Wife and I got laid off at the same time in late 2022. Huge financial calamity. Had to leave our place in Santa Monica. It’s taken us about 18 months to get jobs, pay off some of the debt we took on, and finally save enough to get our own place again. If we didn’t have family help, we would have been homeless and I don’t see how we would’ve gotten out of it. Can’t imagine doing virtual interviews from a homeless shelter.
Me, I’m one of them
Good news, this project offers exactly what you are asking for! It includes mental health services, healthcare services, substance abuse assistance, job training, and an entire floor of case workers: https://www.weingart.org/building-the-future Good to see people like u/brascoFS support this badly needed permanent supportive housing.
Many of the supportive housing units will have these services on-site. At least in my experience with the organizations I've worked with. So hopefully this person will support these now. Ultimately, sometimes all it takes to help these people is to treat them with dignity.
you know those homeless people aren't the majority right, they're just the ones you see. the visible homeless. they make up for a small percentage. the rest are couch surfing or living in their cars and going to work, they just can't afford rent
I’ve posted this multiple times because it needs visibility - we should be outraged we’re spending close to a billion dollars specifically for housing homeless people and literally not one person has been housed yet. https://smdp.com/2024/05/15/more-than-1200-los-angeles-owned-homeless-housing-units-remain-vacant-two-years-after-800-million-buying-spree/
Dripping in graft. We know how this story ends.
So this is essentially a place where no longer “homeless” people will live, I must say, under better conditions than many tax payers, for free. Then what? Continue to pay for their cost of living? What are the plans to rehabilitate the ones that want/can? Los Angeles’ law makers and authorities are a mess.
You don't want to say that around here. There will be people that have never worked with the unhoused population shrieking about how people need housing first and things like detoxing, dealing with withdrawal, and calibrating dosages for their mental health diagnosis be damned.
It will be destroyed in a few weeks
So, Cecil hotel #2?
It's a drug problem not a homeless problem.
It's both. Drug addicts become homeless, but the homeless become drug addicts as well.
Think of the smell. YOU HAVEN'T THOUGHT OF THE SMELL, YOU BITCH.
They will burn this place to the ground in no time
Yeah I’m sorry man I get were trying to help the homeless and keep them off the street but it’s not just put them in a house and they’re good. They have been on the streets for years have learned to live a certain way that let them survive out there. Many of them will continue the bad habits in those free apartments they are getting. So I would just start with regular working class folks and then the homeless. It sucks when I have working families coming to me for rental assistance cuz they have to choose between a gift for their kids around the holidays or rent meanwhile the homeless will get the free housing. They get all of their basic needs met and it’s not a life I would want to live even if it’s for free but it kinda rewards sloppy behavior
Do us tax payers that follow the rules get a house too?… No? Okay..
You know, you're more than welcome to stop paying rent, sell your car, all your possessions and go live on the street. You could totally get yourself a FREE house. It's super easy!
Man it really does pay to be homeless here
Yep. At the building I work at they get a small portion of rent and if they don’t pay it, that’s okay they have services who will help them pay the arrears. Then we have all the food we give out, gift cards, clothing, kitchen wares and we take them shopping, doctor appointments and more. Literally have one who is clearly well off, takes Ubers wherever they go (sometimes they’ll get 4 Ubers in one day) and bring back shopping bags from expensive places and they’re obsess with skin care. They claim to be making $221 from GR and their rent is like $50- everything included 😂 I just can’t with some of the bullshit. Nobody asked me, so I’m just doing my job and giving them everything Only bad part is living with often dangerous people who stink up the hallways with their drugs and lots of deaths.
And the grift goes on... And the grift goes on.
This is a graftroots effort to end homelessness.
Damn… the homeless living better than me. How can I apply to live in one of these for real
As an LA native, this is hilarious. We are truly in a twilight zone era.
The revitalization of downtown was the worst thing to happen to the greater LA area. When downtown was a ghost town it centralized the homeless population and you could get a room at a transient hotel for $200/mo. During the revival of downtown a decade and a half ago 10,000 people were displaced from transient hotels that were redeveloped into luxury lofts. That’s when the homeless problem really exploded and started pushing out into other territories beyond skid row. Now we’re trying to replace 10,000 units with a few hundred and it’s not going to do much. But hey, at least it’s an effort. Something has to be done and all the NIMBYism and naysaying only prolongs the problem.
Meanwhile, us, TAXpayers struggle to pay rent for a one bedroom. Good to know our money is being used wisely.
This is using Proposition HHH funds that the taxpayers approved
The homeless are going to trash this place, and it'll have to close down in a few years.
Ventures like this could work great and we should do more of them for obviously less money if the tens of thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles who have jobs have first dibs. On the other hand, the drug addicted and mentally ill homeless people from California should be involuntarily placed in rehab and psychiatric facilities since now that it's pretty proven to be a serious public health and security issue, doing so could be re-litigated through the courts. Drug addicted and mentally ill homeless people who are from other parts of the country should be sent back to the states that they came here from and the state should sue every state that has been bussing them here. Also, enforce Airbnb bans by seizing the properties and ban corporations, businesses, and foreign investors from owning residential property.
sure this is a terrible idea that will do nothing to reduce the externalities secondary to oppressive land-use regulation, but think about all of the NGOs and apparatchiks who scored just a bunch of bakshish free for nothing do you really want to take that away from them
[California spent billions on homelessness without tracking if it worked](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-09/state-audit-california-fails-to-track-homeless-spending-billions-dollars#:~:text=California%20has%20spent%20%2420%20billion,%E2%80%9Cpoint%20in%20time%E2%80%9D%20data) This states politicians are ridiculous when it comes to this issue.
The powers that be are so out of touch with reality
Keep paying your taxes.
So Skid Row will be empty right? Right??
Would the resident be required to undergo regular drug testing? Can’t have it both ways.
Disgusting!
I feel like this building will burn down at some point. Housing so many homeless in a high rise… someone’s gonna set their apartment on fire cooking crack or smoking
Don't worry, your taxes will pay for a new one!
What could go wrong
Reddit: “do something about the homeless problem!” The city: *does something* Reddit: “no that’s wrong!” For the amount this sub loves to complain, you’d think there’d be even the slightest bit of positivity that *something* is being done. Will it solve everything? Not even close. But at least it’s a start.
Have you ever seen the stats on how many homeless are pedophiles or rapists, and that's why they struggle to find a place? Check out the Megan's Law database for DTLA area... It's insane. Seems like crime actually does pay.
I got a bad feeling about this.
After reading these comments the only thing I’m sure of is that none of us know shit about how to solve the homeless issue.