Comments
DEEGAN ON LA—-In her campaign for the office, Mayor Karen Bass pledged to solve the so-far intractable problem of homelessness. She could have instead focused on public safety, an issue that touches more people than legitimate concerns for the unsheltered. A look at our sidewalks is an instant snapshot of housing the homeless progress. Police crime reports are equally evident.
Today’s citywide crime wave is kinetic and fractured, with high-end retail robberies, wristwatch snatches, home invasions, catalytic converter and copper wire thefts, attacks on bus and subway passengers, and flash mobs of teens on bikes looting convenience stores.
The once front and center spotlight on progressive strategies of defunding the police and having a kinder and softer way to address crime has dimmed. Cops are being funded, not cut. Their current budget has been increased by 12%. The incumbent District Attorney, seen as softer than necessary on crime, is facing a challenge in the upcoming election by a hard on crime former federal prosecutor.
The new LAPD Chief has been here before as LA County Sheriff and Deputy Chief of the LAPD, and may find himself paired up with a new, tougher DA.
Politicos and developers are twerking the taxpayers when they say just give us more money for the homeless, let us spend more and build more and we’ll solve the problem. The just give us more money refrain keeps repeating itself.
The newest goal being propagated by the LA Housing Department is “functional zero homelessness”. Their claim is that the overall homeless population can be reduced to zero at the end of 2032. All it will take, they suggest, is $22 billion. It will require LA. city and county taxpayers, the state, and the feds to raise this money.
It’s not the first time the politicos have used taxpayers to raise billions of dollars to “end” homelessness. In the 2016 election they had Prop HHH on the ballot that asked for $1.2 billion to build 10,000 new apartments over a decade. The LAHD dashboard today shows that 8,668 of the 10K goal have been partially funded by HHH.
The city has committed $132,000 per unit to the projects, with developers and outside financing accounting for the balance which can be substantially higher, leading to market rate housing more than affordable housing in order to recover costs. Affordable housing does not pay the bills for developers or landlords.
The new housing is not protected by rent control, allowing landlords to set and increase rents to what the market will bear. As long as the demand locus on the supply and demand curve stays higher than the supply locus, the housing equilibrium point will always privilege renters that have money.
Leveraging the conditional HHH success into a $22 billion tall ask is what taxpayers, the state and the feds will have to grapple with. Is it believable that this tonnage of money can end homelessness? Are burnt out on the homeless taxpayers willing to help foot the bill?
In what could be a litmus test on the upcoming ballot, voters are now considering Measure A—the Homelessness Services and Affordable Housing Ordinance—that asks voters for a 1/2 cent increase in the sales tax. This could be a permanent 1/2 per-cent tax increase.
It’s a taste that could help contour the forward motion of the $22 billion plan on the horizon.
(Tim Deegan is a civic activist whose Deegan on LA column about city planning, new urbanism, the environment, and the homeless appear in CityWatch. Tim can be reached at [email protected].)
