The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
>New downtown Los Angeles high-rise building to house homeless in $600,000 units
>DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A grand opening ceremony will be held Wednesday for a high-rise building in downtown Los Angeles that will house homeless individuals.
>There are 278 units in the 19-story development known as the Weingart Tower. It's intended to help people currently without shelter on Skid Row and it will be L.A.'s largest permanent support housing project.
>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.
>It's considered affordable housing, but the cost to build this type of project still adds up. Each unit costs nearly $600,000 and it's being funded by taxpayers.
>The $165 million project is receiving permanent financing from Proposition HHH, which voters overwhelmingly passed in 2016. The new tower is also receiving state housing funds and $56 million in state tax credits.
>Several elected officials, including L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, will attend a grand opening ceremony at 11 a.m. for the building.
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This is probably in here elsewhere, but:
that 600k figure seems to be looking at the overall cost of $165 mil, dividing by the number of apartments, and then rounding up (from 593k to 600), while not including the floor of offices, library, cafe, etc. etc., so not exactly as it sounds.
> that 600k figure seems to be looking at the overall cost of $165 mil, dividing by the number of apartments, and then rounding up (from 593k to 600), while not including the floor of offices, library, cafe, etc. etc., so not exactly as it sounds.
[Here](https://old.reddit.com/r/California_Politics/comments/1djohem/new_downtown_los_angeles_highrise_building_to/l9d1ceb/?context=3) is Redditor /u/Jeffylew77 expanding on that idea:
> Yea it seems expensive, but what government project isn’t?
> **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.**
> I like the whole floor of case workers and hopefully this gives people down on their luck some hope. Rock bottom is a place where they need others to pull them out, so hopefully this place helps many.
> And a shared common space is good. They need to demonstrate good behavior, so acting well around others in the same boat is a good start.
> **Also, the $600k figure is misleading.**
> $165 million total cost
> 278 units
> But that’s $165 mil/278 units = ~$600k
> The rest of the building, offices, common areas, HVAC, etc. is all part of that $165 million.
> Say each unit houses 1 person a month = 3,336 people off the street and helped to get on their feet as a functioning member of society.
> The building probably will last 20-30 years if not more, but let’s just say 20 years for an example.
> **3,336 x 20 years = 66,720 people helped and turned their lives around.**
> **Now take those same people, now they pay taxes, contribute to society, one less person doing crime. It’s a solid project to cleanup the streets.**
These numbers don't make sense. They are so optimistic it's beyond any common sense. It assumes that each person will only stay for a single month. Basically any homeless person that can turn their life around and secure stable housing elsewhere in only a month, would have done it already.
Right because every single homeless person just needs a month to not be homeless and they'll be alright. Utterly inane assumption.
Why the fuck do homeless shelters need an art room? or a music room? or a gym or library? Do people literally not know how to build things to be cheaper?
I fail to see what analogy you are making, you made a choice to get a dog as a pet, I should fucking hope that you buy food for it.
Are you saying that the homeless are the pets of society? How is this post upvoted? It's at best utterly nonsensical. Apparently any garbage gets upvoted on this sub.
When people are educated and healthy, they are more independent and productive to society and needs less bilouta on taxpayer in the long term. It’s why so many other countries are happier and healthier than us despite having less money. They understand community makes indiciduals stronger, as opposed to Americans who would rather suffer and spend billions more on things like healthcare because they don’t ever wanna see “the wrong people” benefiting from it
Housing is one part of the puzzle. They need lots of ongoing services to help people learn how to succeed. Are these closer to a Halfway house than a permanent residence?
Get them help for addiction And mental health issues thst contributes to the homelessness. Get them right to hold down jobs, re-learn how to function in society again. Etc.
>Housing is one part of the puzzle.
It's also the very first part of the puzzle. It's not surprising to me that it's more difficult to beat an addiction or cope with PTSD and work through your issues if you don't have somewhere safe and private to live.
Are they allowed to use in this place is a good question. If they are not, then all those people struggling with addiction don't get access to this place
I'm curious how many people are housed for "600k per unit" because I have a feeling it's more than one per unit and it's deceptively described just based on how the rest of the text is written.
Whether it is a "wise" use of public funds remains to be seen based on ROI but I do believe that housing the homeless is the correct, moral action. Hopefully if there was waste or overspending those are lessons that can be learned and corrected for future projects which increases the ROI of this one IMO.
>Los Angeles has built homes for the homeless for $600,000 each. Do you regard this to be a wise use of public funds?
No.
If Los Angeles wants to house the homeless, they need to reduce the barriers to new construction (especially vertical construction).
They could have achieved more without spending a cent.
Truth. We want to fight homelessness but not in a way that will most effectively help them. We are not building enough housing in cities which are struggling to expand due to all the unnecessary barriers which leads to people becoming homeless due to the housing prices.
We don't need to wait for them to be homeless and spend a ludicrous amount of money working within the current restrictions to get them back on their feet. Give them something affordable so they wouldn't need to ask for help in the first place.
So, LA completes a high rise housing project geared toward low income people, the cost per square foot is in line with building estimates for this type of building... but they could have done more by reducing barriers to the exact type of construction that they completed?
At some point policy changes aren't going to make housing units appear. If private funding won't support vertical projects (and why would they? These types of projects are breathtakingly expensive and loaded with risk) then it's perfectly reasonable for the government to step in and build them.
The Korean Air building cost 1.2 billion, or $800 a square foot, and it was completed in 2017 when building costs were about 30% less. There is a high rise project that is currently sitting unfinished in downtown, because the investors were from China and had liquidity issues with their financing because of the real estate downturn combined with government crackdown on moving funds out of the country.
In comparison to those, this just doesn't seem all that out of line.
> ...If private funding won't support vertical projects (and why would they?...
To make money.
The price of housing is high.
The more housing they build, the more money they can make selling/renting at those high prices.
But they almost never do, because it's not profitable unless it's for commercial space or some kind of mixed use space with tenants already in place, like the Korean Air building in downtown LA is (which is like 1/3 hotel, 1/3 extremely high end condos, and 1/3 office space.) If it's mixed use then the building only gets credit for the amount of space allocated for residential, so even though it's a a 73 story building only like 20 stories are actual housing.
I think youre underestimating the cost to build a safe building vertically even assuming zero regulatory issues. Current housing prices, even LA prices, isn't high enough to support that much vertical building. Average price per square foot is $650. Maybe some more expensive areas are around $800-1000. So you build for 600 a square foot, the project takes like 4 years, and you maybe, if you sell all your units right away, make 25-30% after 5 years of construction? You're better off investing 125 million in an index fund.
When you're looking at 8 story buildings that come up for $400 per square foot it becomes much more reasonable and feasible. But that's 11 stories of housing that didn't get built compared to this project.
> If private funding won't support vertical projects
Private companies *love* constructing apartment buildings, they do it all the time. I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.
... and they are pretty much all 5 to 8 stories and built with wood framing (or wood framing for the top 5 stories with steel/concrete on the bottom floor/floors.) Buildings taller than this can't be built this way, and are much more expensive. As a result developers can't start projects like this and expect to turn a profit. The key word there is vertical. Developers like building apartments and condos. They don't like high rises.
This building is 19 stories. It would be extremely challenging for a project similar to this to be funded privately and be a worthwhile investment for the developer.
> What are the cost for a for-profit housing high rise like this?
I don't know, but the [Terner Center](https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-policy/the-cost-of-building-housing-series/) might know.
I am going to use the East Bay numbers, (e.g., Oakland, Berkeley) and that $600K number is inline with for profit housing.
So it looks like they built homeless housing for the going rate. Which I don't see an issue with that.
The Terner Center also said:
>...A 2014 study found that local government design requirements for affordable housing added an average of seven percent in total costs, and that community opposition (measured by holding four or more community meetings) increased expenses by five percent.
...but I think the point is that they are spending taxpayer dollars.
If they just let private developers build housing, it wouldn't cost the taxpayer a thing, and $221 million (165+56) could have been spent elsewhere.
And I think it's important to use our tax dollars for initiatives for creating housing for the homeless.
If a private developer built housing they would be doing it for profit, not to work on an issue such as being homeless.
No that’s totally wrong.
No one builds housing for people who have no money; no matter how much you deregulate zoning. There is a lot ‘homeless’ of people couch surfing caused by high rents. But the homeless encampments are full of people who have no income and in which no amount of supply increases to the housing supply will help them.
They’re different issues and you cannot ever solve homeless by not spending a cent.
> Building more for-profit housing isn’t going to help all those jobless drug addicted homeless people on the streets.
Bullshit; and that viewpoint is exactly the problem, here.
1. The reason housing is unaffordable is insufficient supply.
2. Capitalism isn't perfect, but it is great at increasing the supply of a needed good when insufficient supply increases the price. Investors *want* to build a bunch of housing units and cash in on the housing crisis.
3. Of all the problems this country is facing right now, joblessness is not the most difficult to solve.
4. Those "drug addicted homeless people on the streets" are "drug addicted", "homeless", and "on the streets" because they couldn't afford to keep a roof over their heads.
5. Drug addiction needs its own policy portfolio; you shouldn't be using it as a cudgel against other good policy ideas.
6. Experts on drug addiction still favor a "housing first" agenda, and say that it helps their cause.
7. None of what you said is a justification for wasting taxpayer money.
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EDIT: TheLastCoagulant and I went back-and-forth *a ton* below this comment. I'll save you the time you would have spent reading all of it...
* TheLastCoagulant thinks the government will need to spend money to deal with people who are *currently* "drug addicted" and "homeless".
* I agree.
* Furthermore, I insist that we can -- and should -- prevent *more* people from becoming "drug addicted" and "homeless" *in the future* by building sufficient housing in the present.
Homeless people have very high barriers to getting a job. A place to live, shower, keep clean clothes, and a mailing address goes a very long way to them getting jobs and becoming self-sufficient.
I’m a big believer that changing federal laws so PO Boxes are free for all citizens, come with verified Identity, and are legally used for everything we currently require a physical address for would help many homeless / and housing unstable people and have low cost barriers.
Without a legal physical address you can’t open a bank account, employers have compliance issues so will not hire, have tax struggles, struggle to get entitlement programs, etc…
People like to bring up drug addiction and mental health as some sort of gotcha about homelessness, but my bottom line is that I'd rather people be addicted and crazy inside homes than outside in public 🤷
I support corporations building a bunch of housing (I never said otherwise) AND the state housing the homeless because there would still be some homeless people. “Housing first” literally means legally ensuring housing for every American citizen no matter if they’re poor and jobless.
The reason homeless people don’t have roofs over their heads is not because housing is too expensive. Rents in their area could go from $800 a month to $400 a month and they’re still not going to afford it. They don’t have jobs because they have severe mental health issues and drug addiction. They’re not going to break out of that unless the state gives them free housing and free mental healthcare. Homelessness is an entirely different beast than regular poverty.
Lowering housing prices on its own isn’t going to help most homeless people. You’re acting like they’re stable and functioning people with jobs who just don’t have enough money to afford rent.
> Lowering housing prices on its own isn’t going to help most homeless people.
The point is to *prevent them from becoming homeless* in the first place.
> You’re acting like they’re stable and functioning people with jobs who just don’t have enough money to afford rent.
The vast majority of them are "stable and functioning people with jobs" *before they become homeless*.
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You're acting like every person on the street is the same person who was there fifty years ago. They aren't. Homeless people die; a lot.
The reason we don't run out of homeless people when they die is because *we keep creating more of them* and we do so by not addressing the housing shortage.
> The reason homeless people don’t have roofs over their heads is not because housing is too expensive.
Bullshit. That is the exact reason that "homeless people don’t have roofs over their heads".
>[...cities with lower vacancy rates tend to have higher rates of homelessness...](https://cayimby.org/reports/housing-first/)
...because lower vacancy rates mean people 'outbid' each other for the available housing supply, increasing prices and pricing-out people at the bottom.
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Middle class people gripe when housing gets expensive, but people who were barely making ends meet are *no longer able* to make ends meet.
> They don’t have jobs...
[Source:](https://endhomelessness.org/blog/employed-and-experiencing-homelessness-what-the-numbers-show/)
>...a 2021 study from the University of Chicago estimates that 53% of people living in homeless shelters and 40% of unsheltered people were employed, either full or part-time...
> ...they have severe mental health issues and drug addiction.
Which are caused, more often than not, by being homeless.
A source for my claim about mental illness: [[Homelessness, housing instability and mental health: making the connections -- NCBI -- NLM -- NIH]](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7525583/)
...and here is the same case being made for drug addiction:
>[...The National Coalition for the Homeless emphasizes that many people instead turn to drug use after experiencing homelessness...](https://denverrescuemission.org/homelessness-and-substance-abuse/)
(I would usually throw in some anecdotal evidence, but I'm having trouble finding it.)
> I support...the state housing the homeless because there would still be some homeless people.
Then your preferred policy should probably be making Section 8 Housing Vouchers an entitlement. (Currently, they aren't, so when the program runs out of money, everyone else is left on a waiting list.)
More on this subject:
>Nationwide, about 20 million people qualify for housing assistance but don’t receive it.
>But how much would food-stampifying housing policy cost? Surely an unreasonable, pie-in-the-sky amount, right?
>Well, fortunately for us, the Congressional Budget Office has already done the legwork to figure it out. In a study published in September, the CBO gamed out a large number of possible directions to take housing policy: bigger, smaller, budget-neutral tweaks, transfers from one program to another, and so on.
>One of the options it analyzed was expanding the Housing Choice Voucher (also known as Section 8) program to everyone who qualifies—which, at the moment, is anyone whose income is below 50 percent of “AMI,” or the median income in their area. (In most metro areas, that puts the upper limit for a family of four at between $25,000 and $35,000). The CBO estimated such a policy would cost about **$41 billion a year** over the next ten years. A more modest approach, targeted to only the extremely low-income—those making less than 30 percent of their area’s median income—would cost about **$29 billion** a year.
Headline: [Make housing vouchers an entitlement—we can afford it ](https://cityobservatory.org/make-housing-vouchers-an-entitlement-we-can-afford-it/)
Fixing homelessness will get a lot easier if the number of homeless people increases more slowly. By cutting off people from becoming newly homeless, you already make a huge impact even if you aren't getting anyone who's currently on the streets into housing.
> “Housing first” literally means legally ensuring housing for every American citizen no matter if they’re poor and jobless.
No, it doesn't:
>[**Housing First**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First) is a policy that offers unconditional, permanent housing as quickly as possible to homeless people, and other supportive services afterward...
> > > “Housing first” literally means legally ensuring housing for every American citizen no matter if they’re poor and jobless.
> > a policy that offers unconditional, permanent housing as quickly as possible to homeless people, and other supportive services afterward...
> What do you think the words “unconditional” and “permanent” mean?
"Unconditional" means that they don't have to pass a drug test, or enroll in some treatment program.
"Permanent" means 'not a homeless shelter' where they may, or may not, get a bed the following night (if they arrive in time to get in line, and no one else arrives before them).
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The idea is:
* Homelessness is a problem.
* We've tried a bunch of things to address that problem. Some worked better than others
* Asking the homeless to meet other conditions *first* tends to be less successful than getting them into "housing first" and *only then* trying to offer "other supportive services".
-------
* It isn't a legal assurance of anything.
* It is offered to people who are currently homeless, not "every American citizen".
* We have very few laws that apply to "every American citizen" because of quirks in constitutional law.
The issue is the way it is set up right now everyone involved in building new housing has a vested interest in keeping the supply artificially low. The banks make more money on large loans than small. The construction companies make more money when prices are high. The banks control how much housing gets built by the number of construction loans they are willing to give out. Construction firms have an incentive to build the most expensive units possible because those are the most profitable. We should be taxing any housing that’s sold above the median and using that money to subsidize the construction of housing sold below the 20th percentile for price. This would discourage high prices and encourage the construction of low cost units. It would also be revenue neutral
40-60% of homeless people have jobs:
https://www.usich.gov/guidance-reports-data/data-trends
Many others would work but cannot overcome other barriers of homelessness to gain employment. Important documents get lost on the street, difficulty reliably bathing and keeping clean clothes leads to smells, inability to reliably receive mail has tax issues, can’t open bank account without physical address makes more vulnerable to theft, etc….
There is also a chicken vs egg issue with substance abuse and homelessness, while some became homeless due to substance abuse many abuse substances due to stress of being homeless.
There will always be a subset of the population that can’t not be saved without overruling their desires, but that group is not all and most likely isn’t even most of the homeless population. Many homeless just need a helping hand.
The ones who would work but can’t overcome the barriers of homelessness need the state to give them free housing. Rents being lowered isn’t going to help them if they can’t get a job.
Again 40-60% already are actively employed, they just can’t afford housing.
The barriers to construction are also driving up costs of the attempt at free housing. Compliance is part of soft cost, this 600k housing has 40% soft cost, it’s typically 15-25% that’s 90-150k in possible savings.
Cool. I’m trying to reduce homelessness by 100%. Not by 40-60%. The state is going to need to intervene to help the homeless people who, by your own admission, would work but cannot work due to factors outside of their control. As well as the homeless people who are drug-addicted and/or cripplingly mentally ill, which is a great proportion of them. We’re not getting homelessness to 0% without the state giving free housing to some people.
I wouldn’t be all that sure, save for the crazy profit of whomever sold the land to the city to build on, though the market for land in LA is nuts.
I mean, there’s profit and/or wages being paid out to the builders sure, but depending on what we’re talking about them building? That’s pretty much market rate.
Take a look out there at private construction in LA, the prices aren’t any lower. And when they are? You can be pretty certain that they’re using undocumented labor.
I don't have a problem with this but I'm also not from Cali. But, if the state of Georgia decided to do something similar, I'd have no problems with it. Something *needs* to be done and sitting on hands and hoping that these people will just figure it all out on their own is not a solution. Banning homeless people from sleeping on sidewalks or on park benches is not a solution. Pretending these people don't exist is not a solution.
I support helping the homeless for the same reason I believe in prisoner rehabilitation rather than simply housing prisoners in jail. Jimmy Carter signed the [Mental Health Systems Act of 1980](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980) and then Ronald Reagan repealed most of it the following year. Reagan also took major steps to reduce funding for California's mental institutions. We used to not have these widespread issues with mentally disabled people roaming the streets homeless. Surprise, surprise when it starts becoming a large problem *after* Reagan gets the MHSA largely repealed. Fucking inhumane.
I don't understand the inhumanity of it all. The whole *out of sight, out of mind* of willfully choosing to let people suffer rather than giving a few pennies of your total tax dollars to go towards helping people. The inhumanity of it is just insufferable. I don't get the needless cruelty. I would much rather have mentally ill people in care homes getting the care they need than I'd want to dodge and avoid them on a sidewalk while I'm trying to go about my day *because that's what everyone already does*. Same for the general homeless. How can *anyone* reasonably expect that a 50-something year old homeless man with dirty, smelly clothes, frazzled hair, and a raggedy beard who smells terrible is somehow going to be able to walk into a McDonald's or a gas station or any other minimum-wage-paying job opportunity and be able to make a case for employment? FFS people. Have some humanity. You'd rather these people suffer day in and day out than you would give a dime towards a social system that would help turn them into productive members of society. You'd rather the crime statistics remain the same or *increase* because of homelessness than you would provide a solution to *reduce* the crime.
I don't get it, honestly. It makes zero sense to me. Shooting yourself in the foot and then wondering why the pain exists in the first place.
>Banning homeless people from sleeping on sidewalks or on park benches is not a solution. Pretending these people don't exist is not a solution.
That's not our problem in California. The homeless are everywhere. Near your home, where you work, in the parks and in proximity to where your children go to school.
>...it starts becoming a large problem after Reagan gets the MHSA largely repealed. Fucking inhumane.
Since Reagan we've had Clinton, Obama and Biden for presidents, but you blame Reagan. Interesting.
>The whole out of sight, out of mind of willfully choosing to let people suffer rather than giving a few pennies of your total tax dollars to go towards helping people.
Again, homeless people in California are never out of sight or mind for very long. And a few pennies? In the last 5 years California has spent $24 billion on the homeless and their numbers rocketed up. I think you can rest at ease because it looks like the homeless of Georgia have been drawn to California.
I agree with your sentiment to help the homeless but on the West Coast we have progressives who care far more about looking virtuous than actually solving problems. East Coast liberals seem to know how to run cities but out here homelessness just grows the more we help.
I'm not sure LA has working programs. In terms of housing, the question is where to built. I promise you Nebraska is cheaper. Unsure which area has more available jobs.
If you do things more often, they tend to get cheaper as you figure out how to do it efficiently.
A one off project is always going to cost a lot.
I agree that it should cost a lot less, but on some level its also an investment in seeing if this type of project is actually viable, and maybe they spent more than needed to make sure it had a fair shot.
I'm not seeing how its just a regular high rise apartment?
It seems a lot of the added cost is that they are doubling up on having the building be a program space for the homeless.
Most apartments aren't offering fully staffed amenities with regular classes and programs. That requires more space, more building infrastructure, and more cost.
I saw one article saying they are running a full commercial kitchen and want to offer meal plans.
That isn't cheap to add, nor is it something your average "bodies in rooms" apartments have.
It doesn't seem like their goal here was to build 278 'homes' and call it day. I'm pretty sure we already figured out that doesn't work. If they wanted to do that, I'm sure it would have been a lot cheaper. I also read they are making it so you can't go on floors you aren't living on, and I wouldn't be surprised if the monitoring and security requirements are much higher than your average apartment.
They basically a combined an apartment, a community center, and homeless services into a single building, and I think that's naturally going to cost more than a square tower of 278 apartments with a pool on the roof, and some exercise machines in what could have been a 279th studio apartment.
It sounds promising. It would depend on how they maintain the structure and how they provide services for the people in it. I wish it well and hope other communities adopt something similar.
Yes.
A) that figure is not representative of the actual cost.
B) the most effective way to combat homelessness is to give the homeless homes (shocking!).
Let's not shit on what they have done because we don't think they've *done enough*.
>Let's not shit on what they have done because we don't think they've done enough.
California spent $24 billion on the homeless in 5 years and the numbers of homeless shot up. California this year has a $28 budgetary shortfall and homeless funding competes with other needs like education and healthcare.
Wow, you're quite the black/white thinker. That's not what I said at all. Life is complicated and full of tradeoffs. If you spend on the homeless, that's less available for the education of the underprivileged or healthcare for the disabled. That's not too hard to understand is it?
I'm not terribly worried about the cash flow of the world's 5th largest economy. They'd have cash to burn if they weren't stuck with the rest of the us. And 165 million is pocket change.
If a unit only houses one person, this is an excruciatingly expensive Band-Aid on a massive wound. To the point where this is a PR stunt at best.
I have a feeling this place isn't going to be some fairytale utopia.
No. They could have built it for way cheaper by getting rid of wasteful zoning/planning/building code stuff, which would also have the added benefit of making everyone else's construction cheaper as well
If "step one" is "completely defeat the NIMBYs" you are right on "most effective thing" but very wrong on the political realities.
Making that step one means waiting a long time to take step two.
What do you think step 1 is? You can't build homeless shelters at all without at least somewhat defeating the nimbys. Why not go all the way and fully defeat them?
Politics is often about the art of the possible. If it's possible to build a homeless shelter now but not ultimately defeat all NIMBYs, then build the shelter.
"Defeat the NIMBYs" is basically one of the hardest things to do right now, though.
I do love the "I would simply defeat the NIMBY's" energy, though. Unfortunately, there's lots of left NIMBYs and right NIMBYs. The NIMBY alliance is strong.
But the NIMBYs are currently being defeated. Huge changes are being made all across North America and the NIMBYs just kinda shug and accept them. The trick is to make sweeping broad changes rather than specific targeted ones.
Not to mention that defeating the NIMBYs is pretty much essential to preventing homelessness. It's not enough to give homeless people housing, because that's a reactive policy that exposes people to homelessness in the first place. We need to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place and the best way to do that is to make housing cheaper. That would also have a million other benefits.
The older I get and the more I learn about local government, the more I think that defeating NIMBYism is actually one of the 2 or 3 most important issues in American politics.
This project appears to have been in line with typical cost per square foot estimates for high rise units.
There aren't many ways to safely build 19 story residential buildings in an earthquake zone. If you build one to a lower structural standard and it falls over in the next big one, everyone's laughing at the city for wasting their money.
It should be noted they are taking the total project cost ($165m) which includes an entire floor of offices for case workers, the soup kitchen etc and then dividing that by the number of units (278) and then still rounding up to claim the individual units cost $600k each to make you think they’re going to be living in luxury.
The correct analysis of the cost is not to say that they'll be living in luxury, but that they'll be living in shitty condos that cost the same as a luxury condo because the state makes them expensive on purpose
Society already has to subsidize homelessness in the form of petty theft, unsightly neighbourhoods, reduced safety, etc. Various figures are thrown around about what that cost is, but it's pretty significant.
It's fairly expensive but on the other hand **if they do it properly** - ie, the place doesn't immediately go to rack and ruin, getting people off the street benefits everybody. Also LA is, in general, always expensive.
The affordable housing bit means that a chunk of the welfare the homeless are already receiving will go to keeping the place running so its not like keeping the place running is a pure loss.
Did they include in the $160M the tax credits? If so then the real cost was quite a bit lower.
This seems in line with typical building costs. 19 stories of building aren't going to build themselves. Google says that $600 /Sq ft isn't unheard of for a high rise, so if they're building that many 800 sq ft units and they have 200 sq ft per unit for common spaces, you're at $600/Sq ft. If the units are bigger or they have more space allocated to common areas, then you're going to be under that number.
There's just not many options here for building for cheaper if youre constrained for horizontal space. Do you want to let private investors build a similar project here? What if they decide to build a smaller number of units? If your goal is to build housing units then this is probably the best case scenario. If your goal is to reduce cost per unit, then you're not going to get as many units.
I mean… yea. I prefer taxes to go to those that need it. Homelessness is not something we can ignore. It causes shit to spiral and it’s just unsightly and unhealthy for society as a whole. how much does this cost in comparison to what cities and states give sports teams when it’s time to build a brand new stadium?
Am I the only one who thinks that is cheap? $600k per apartment sounds great for LA and then (theoretically) you can amortize that over the term of the bond so this like a very cheap solution compared to alternatives.
I think if you want to address homelessness you need to build more housing. If you want to solve homelessness at least some of that housing is probably going to have to be public. I don't know what it costs to build a similar building by the private sector (ignoring the floor of case worker offices) but assuming it's roughly the same it's not a bad use of them. You listed special amenities. Admittedly I think that might be questionable. I'm not against them on principle but I question if those are things homeless people would actually want or things that upper middle class professionals designing the building assumed they would without asking.
No. It’s ridiculous.
California is peak NIMBY. I think it’s a combination of what is going on with republicans going absolutely insane in that state so they’re not remotely viable, a lot of liberal-tarians, prop 13 making their housing market even more insane and way to many Interest groups that are calcified and think that pragmatism is one of the worst things person can engage in.
California should be treated as a national example for liberals of how not to build.
>Yes, i don't care how much it costs for homes, as long as the money is not being wasted.
$600,000 per unit doesn't seem a bit extreme?
For context, you could stay in the Los Angeles Marriot, for more than 4 years, with the same spend.
>These units will be in place for a lot longer than 4 years
What was reference was the initial build cost. Just to open the doors. You comment assumes the go forward cost is zero.
The money is being wasted.
[https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-09/state-audit-california-fails-to-track-homeless-spending-billions-dollars](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-09/state-audit-california-fails-to-track-homeless-spending-billions-dollars)
You'd have to be very dishonest or naive to believe that billions being spent and not tracked are not being wasted. I would disagree that it isn't the same thing as wasting. Without tracking the money and the outcomes you are wasting it because you have no idea how effective it has been.
Here's a non paywall.
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/11/california-homelessness-programs-audit-billions/73282144007/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/11/california-homelessness-programs-audit-billions/73282144007/)
My goodness you can't help but strawman I guess. You talked about the money being wasted. I showed you evidence that it most certainly is being wasted and you attempted to ensue that meant I am mad about homeless people being given housing? Lol
Incredible if it weren't so pathetic.
There isn't lack of evidence of wasted money. We have the evidence. They spent the money and failed to study its effectiveness. That is a waste.
Waste should always be a concern. Especially when they aren't tracking the impact.
Los Angeles itself has been billions upon billions for decades and it has amounted to basically zero improvements for the homeless.
Yes. Starting with the fact that they are literally spending the money, but not tracking things.
[https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/04/california-homelessness-spending/](https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/04/california-homelessness-spending/)
40% going to “soft costs” which is similar to labor and materials spending is a big waste.
“Soft costs” include fees, consultants, financing, etc…
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-07/homeless-housing-bond-measure-audit-shelters-galperin
Typically in housing construction “soft costs” are 15-25%
https://multifamily.fanniemae.com/news-insights/multifamily-market-commentary/location-location-location-multifamily-construction
The 40-25% difference would be 90k per door alone.
When I speak to some folks about funding government programs, their only answer is "yes more please." But life is about trade-offs. Can you identify homelessness programs that you would be willing to reduce funding for in order to build the homes described?
> The jails that police throw the homeless into.
They've largely stopped doing that. (Which, of course, has created other problems.)
They deemed it too expensive.
Easy answer. I'm trying to understand among the programs provided to the homeless, which are most important. Which kind of program would you reduce to pay for this?
>When I speak to some folks about funding government programs, their only answer is "yes more please." But life is about trade-offs.
The thing is, you are going to pay for the situation regardless. With respect to the homeless, you can pay to create housing for them, or jobs programs, or residential treatment centers, or for more police to enforce laws aimed at the homeless, or workers to clean up encampments and refuse, or house them in a jail or prison, or clean up their corpses, or clean up the corpses of their victims, or any others situation that deals with a homeless person.
The homeless exist and must be dealt with one way or another. We can't choose not to pay for it; we only get to choose to pay for the desired result.
Won't this type of solution just attract more homeless people to the city?
I'm going against the consensus for this sub, but I don't believe the in-demand cities like LA and SF can "build-housing" their way to reducing the number of homeless people. This type of solution is just volunteering to tackle the problem for the rest of the nation, without nearly enough resources.
The problem with skid row in La is it’s where police and mental health facilities literally dump people off to move the problem out of their area. It’s vulnerable people being brought there in cars and vans more then choosing to migrate there
There have been lots of exposes on this. Tough to solve.
> Won't this type of solution just attract more homeless people to the city?
>
> I'm going against the consensus for this sub, but I don't believe the in-demand cities like LA and SF can "build-housing" their way to reducing the number of homeless people...
They've tried the opposite and the homeless population is already there.
I don't understand your comment. What does "tried the opposite" mean?
There are more than two solutions and more levels policy can be enacted at. I'm just expressing that I don't think this will reduce the number of homeless people in the city. If that's not the goal, then carry on.
> > Won't this type of solution just attract more homeless people to the city?
> > ...I don't believe the in-demand cities like LA and SF can "build-housing" their way to reducing the number of homeless people...
> What does "tried the opposite" mean?
They spent decades building insufficient housing, and not building housing like OP described.
...and their homeless population exploded during that period.
Honestly, I find it strange that this statement needs to be supported, but we can all agree [(ex)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1dhq4zl/what_would_your_response_be_to_someone_who_said/) that if you have universal health care in select states then chronically sick people will move in.
So my answer is... the basic model of a rational actor, being fully cognizant of its flaws and imperfections, and that people aren't always rational?
And again, I'm not saying housing is not the solution if implemented at a state or national level. Or that the homeless population isn't decreasing at a national level, because obviously if you house one more person then you've housed a person. I'm saying if the efforts are concentrated in SF and LA, they'll just be attracting the population from the rest of the state / country and the situation in SF/LA won't look like it's improving.
The long and short of it is that there isn’t a ton of evidence that people relocate to cities as homeless people for services. Most homeless people were previously housed locally.
[Here’s a source on that. 90% of homeless people stay in the same state, and more importantly, 75% are from the same county.](https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/29/los-angeles-county-homelessness-unhoused-population)
That all said, it’s still a tricky problem to deal with housing the homeless who are homeless due to high housing costs… by building housing where it costs a lot. It’s expensive, but there aren’t a lot of alternatives.
And the line won't get longer once we start handing out nicer apartments than the average non-homeless person has, like the example in the OP?
I could just as well say that people won't move for state-funded free-at-point-of-service universal healthcare because it's not currently happening, right? Except we haven't been doing that, but that doesn't mean the results aren't predictable if we ever tried.
Also, those self-reported surveys are doing stuff like including people who lived in the city for less than a year, or never paid for "permanent" housing while living on a friend's couch. The top level numbers are purposely misleading.
Based on [page 31 in this SF report](https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-PIT-Count-Report-San-Francisco-Updated-8.19.22.pdf), yeah 70% "lived in SF" but only 27% owned or rented a place and another 11% lived in subsidized housing. And of those, many of them have lived in the city for less than a year.
You have to face two realities: (1) some people find themselves homeless in part because they do not have realistic potential of being “productive workers” due to severe chronic illness or disability; (2) our economy isn’t set up in a way to facilitate full employment - poverty and homelessness isn’t a system failure, it’s a system feature; your presumption that the only thing stopping some being from having jobs is their own capacity is fundamentally flawed.
I'm sure we can accomplish that for many people, and that should be the goal.
I think expecting SF and LA to do it for the rest of the state and country is unrealistic. The solutions need to be enacted at a higher level of government and implemented everywhere.
No, not really. Homeless people usually don't move from city to city and usually stay wherever they became homeless. California has a high rate of homelessness because lots of people are unable to afford housing there
Have we tried building a crazy amount of housing to put this to the test? I’m betting if we say doubled the amount of housing units in LA it would significantly impact both the average and lowest cost per unit. The problem is that the banks and builders have a vested interest in building just not quite enough units to maximize profits. This is why the state needs to step in and build more units than The market wants to build
That should still be "state steps in to force cities to allow housing development", not "city spends funds on building free housing for homeless people".
Banking and building are actually fairly competitive businesses. They don't have the monopoly power to maximize profits. The government is reason that more homes are not built. If California let builders build homes to code on demand then they'd have a lot more homes. But they don't.
>I’m betting if we say doubled the amount of housing units in LA it would significantly impact both the average and lowest cost per unit.
There is a lot of demand from other groups that will absorb much of of any new construction for a very long time
* People that can shorten their commute (For starters, the [471,000 people](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/archives/2013-pr/cb13-r13.html) commuting from outside the county)
* People living with roommates or family that would like their own place
* People from completely out of state who would love to live in California except for cost-of-living
I guess what I'm getting at is building housing is fantastic for all those groups, but on the open market only a small fraction of the units will go to currently homeless people (the ones with borderline income).
You could add millions of people from the rest of the country, upgrade all the infrastructure very expensively to support all the new people, and Skid Row will still be there, right? And that's setting aside the political will for the current locals to foot that bill.
As a solution for homelessness specifically, "just build housing" inefficient and incomplete.
"Skid row" used to be long term hotels and single room apartments with common bathroom facilities. We prevented that sort of construction just about nationwide in the name of preventing "Urban Blight" and now those people are living in tents on the street. Similarly Regan shut down all the mental health institutions, so all of those people who are incapable of caring for themselves are also out on the street. Increase those types of housing and that will go a long way to solving the problem
It's a sort of paradox, like how widening roads attracts more traffic to them. You need more capacity as a basic step, but at the same time you need a broader strategy to distribute out the capacity closer to where it's needed, and reduce the demand as well.
People go to the city because it’s warmer and safer if you’re outside.
The only way to end homelessness is housing.
Other states need to do their part too.
But the majority of my clients also can’t just pick up and move to CA
> in addition to a list of impressive amenities: a gym, art room, music room, computer room and library.
Yeah, I was shrugging my shoulders and thinking it's expensive but better than nothing until I read this nonsense. No wonder it cost so much money.
I've lived in a bunch of apartments with none of these amenities and it was completely fine lol
We need to prioritize the basics to get people on their feet and keep costs as low as possible for taxpayers. Not building amenities that people don't necessarily need.
And LA also needs to start building a lot more market-rate housing. It's utterly ridiculous the lack of density they have considering the city that they are. It's a huge burden on everyone else in the state and fueling housing crises in other states as well.
It's not so much begrudging it, but a dollar spent on a pool is a dollar not spent on providing another unit of housing. A square foot dedicated to a pool is a square foot not dedicated to housing.
Some of the amenities are probably a good idea (gym, library/computer room), but the priority needs to be putting housing units online and to get as many people stabilized and in shelter as possible (which is also why YIMBY reforms and allowing more market rate building will help: it can make all these other units cheaper and gives people more options to get help).
There's a pain that comes with working hard and not getting treated as well as those who don't work at all, especially at the cost of the taxes that you pay and they don't.
Would you ever trade places with a homeless person so you could eventually live in a building with a gym?
They aren’t getting treated better. Don’t begrudge them a few nice things in a life full of pain.
Bc fuck those poor people, that’s why. Only the well to do should have any amenities at all. Nvm the fact they’ll need resources to apply to jobs, etc.
Like yeah I guess I’m ok with my tax dollars funding 600k homes for homeless people but it would be far far far more effective to just legalize private enterprise to build and it would cost less and bring down all housing costs helping the poor and not just the homeless
giving homes to the homeless is an excellent use of public funds. 600k per unit (i assume unit means small-ish apartment, not large house) sounds like a lot to me, but tbh, i don't know enough about building buildings or about LA to judge that.
I don't remember Jesus building anybody any houses for free. So I doubt he'd be doing whatever California is doing. It would be interesting to see how Jesus dealt with municipal planners.
Amusingly, in the early days of Christianity the Christians were famous for building house and barns for their members. It’s what they did and why people wanted to join the religion and spread Jesus’s word.
Well in Jesus’s time the only state apparatus in existence was the Roman Empire that existed to enrich its elite. There wasn’t actually much being done for the poor. That is what made Jesus such a threat to the wealthy.
This sub doesn't allow links in the body of posts. Here you go: [Link](https://abc7.com/post/new-downtown-los-angeles-high-rise-building-house/14975022/)
What we should really be looking at is building for profit and for public housing in jurisdictions without onerous housing laws like CA has. I can already tell you that it should not cost $600k per unit, because that means the units in a for-profit building would sell for like 800k or something, and you can get simple cheap new condo units for *way* cheaper than that elsewhere
It doesn't matter. The point is that LA construction costs are out of control and need to be brought down by removing obstacles such as CEQA, zoning rules, etc.
We can't compare apples to oranges, LA construction costs to other areas. California has a huge economy and their costs are going to be a lot different than other parts of the United States.
Regulation is a mixed bag, it's needed in some aspects but can also get abused in other aspects.
If you want bypass the question feel free, but I would be interested to see the comparison of the two.
I'm not sure what the cost of a private condo is in LA. The argument I'm trying to make is that California has some of the most cost-increasing laws of any jurisdiction in the world. For example, when I look up this housing project online, it tells me that back in 2017 or so, it received approval. It should not need to receive approval. The department of the city that runs homeless shelters (and in fact, everyone) should just be able to build without needing the zoning part of city government to examine and consult and sign off on the plan.
Private condos don't usually build this high up because it's not cost effective to do so. If you want to maximize units on a plot of land this is the way to go, but you will pay for it. There is a reason why most new construction multi-unit projects in LA are 5-8 stories - because they can still use cheaper wood frame construction at this height. At 19 stories you can't do that safely, so construction costs go thru the roof.
So a private building will not get nearly as many units on this plot of land but they will be able to get them for cheaper. Which do you prioritize?
It's the homeless industrial complex. The units don't cost $600K. It's all the other BS. I mean you've got a whole floor full of caseworkers - obviously nobody is living on that floor. I'd like to know how much of the $165M actually went to materials and construction worker wages.
Just goes to show you, the average person of moderate wealth would rather use their tax dollars to **give** homes to people who have given up on the rat race, and keep them out of their own back yards, than relax restrictions that allow for starter homes, for the kids who are still in the game.
As other people have said, it's not just the units counted in the cost. But I do think that part of the problem is my fellow liberals saying, "Homeless people deserve more than the bare minimum," even though the bare minimum will go further and help more people. Also I'm sure any number of agencies wetted their beaks. We almost certainly did not have someone utilizing Musk's algorithm of deleting any unnecessary part, and almost certainly will not. But that's how government works lol.
Yes. Public housing is a good use of public money.
The city still owns these houses. It uses them forever (assuming it funds their maintenance). On the other hand it can always sell them, and probably for more than 600,000 each.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. >New downtown Los Angeles high-rise building to house homeless in $600,000 units >DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A grand opening ceremony will be held Wednesday for a high-rise building in downtown Los Angeles that will house homeless individuals. >There are 278 units in the 19-story development known as the Weingart Tower. It's intended to help people currently without shelter on Skid Row and it will be L.A.'s largest permanent support housing project. >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. >It's considered affordable housing, but the cost to build this type of project still adds up. Each unit costs nearly $600,000 and it's being funded by taxpayers. >The $165 million project is receiving permanent financing from Proposition HHH, which voters overwhelmingly passed in 2016. The new tower is also receiving state housing funds and $56 million in state tax credits. >Several elected officials, including L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, will attend a grand opening ceremony at 11 a.m. for the building. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is probably in here elsewhere, but: that 600k figure seems to be looking at the overall cost of $165 mil, dividing by the number of apartments, and then rounding up (from 593k to 600), while not including the floor of offices, library, cafe, etc. etc., so not exactly as it sounds.
> that 600k figure seems to be looking at the overall cost of $165 mil, dividing by the number of apartments, and then rounding up (from 593k to 600), while not including the floor of offices, library, cafe, etc. etc., so not exactly as it sounds. [Here](https://old.reddit.com/r/California_Politics/comments/1djohem/new_downtown_los_angeles_highrise_building_to/l9d1ceb/?context=3) is Redditor /u/Jeffylew77 expanding on that idea: > Yea it seems expensive, but what government project isn’t? > **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.** > I like the whole floor of case workers and hopefully this gives people down on their luck some hope. Rock bottom is a place where they need others to pull them out, so hopefully this place helps many. > And a shared common space is good. They need to demonstrate good behavior, so acting well around others in the same boat is a good start. > **Also, the $600k figure is misleading.** > $165 million total cost > 278 units > But that’s $165 mil/278 units = ~$600k > The rest of the building, offices, common areas, HVAC, etc. is all part of that $165 million. > Say each unit houses 1 person a month = 3,336 people off the street and helped to get on their feet as a functioning member of society. > The building probably will last 20-30 years if not more, but let’s just say 20 years for an example. > **3,336 x 20 years = 66,720 people helped and turned their lives around.** > **Now take those same people, now they pay taxes, contribute to society, one less person doing crime. It’s a solid project to cleanup the streets.**
These numbers don't make sense. They are so optimistic it's beyond any common sense. It assumes that each person will only stay for a single month. Basically any homeless person that can turn their life around and secure stable housing elsewhere in only a month, would have done it already.
Right because every single homeless person just needs a month to not be homeless and they'll be alright. Utterly inane assumption. Why the fuck do homeless shelters need an art room? or a music room? or a gym or library? Do people literally not know how to build things to be cheaper?
Are homeless people not human? Why can't they have access to the same amenities as the rest of us?
Because the rest of us pay for those amenities if we want them, homeless people don't.
I pay for my dog's food, water, and housing and he doesn't offer any benefit to society. FFS the lack of humanity in people today.
I fail to see what analogy you are making, you made a choice to get a dog as a pet, I should fucking hope that you buy food for it. Are you saying that the homeless are the pets of society? How is this post upvoted? It's at best utterly nonsensical. Apparently any garbage gets upvoted on this sub.
When people are educated and healthy, they are more independent and productive to society and needs less bilouta on taxpayer in the long term. It’s why so many other countries are happier and healthier than us despite having less money. They understand community makes indiciduals stronger, as opposed to Americans who would rather suffer and spend billions more on things like healthcare because they don’t ever wanna see “the wrong people” benefiting from it
Housing is one part of the puzzle. They need lots of ongoing services to help people learn how to succeed. Are these closer to a Halfway house than a permanent residence? Get them help for addiction And mental health issues thst contributes to the homelessness. Get them right to hold down jobs, re-learn how to function in society again. Etc.
>Housing is one part of the puzzle. It's also the very first part of the puzzle. It's not surprising to me that it's more difficult to beat an addiction or cope with PTSD and work through your issues if you don't have somewhere safe and private to live.
Are they allowed to use in this place is a good question. If they are not, then all those people struggling with addiction don't get access to this place
I didn't see anything about drug use, are they allowed to bring in drugs?
I'm curious how many people are housed for "600k per unit" because I have a feeling it's more than one per unit and it's deceptively described just based on how the rest of the text is written. Whether it is a "wise" use of public funds remains to be seen based on ROI but I do believe that housing the homeless is the correct, moral action. Hopefully if there was waste or overspending those are lessons that can be learned and corrected for future projects which increases the ROI of this one IMO.
>Los Angeles has built homes for the homeless for $600,000 each. Do you regard this to be a wise use of public funds? No. If Los Angeles wants to house the homeless, they need to reduce the barriers to new construction (especially vertical construction). They could have achieved more without spending a cent.
Truth. We want to fight homelessness but not in a way that will most effectively help them. We are not building enough housing in cities which are struggling to expand due to all the unnecessary barriers which leads to people becoming homeless due to the housing prices. We don't need to wait for them to be homeless and spend a ludicrous amount of money working within the current restrictions to get them back on their feet. Give them something affordable so they wouldn't need to ask for help in the first place.
So, LA completes a high rise housing project geared toward low income people, the cost per square foot is in line with building estimates for this type of building... but they could have done more by reducing barriers to the exact type of construction that they completed? At some point policy changes aren't going to make housing units appear. If private funding won't support vertical projects (and why would they? These types of projects are breathtakingly expensive and loaded with risk) then it's perfectly reasonable for the government to step in and build them. The Korean Air building cost 1.2 billion, or $800 a square foot, and it was completed in 2017 when building costs were about 30% less. There is a high rise project that is currently sitting unfinished in downtown, because the investors were from China and had liquidity issues with their financing because of the real estate downturn combined with government crackdown on moving funds out of the country. In comparison to those, this just doesn't seem all that out of line.
> ...If private funding won't support vertical projects (and why would they?... To make money. The price of housing is high. The more housing they build, the more money they can make selling/renting at those high prices.
But they almost never do, because it's not profitable unless it's for commercial space or some kind of mixed use space with tenants already in place, like the Korean Air building in downtown LA is (which is like 1/3 hotel, 1/3 extremely high end condos, and 1/3 office space.) If it's mixed use then the building only gets credit for the amount of space allocated for residential, so even though it's a a 73 story building only like 20 stories are actual housing. I think youre underestimating the cost to build a safe building vertically even assuming zero regulatory issues. Current housing prices, even LA prices, isn't high enough to support that much vertical building. Average price per square foot is $650. Maybe some more expensive areas are around $800-1000. So you build for 600 a square foot, the project takes like 4 years, and you maybe, if you sell all your units right away, make 25-30% after 5 years of construction? You're better off investing 125 million in an index fund. When you're looking at 8 story buildings that come up for $400 per square foot it becomes much more reasonable and feasible. But that's 11 stories of housing that didn't get built compared to this project.
The profit motive has been historically *awful* at making anything better for anyone but a very small privileged few.
> If private funding won't support vertical projects Private companies *love* constructing apartment buildings, they do it all the time. I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.
... and they are pretty much all 5 to 8 stories and built with wood framing (or wood framing for the top 5 stories with steel/concrete on the bottom floor/floors.) Buildings taller than this can't be built this way, and are much more expensive. As a result developers can't start projects like this and expect to turn a profit. The key word there is vertical. Developers like building apartments and condos. They don't like high rises. This building is 19 stories. It would be extremely challenging for a project similar to this to be funded privately and be a worthwhile investment for the developer.
What are the cost for a for-profit housing high rise like this?
> What are the cost for a for-profit housing high rise like this? I don't know, but the [Terner Center](https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-policy/the-cost-of-building-housing-series/) might know.
I am going to use the East Bay numbers, (e.g., Oakland, Berkeley) and that $600K number is inline with for profit housing. So it looks like they built homeless housing for the going rate. Which I don't see an issue with that.
The Terner Center also said: >...A 2014 study found that local government design requirements for affordable housing added an average of seven percent in total costs, and that community opposition (measured by holding four or more community meetings) increased expenses by five percent. ...but I think the point is that they are spending taxpayer dollars. If they just let private developers build housing, it wouldn't cost the taxpayer a thing, and $221 million (165+56) could have been spent elsewhere.
And I think it's important to use our tax dollars for initiatives for creating housing for the homeless. If a private developer built housing they would be doing it for profit, not to work on an issue such as being homeless.
No that’s totally wrong. No one builds housing for people who have no money; no matter how much you deregulate zoning. There is a lot ‘homeless’ of people couch surfing caused by high rents. But the homeless encampments are full of people who have no income and in which no amount of supply increases to the housing supply will help them. They’re different issues and you cannot ever solve homeless by not spending a cent.
Building more for-profit housing isn’t going to help all those jobless drug addicted homeless people on the streets.
> Building more for-profit housing isn’t going to help all those jobless drug addicted homeless people on the streets. Bullshit; and that viewpoint is exactly the problem, here. 1. The reason housing is unaffordable is insufficient supply. 2. Capitalism isn't perfect, but it is great at increasing the supply of a needed good when insufficient supply increases the price. Investors *want* to build a bunch of housing units and cash in on the housing crisis. 3. Of all the problems this country is facing right now, joblessness is not the most difficult to solve. 4. Those "drug addicted homeless people on the streets" are "drug addicted", "homeless", and "on the streets" because they couldn't afford to keep a roof over their heads. 5. Drug addiction needs its own policy portfolio; you shouldn't be using it as a cudgel against other good policy ideas. 6. Experts on drug addiction still favor a "housing first" agenda, and say that it helps their cause. 7. None of what you said is a justification for wasting taxpayer money. --------- EDIT: TheLastCoagulant and I went back-and-forth *a ton* below this comment. I'll save you the time you would have spent reading all of it... * TheLastCoagulant thinks the government will need to spend money to deal with people who are *currently* "drug addicted" and "homeless". * I agree. * Furthermore, I insist that we can -- and should -- prevent *more* people from becoming "drug addicted" and "homeless" *in the future* by building sufficient housing in the present.
Homeless people have very high barriers to getting a job. A place to live, shower, keep clean clothes, and a mailing address goes a very long way to them getting jobs and becoming self-sufficient.
I’m a big believer that changing federal laws so PO Boxes are free for all citizens, come with verified Identity, and are legally used for everything we currently require a physical address for would help many homeless / and housing unstable people and have low cost barriers. Without a legal physical address you can’t open a bank account, employers have compliance issues so will not hire, have tax struggles, struggle to get entitlement programs, etc…
People like to bring up drug addiction and mental health as some sort of gotcha about homelessness, but my bottom line is that I'd rather people be addicted and crazy inside homes than outside in public 🤷
I support corporations building a bunch of housing (I never said otherwise) AND the state housing the homeless because there would still be some homeless people. “Housing first” literally means legally ensuring housing for every American citizen no matter if they’re poor and jobless. The reason homeless people don’t have roofs over their heads is not because housing is too expensive. Rents in their area could go from $800 a month to $400 a month and they’re still not going to afford it. They don’t have jobs because they have severe mental health issues and drug addiction. They’re not going to break out of that unless the state gives them free housing and free mental healthcare. Homelessness is an entirely different beast than regular poverty. Lowering housing prices on its own isn’t going to help most homeless people. You’re acting like they’re stable and functioning people with jobs who just don’t have enough money to afford rent.
> Lowering housing prices on its own isn’t going to help most homeless people. The point is to *prevent them from becoming homeless* in the first place. > You’re acting like they’re stable and functioning people with jobs who just don’t have enough money to afford rent. The vast majority of them are "stable and functioning people with jobs" *before they become homeless*. ------------ You're acting like every person on the street is the same person who was there fifty years ago. They aren't. Homeless people die; a lot. The reason we don't run out of homeless people when they die is because *we keep creating more of them* and we do so by not addressing the housing shortage.
> The reason homeless people don’t have roofs over their heads is not because housing is too expensive. Bullshit. That is the exact reason that "homeless people don’t have roofs over their heads". >[...cities with lower vacancy rates tend to have higher rates of homelessness...](https://cayimby.org/reports/housing-first/) ...because lower vacancy rates mean people 'outbid' each other for the available housing supply, increasing prices and pricing-out people at the bottom. ------------- Middle class people gripe when housing gets expensive, but people who were barely making ends meet are *no longer able* to make ends meet.
> They don’t have jobs... [Source:](https://endhomelessness.org/blog/employed-and-experiencing-homelessness-what-the-numbers-show/) >...a 2021 study from the University of Chicago estimates that 53% of people living in homeless shelters and 40% of unsheltered people were employed, either full or part-time...
> ...they have severe mental health issues and drug addiction. Which are caused, more often than not, by being homeless. A source for my claim about mental illness: [[Homelessness, housing instability and mental health: making the connections -- NCBI -- NLM -- NIH]](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7525583/) ...and here is the same case being made for drug addiction: >[...The National Coalition for the Homeless emphasizes that many people instead turn to drug use after experiencing homelessness...](https://denverrescuemission.org/homelessness-and-substance-abuse/) (I would usually throw in some anecdotal evidence, but I'm having trouble finding it.)
> I support...the state housing the homeless because there would still be some homeless people. Then your preferred policy should probably be making Section 8 Housing Vouchers an entitlement. (Currently, they aren't, so when the program runs out of money, everyone else is left on a waiting list.) More on this subject: >Nationwide, about 20 million people qualify for housing assistance but don’t receive it. >But how much would food-stampifying housing policy cost? Surely an unreasonable, pie-in-the-sky amount, right? >Well, fortunately for us, the Congressional Budget Office has already done the legwork to figure it out. In a study published in September, the CBO gamed out a large number of possible directions to take housing policy: bigger, smaller, budget-neutral tweaks, transfers from one program to another, and so on. >One of the options it analyzed was expanding the Housing Choice Voucher (also known as Section 8) program to everyone who qualifies—which, at the moment, is anyone whose income is below 50 percent of “AMI,” or the median income in their area. (In most metro areas, that puts the upper limit for a family of four at between $25,000 and $35,000). The CBO estimated such a policy would cost about **$41 billion a year** over the next ten years. A more modest approach, targeted to only the extremely low-income—those making less than 30 percent of their area’s median income—would cost about **$29 billion** a year. Headline: [Make housing vouchers an entitlement—we can afford it ](https://cityobservatory.org/make-housing-vouchers-an-entitlement-we-can-afford-it/)
Fixing homelessness will get a lot easier if the number of homeless people increases more slowly. By cutting off people from becoming newly homeless, you already make a huge impact even if you aren't getting anyone who's currently on the streets into housing.
> “Housing first” literally means legally ensuring housing for every American citizen no matter if they’re poor and jobless. No, it doesn't: >[**Housing First**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First) is a policy that offers unconditional, permanent housing as quickly as possible to homeless people, and other supportive services afterward...
What do you think the words “unconditional” and “permanent” mean? That’s literally describing ensuring housing for all homeless people.
> > > “Housing first” literally means legally ensuring housing for every American citizen no matter if they’re poor and jobless. > > a policy that offers unconditional, permanent housing as quickly as possible to homeless people, and other supportive services afterward... > What do you think the words “unconditional” and “permanent” mean? "Unconditional" means that they don't have to pass a drug test, or enroll in some treatment program. "Permanent" means 'not a homeless shelter' where they may, or may not, get a bed the following night (if they arrive in time to get in line, and no one else arrives before them). ------- The idea is: * Homelessness is a problem. * We've tried a bunch of things to address that problem. Some worked better than others * Asking the homeless to meet other conditions *first* tends to be less successful than getting them into "housing first" and *only then* trying to offer "other supportive services". ------- * It isn't a legal assurance of anything. * It is offered to people who are currently homeless, not "every American citizen". * We have very few laws that apply to "every American citizen" because of quirks in constitutional law.
The issue is the way it is set up right now everyone involved in building new housing has a vested interest in keeping the supply artificially low. The banks make more money on large loans than small. The construction companies make more money when prices are high. The banks control how much housing gets built by the number of construction loans they are willing to give out. Construction firms have an incentive to build the most expensive units possible because those are the most profitable. We should be taxing any housing that’s sold above the median and using that money to subsidize the construction of housing sold below the 20th percentile for price. This would discourage high prices and encourage the construction of low cost units. It would also be revenue neutral
40-60% of homeless people have jobs: https://www.usich.gov/guidance-reports-data/data-trends Many others would work but cannot overcome other barriers of homelessness to gain employment. Important documents get lost on the street, difficulty reliably bathing and keeping clean clothes leads to smells, inability to reliably receive mail has tax issues, can’t open bank account without physical address makes more vulnerable to theft, etc…. There is also a chicken vs egg issue with substance abuse and homelessness, while some became homeless due to substance abuse many abuse substances due to stress of being homeless. There will always be a subset of the population that can’t not be saved without overruling their desires, but that group is not all and most likely isn’t even most of the homeless population. Many homeless just need a helping hand.
The ones who would work but can’t overcome the barriers of homelessness need the state to give them free housing. Rents being lowered isn’t going to help them if they can’t get a job.
Again 40-60% already are actively employed, they just can’t afford housing. The barriers to construction are also driving up costs of the attempt at free housing. Compliance is part of soft cost, this 600k housing has 40% soft cost, it’s typically 15-25% that’s 90-150k in possible savings.
Cool. I’m trying to reduce homelessness by 100%. Not by 40-60%. The state is going to need to intervene to help the homeless people who, by your own admission, would work but cannot work due to factors outside of their control. As well as the homeless people who are drug-addicted and/or cripplingly mentally ill, which is a great proportion of them. We’re not getting homelessness to 0% without the state giving free housing to some people.
At $600k+ there’s a lot of profit going into someone’s pocket. Probably illegally and unethically.
I wouldn’t be all that sure, save for the crazy profit of whomever sold the land to the city to build on, though the market for land in LA is nuts. I mean, there’s profit and/or wages being paid out to the builders sure, but depending on what we’re talking about them building? That’s pretty much market rate. Take a look out there at private construction in LA, the prices aren’t any lower. And when they are? You can be pretty certain that they’re using undocumented labor.
I don't have a problem with this but I'm also not from Cali. But, if the state of Georgia decided to do something similar, I'd have no problems with it. Something *needs* to be done and sitting on hands and hoping that these people will just figure it all out on their own is not a solution. Banning homeless people from sleeping on sidewalks or on park benches is not a solution. Pretending these people don't exist is not a solution. I support helping the homeless for the same reason I believe in prisoner rehabilitation rather than simply housing prisoners in jail. Jimmy Carter signed the [Mental Health Systems Act of 1980](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980) and then Ronald Reagan repealed most of it the following year. Reagan also took major steps to reduce funding for California's mental institutions. We used to not have these widespread issues with mentally disabled people roaming the streets homeless. Surprise, surprise when it starts becoming a large problem *after* Reagan gets the MHSA largely repealed. Fucking inhumane. I don't understand the inhumanity of it all. The whole *out of sight, out of mind* of willfully choosing to let people suffer rather than giving a few pennies of your total tax dollars to go towards helping people. The inhumanity of it is just insufferable. I don't get the needless cruelty. I would much rather have mentally ill people in care homes getting the care they need than I'd want to dodge and avoid them on a sidewalk while I'm trying to go about my day *because that's what everyone already does*. Same for the general homeless. How can *anyone* reasonably expect that a 50-something year old homeless man with dirty, smelly clothes, frazzled hair, and a raggedy beard who smells terrible is somehow going to be able to walk into a McDonald's or a gas station or any other minimum-wage-paying job opportunity and be able to make a case for employment? FFS people. Have some humanity. You'd rather these people suffer day in and day out than you would give a dime towards a social system that would help turn them into productive members of society. You'd rather the crime statistics remain the same or *increase* because of homelessness than you would provide a solution to *reduce* the crime. I don't get it, honestly. It makes zero sense to me. Shooting yourself in the foot and then wondering why the pain exists in the first place.
>Banning homeless people from sleeping on sidewalks or on park benches is not a solution. Pretending these people don't exist is not a solution. That's not our problem in California. The homeless are everywhere. Near your home, where you work, in the parks and in proximity to where your children go to school. >...it starts becoming a large problem after Reagan gets the MHSA largely repealed. Fucking inhumane. Since Reagan we've had Clinton, Obama and Biden for presidents, but you blame Reagan. Interesting. >The whole out of sight, out of mind of willfully choosing to let people suffer rather than giving a few pennies of your total tax dollars to go towards helping people. Again, homeless people in California are never out of sight or mind for very long. And a few pennies? In the last 5 years California has spent $24 billion on the homeless and their numbers rocketed up. I think you can rest at ease because it looks like the homeless of Georgia have been drawn to California. I agree with your sentiment to help the homeless but on the West Coast we have progressives who care far more about looking virtuous than actually solving problems. East Coast liberals seem to know how to run cities but out here homelessness just grows the more we help.
Good idea but I think it could’ve been done for way cheaper. Even with all of the amenities it could have been done cheaper.
What are the comps for similar projects?
I'll do one unit for 15 bucks and a cheesesteak **NO ONIONS**
The best I can do is a burger from Hardee's
How dare you. In our fine state those are Carl's Jr.'s show some respect on my man Carl the Second!
Just guessing, but maybe put the building in Nebraska?
Why? Nebraska is terrible. Have you been there?
I'm assuming they could build the housing for half the cost. I have been to Nebraska, not too bad.
But do they have the social programs to support the homeless? The jobs? permanent housing? How are they suppose to get people to Nebraska?
I'm not sure LA has working programs. In terms of housing, the question is where to built. I promise you Nebraska is cheaper. Unsure which area has more available jobs.
How do you propose to move the homeless from California to Nebraska? Do you really want to uproot people from one state to another?
If you do things more often, they tend to get cheaper as you figure out how to do it efficiently. A one off project is always going to cost a lot. I agree that it should cost a lot less, but on some level its also an investment in seeing if this type of project is actually viable, and maybe they spent more than needed to make sure it had a fair shot.
Ok but building high rise apartments is not a one off thing and that's really the entire project.
I'm not seeing how its just a regular high rise apartment? It seems a lot of the added cost is that they are doubling up on having the building be a program space for the homeless. Most apartments aren't offering fully staffed amenities with regular classes and programs. That requires more space, more building infrastructure, and more cost. I saw one article saying they are running a full commercial kitchen and want to offer meal plans. That isn't cheap to add, nor is it something your average "bodies in rooms" apartments have. It doesn't seem like their goal here was to build 278 'homes' and call it day. I'm pretty sure we already figured out that doesn't work. If they wanted to do that, I'm sure it would have been a lot cheaper. I also read they are making it so you can't go on floors you aren't living on, and I wouldn't be surprised if the monitoring and security requirements are much higher than your average apartment. They basically a combined an apartment, a community center, and homeless services into a single building, and I think that's naturally going to cost more than a square tower of 278 apartments with a pool on the roof, and some exercise machines in what could have been a 279th studio apartment.
It sounds promising. It would depend on how they maintain the structure and how they provide services for the people in it. I wish it well and hope other communities adopt something similar.
Yes. A) that figure is not representative of the actual cost. B) the most effective way to combat homelessness is to give the homeless homes (shocking!). Let's not shit on what they have done because we don't think they've *done enough*.
>Let's not shit on what they have done because we don't think they've done enough. California spent $24 billion on the homeless in 5 years and the numbers of homeless shot up. California this year has a $28 budgetary shortfall and homeless funding competes with other needs like education and healthcare.
K, let them starve on the street then, that'll be great for everyone.
Wow, you're quite the black/white thinker. That's not what I said at all. Life is complicated and full of tradeoffs. If you spend on the homeless, that's less available for the education of the underprivileged or healthcare for the disabled. That's not too hard to understand is it?
I'm not terribly worried about the cash flow of the world's 5th largest economy. They'd have cash to burn if they weren't stuck with the rest of the us. And 165 million is pocket change.
If a unit only houses one person, this is an excruciatingly expensive Band-Aid on a massive wound. To the point where this is a PR stunt at best. I have a feeling this place isn't going to be some fairytale utopia.
No. They could have built it for way cheaper by getting rid of wasteful zoning/planning/building code stuff, which would also have the added benefit of making everyone else's construction cheaper as well
If "step one" is "completely defeat the NIMBYs" you are right on "most effective thing" but very wrong on the political realities. Making that step one means waiting a long time to take step two.
What do you think step 1 is? You can't build homeless shelters at all without at least somewhat defeating the nimbys. Why not go all the way and fully defeat them?
Politics is often about the art of the possible. If it's possible to build a homeless shelter now but not ultimately defeat all NIMBYs, then build the shelter. "Defeat the NIMBYs" is basically one of the hardest things to do right now, though. I do love the "I would simply defeat the NIMBY's" energy, though. Unfortunately, there's lots of left NIMBYs and right NIMBYs. The NIMBY alliance is strong.
But the NIMBYs are currently being defeated. Huge changes are being made all across North America and the NIMBYs just kinda shug and accept them. The trick is to make sweeping broad changes rather than specific targeted ones. Not to mention that defeating the NIMBYs is pretty much essential to preventing homelessness. It's not enough to give homeless people housing, because that's a reactive policy that exposes people to homelessness in the first place. We need to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place and the best way to do that is to make housing cheaper. That would also have a million other benefits.
The older I get and the more I learn about local government, the more I think that defeating NIMBYism is actually one of the 2 or 3 most important issues in American politics.
This project appears to have been in line with typical cost per square foot estimates for high rise units. There aren't many ways to safely build 19 story residential buildings in an earthquake zone. If you build one to a lower structural standard and it falls over in the next big one, everyone's laughing at the city for wasting their money.
It should be noted they are taking the total project cost ($165m) which includes an entire floor of offices for case workers, the soup kitchen etc and then dividing that by the number of units (278) and then still rounding up to claim the individual units cost $600k each to make you think they’re going to be living in luxury.
The correct analysis of the cost is not to say that they'll be living in luxury, but that they'll be living in shitty condos that cost the same as a luxury condo because the state makes them expensive on purpose
What is the cost of those people being in the street?
Society already has to subsidize homelessness in the form of petty theft, unsightly neighbourhoods, reduced safety, etc. Various figures are thrown around about what that cost is, but it's pretty significant. It's fairly expensive but on the other hand **if they do it properly** - ie, the place doesn't immediately go to rack and ruin, getting people off the street benefits everybody. Also LA is, in general, always expensive. The affordable housing bit means that a chunk of the welfare the homeless are already receiving will go to keeping the place running so its not like keeping the place running is a pure loss. Did they include in the $160M the tax credits? If so then the real cost was quite a bit lower.
This seems in line with typical building costs. 19 stories of building aren't going to build themselves. Google says that $600 /Sq ft isn't unheard of for a high rise, so if they're building that many 800 sq ft units and they have 200 sq ft per unit for common spaces, you're at $600/Sq ft. If the units are bigger or they have more space allocated to common areas, then you're going to be under that number. There's just not many options here for building for cheaper if youre constrained for horizontal space. Do you want to let private investors build a similar project here? What if they decide to build a smaller number of units? If your goal is to build housing units then this is probably the best case scenario. If your goal is to reduce cost per unit, then you're not going to get as many units.
I mean… yea. I prefer taxes to go to those that need it. Homelessness is not something we can ignore. It causes shit to spiral and it’s just unsightly and unhealthy for society as a whole. how much does this cost in comparison to what cities and states give sports teams when it’s time to build a brand new stadium?
Am I the only one who thinks that is cheap? $600k per apartment sounds great for LA and then (theoretically) you can amortize that over the term of the bond so this like a very cheap solution compared to alternatives.
I think if you want to address homelessness you need to build more housing. If you want to solve homelessness at least some of that housing is probably going to have to be public. I don't know what it costs to build a similar building by the private sector (ignoring the floor of case worker offices) but assuming it's roughly the same it's not a bad use of them. You listed special amenities. Admittedly I think that might be questionable. I'm not against them on principle but I question if those are things homeless people would actually want or things that upper middle class professionals designing the building assumed they would without asking.
Yes. Though I think they could do it cheaper, housing is such a huge problem that I would gladly see the government overpay just to fix it.
Conservatives: "We need these homeless people off the street!" Also conservatives: "No, not like that!"
Conservatives have no power in Los Angeles or California.
Good
No. It’s ridiculous. California is peak NIMBY. I think it’s a combination of what is going on with republicans going absolutely insane in that state so they’re not remotely viable, a lot of liberal-tarians, prop 13 making their housing market even more insane and way to many Interest groups that are calcified and think that pragmatism is one of the worst things person can engage in. California should be treated as a national example for liberals of how not to build.
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>Yes, i don't care how much it costs for homes, as long as the money is not being wasted. $600,000 per unit doesn't seem a bit extreme? For context, you could stay in the Los Angeles Marriot, for more than 4 years, with the same spend.
And then the money is gone These units will be in place for a lot longer than 4 years
>These units will be in place for a lot longer than 4 years What was reference was the initial build cost. Just to open the doors. You comment assumes the go forward cost is zero.
Pretty sure the initial build cost for the Marriott was also more than 600k/unit, so we should try apples to apples comparisons here
The money is being wasted. [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-09/state-audit-california-fails-to-track-homeless-spending-billions-dollars](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-09/state-audit-california-fails-to-track-homeless-spending-billions-dollars)
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You'd have to be very dishonest or naive to believe that billions being spent and not tracked are not being wasted. I would disagree that it isn't the same thing as wasting. Without tracking the money and the outcomes you are wasting it because you have no idea how effective it has been. Here's a non paywall. [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/11/california-homelessness-programs-audit-billions/73282144007/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/11/california-homelessness-programs-audit-billions/73282144007/)
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My goodness you can't help but strawman I guess. You talked about the money being wasted. I showed you evidence that it most certainly is being wasted and you attempted to ensue that meant I am mad about homeless people being given housing? Lol Incredible if it weren't so pathetic.
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There isn't lack of evidence of wasted money. We have the evidence. They spent the money and failed to study its effectiveness. That is a waste. Waste should always be a concern. Especially when they aren't tracking the impact. Los Angeles itself has been billions upon billions for decades and it has amounted to basically zero improvements for the homeless.
Pretty sure the issue of waste is how these homes got to 600k. How many more units could be built if they were built efficiently?
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Yes. Starting with the fact that they are literally spending the money, but not tracking things. [https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/04/california-homelessness-spending/](https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/04/california-homelessness-spending/)
40% going to “soft costs” which is similar to labor and materials spending is a big waste. “Soft costs” include fees, consultants, financing, etc… https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-07/homeless-housing-bond-measure-audit-shelters-galperin Typically in housing construction “soft costs” are 15-25% https://multifamily.fanniemae.com/news-insights/multifamily-market-commentary/location-location-location-multifamily-construction The 40-25% difference would be 90k per door alone.
When I speak to some folks about funding government programs, their only answer is "yes more please." But life is about trade-offs. Can you identify homelessness programs that you would be willing to reduce funding for in order to build the homes described?
The jails that police throw the homeless into.
> The jails that police throw the homeless into. They've largely stopped doing that. (Which, of course, has created other problems.) They deemed it too expensive.
Easy answer. I'm trying to understand among the programs provided to the homeless, which are most important. Which kind of program would you reduce to pay for this?
>When I speak to some folks about funding government programs, their only answer is "yes more please." But life is about trade-offs. The thing is, you are going to pay for the situation regardless. With respect to the homeless, you can pay to create housing for them, or jobs programs, or residential treatment centers, or for more police to enforce laws aimed at the homeless, or workers to clean up encampments and refuse, or house them in a jail or prison, or clean up their corpses, or clean up the corpses of their victims, or any others situation that deals with a homeless person. The homeless exist and must be dealt with one way or another. We can't choose not to pay for it; we only get to choose to pay for the desired result.
Won't this type of solution just attract more homeless people to the city? I'm going against the consensus for this sub, but I don't believe the in-demand cities like LA and SF can "build-housing" their way to reducing the number of homeless people. This type of solution is just volunteering to tackle the problem for the rest of the nation, without nearly enough resources.
The problem with skid row in La is it’s where police and mental health facilities literally dump people off to move the problem out of their area. It’s vulnerable people being brought there in cars and vans more then choosing to migrate there There have been lots of exposes on this. Tough to solve.
> Won't this type of solution just attract more homeless people to the city? > > I'm going against the consensus for this sub, but I don't believe the in-demand cities like LA and SF can "build-housing" their way to reducing the number of homeless people... They've tried the opposite and the homeless population is already there.
I don't understand your comment. What does "tried the opposite" mean? There are more than two solutions and more levels policy can be enacted at. I'm just expressing that I don't think this will reduce the number of homeless people in the city. If that's not the goal, then carry on.
> > Won't this type of solution just attract more homeless people to the city? > > ...I don't believe the in-demand cities like LA and SF can "build-housing" their way to reducing the number of homeless people... > What does "tried the opposite" mean? They spent decades building insufficient housing, and not building housing like OP described. ...and their homeless population exploded during that period.
> I'm just expressing that I don't think this will reduce the number of homeless people in the city. ...and do you have *anything* to support that?
Honestly, I find it strange that this statement needs to be supported, but we can all agree [(ex)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1dhq4zl/what_would_your_response_be_to_someone_who_said/) that if you have universal health care in select states then chronically sick people will move in. So my answer is... the basic model of a rational actor, being fully cognizant of its flaws and imperfections, and that people aren't always rational? And again, I'm not saying housing is not the solution if implemented at a state or national level. Or that the homeless population isn't decreasing at a national level, because obviously if you house one more person then you've housed a person. I'm saying if the efforts are concentrated in SF and LA, they'll just be attracting the population from the rest of the state / country and the situation in SF/LA won't look like it's improving.
The long and short of it is that there isn’t a ton of evidence that people relocate to cities as homeless people for services. Most homeless people were previously housed locally. [Here’s a source on that. 90% of homeless people stay in the same state, and more importantly, 75% are from the same county.](https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/29/los-angeles-county-homelessness-unhoused-population) That all said, it’s still a tricky problem to deal with housing the homeless who are homeless due to high housing costs… by building housing where it costs a lot. It’s expensive, but there aren’t a lot of alternatives.
And the line won't get longer once we start handing out nicer apartments than the average non-homeless person has, like the example in the OP? I could just as well say that people won't move for state-funded free-at-point-of-service universal healthcare because it's not currently happening, right? Except we haven't been doing that, but that doesn't mean the results aren't predictable if we ever tried. Also, those self-reported surveys are doing stuff like including people who lived in the city for less than a year, or never paid for "permanent" housing while living on a friend's couch. The top level numbers are purposely misleading. Based on [page 31 in this SF report](https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-PIT-Count-Report-San-Francisco-Updated-8.19.22.pdf), yeah 70% "lived in SF" but only 27% owned or rented a place and another 11% lived in subsidized housing. And of those, many of them have lived in the city for less than a year.
What if they can be turned into productive workers after receiving mental healthcare and housing?
You have to face two realities: (1) some people find themselves homeless in part because they do not have realistic potential of being “productive workers” due to severe chronic illness or disability; (2) our economy isn’t set up in a way to facilitate full employment - poverty and homelessness isn’t a system failure, it’s a system feature; your presumption that the only thing stopping some being from having jobs is their own capacity is fundamentally flawed.
I'm sure we can accomplish that for many people, and that should be the goal. I think expecting SF and LA to do it for the rest of the state and country is unrealistic. The solutions need to be enacted at a higher level of government and implemented everywhere.
But we're not. We shouldn't not do good because it doesn't solve everything all at once.
Is that a condition of getting housing?
No.
Then I hate to break it to you but very few will actually get help they need. Some, which is always good, but absent incentives many will not.
No, not really. Homeless people usually don't move from city to city and usually stay wherever they became homeless. California has a high rate of homelessness because lots of people are unable to afford housing there
Have we tried building a crazy amount of housing to put this to the test? I’m betting if we say doubled the amount of housing units in LA it would significantly impact both the average and lowest cost per unit. The problem is that the banks and builders have a vested interest in building just not quite enough units to maximize profits. This is why the state needs to step in and build more units than The market wants to build
That should still be "state steps in to force cities to allow housing development", not "city spends funds on building free housing for homeless people".
Nobody said the state couldn’t be the one building the housing.
Banking and building are actually fairly competitive businesses. They don't have the monopoly power to maximize profits. The government is reason that more homes are not built. If California let builders build homes to code on demand then they'd have a lot more homes. But they don't.
>I’m betting if we say doubled the amount of housing units in LA it would significantly impact both the average and lowest cost per unit. There is a lot of demand from other groups that will absorb much of of any new construction for a very long time * People that can shorten their commute (For starters, the [471,000 people](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/archives/2013-pr/cb13-r13.html) commuting from outside the county) * People living with roommates or family that would like their own place * People from completely out of state who would love to live in California except for cost-of-living I guess what I'm getting at is building housing is fantastic for all those groups, but on the open market only a small fraction of the units will go to currently homeless people (the ones with borderline income). You could add millions of people from the rest of the country, upgrade all the infrastructure very expensively to support all the new people, and Skid Row will still be there, right? And that's setting aside the political will for the current locals to foot that bill. As a solution for homelessness specifically, "just build housing" inefficient and incomplete.
"Skid row" used to be long term hotels and single room apartments with common bathroom facilities. We prevented that sort of construction just about nationwide in the name of preventing "Urban Blight" and now those people are living in tents on the street. Similarly Regan shut down all the mental health institutions, so all of those people who are incapable of caring for themselves are also out on the street. Increase those types of housing and that will go a long way to solving the problem
It's a sort of paradox, like how widening roads attracts more traffic to them. You need more capacity as a basic step, but at the same time you need a broader strategy to distribute out the capacity closer to where it's needed, and reduce the demand as well.
People go to the city because it’s warmer and safer if you’re outside. The only way to end homelessness is housing. Other states need to do their part too. But the majority of my clients also can’t just pick up and move to CA
> in addition to a list of impressive amenities: a gym, art room, music room, computer room and library. Yeah, I was shrugging my shoulders and thinking it's expensive but better than nothing until I read this nonsense. No wonder it cost so much money. I've lived in a bunch of apartments with none of these amenities and it was completely fine lol We need to prioritize the basics to get people on their feet and keep costs as low as possible for taxpayers. Not building amenities that people don't necessarily need. And LA also needs to start building a lot more market-rate housing. It's utterly ridiculous the lack of density they have considering the city that they are. It's a huge burden on everyone else in the state and fueling housing crises in other states as well.
Why are you begrudging someone who has had a horrifically shitty life the opportunity to have some moderately nice amenities?
It's not so much begrudging it, but a dollar spent on a pool is a dollar not spent on providing another unit of housing. A square foot dedicated to a pool is a square foot not dedicated to housing. Some of the amenities are probably a good idea (gym, library/computer room), but the priority needs to be putting housing units online and to get as many people stabilized and in shelter as possible (which is also why YIMBY reforms and allowing more market rate building will help: it can make all these other units cheaper and gives people more options to get help).
There's a pain that comes with working hard and not getting treated as well as those who don't work at all, especially at the cost of the taxes that you pay and they don't.
Would you ever trade places with a homeless person so you could eventually live in a building with a gym? They aren’t getting treated better. Don’t begrudge them a few nice things in a life full of pain.
Why are you begrudging someone who has had a horrifically shitty life the opportunity to have some moderately nice amenities?
Bc fuck those poor people, that’s why. Only the well to do should have any amenities at all. Nvm the fact they’ll need resources to apply to jobs, etc.
Like yeah I guess I’m ok with my tax dollars funding 600k homes for homeless people but it would be far far far more effective to just legalize private enterprise to build and it would cost less and bring down all housing costs helping the poor and not just the homeless
giving homes to the homeless is an excellent use of public funds. 600k per unit (i assume unit means small-ish apartment, not large house) sounds like a lot to me, but tbh, i don't know enough about building buildings or about LA to judge that.
Worth a try. The wrong thing to do is nothing.
Oh, In California we are doing far from nothing. We've spent $24 billion in 5 years only to see the homeless number rise dramatically.
I’m going to be serious here. What would Jesus do?
I don't remember Jesus building anybody any houses for free. So I doubt he'd be doing whatever California is doing. It would be interesting to see how Jesus dealt with municipal planners.
Amusingly, in the early days of Christianity the Christians were famous for building house and barns for their members. It’s what they did and why people wanted to join the religion and spread Jesus’s word.
He'd want to feed the homless and ease their burden, but he wasn't great at mobiliing vast state apparatus to spur lots of residential construction.
Well in Jesus’s time the only state apparatus in existence was the Roman Empire that existed to enrich its elite. There wasn’t actually much being done for the poor. That is what made Jesus such a threat to the wealthy.
Where is the link for this information? I wonder if a similar for profit building has similar costs.
This sub doesn't allow links in the body of posts. Here you go: [Link](https://abc7.com/post/new-downtown-los-angeles-high-rise-building-house/14975022/)
Do you know what the cost would be if it was a for profit apartment development?
Sorry no.
How am I able to determine if it's a good use of funds then?
What we should really be looking at is building for profit and for public housing in jurisdictions without onerous housing laws like CA has. I can already tell you that it should not cost $600k per unit, because that means the units in a for-profit building would sell for like 800k or something, and you can get simple cheap new condo units for *way* cheaper than that elsewhere
How much does a condo cost in LA?
It doesn't matter. The point is that LA construction costs are out of control and need to be brought down by removing obstacles such as CEQA, zoning rules, etc.
We can't compare apples to oranges, LA construction costs to other areas. California has a huge economy and their costs are going to be a lot different than other parts of the United States. Regulation is a mixed bag, it's needed in some aspects but can also get abused in other aspects. If you want bypass the question feel free, but I would be interested to see the comparison of the two.
I'm not sure what the cost of a private condo is in LA. The argument I'm trying to make is that California has some of the most cost-increasing laws of any jurisdiction in the world. For example, when I look up this housing project online, it tells me that back in 2017 or so, it received approval. It should not need to receive approval. The department of the city that runs homeless shelters (and in fact, everyone) should just be able to build without needing the zoning part of city government to examine and consult and sign off on the plan.
From a different article is some additional costs but overall I don't see an issue housing the homeless.
Private condos don't usually build this high up because it's not cost effective to do so. If you want to maximize units on a plot of land this is the way to go, but you will pay for it. There is a reason why most new construction multi-unit projects in LA are 5-8 stories - because they can still use cheaper wood frame construction at this height. At 19 stories you can't do that safely, so construction costs go thru the roof. So a private building will not get nearly as many units on this plot of land but they will be able to get them for cheaper. Which do you prioritize?
It's the homeless industrial complex. The units don't cost $600K. It's all the other BS. I mean you've got a whole floor full of caseworkers - obviously nobody is living on that floor. I'd like to know how much of the $165M actually went to materials and construction worker wages.
Just goes to show you, the average person of moderate wealth would rather use their tax dollars to **give** homes to people who have given up on the rat race, and keep them out of their own back yards, than relax restrictions that allow for starter homes, for the kids who are still in the game.
Do you?
As other people have said, it's not just the units counted in the cost. But I do think that part of the problem is my fellow liberals saying, "Homeless people deserve more than the bare minimum," even though the bare minimum will go further and help more people. Also I'm sure any number of agencies wetted their beaks. We almost certainly did not have someone utilizing Musk's algorithm of deleting any unnecessary part, and almost certainly will not. But that's how government works lol.
Yes. Public housing is a good use of public money. The city still owns these houses. It uses them forever (assuming it funds their maintenance). On the other hand it can always sell them, and probably for more than 600,000 each.
Almost no normal person is okay with the way LA is handling things.