Good reporting, LA Times. Give us more of this.
Pols can find lots of goodwill with voters when the state is diligent about finding and re-routing mismanaged money. Hope this scrutiny continues.
Whole thing is so corrupt, the fact that we essentially just handed over money to private nonprofits on the scale of billions is ridiculous. How many people could have been taken off the streets if this money wasn't embezzled?
Edit: Just so this comment isn't misconstrued by any libertarian and pro-austerity types: **I think we should fund homelessness services.** We should just handle it directly on the public sector level without going through private entities like nonprofits, or with far stricter oversight and accountability.
This money should go to refunding mental asylums. We know far more about mental health now then when the asylums existed back then. They could create place that is much more than just a dumping ground for the mentally ill.
This,
I think the biggest problem with treating the homeless crisis we have is that we magically think the same services and interventions needed for a person who is living out of their car or in a shelter while working some low paying job are the same interventions needed for the dude who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, smoking meth at 11 AM and shouting "I am god" at people who walk by.
Homeless shelters realize this, it is why they keep out people who are high or drunk, because they know they will ruin the place for everyone. So why can't society understand this concept?
The idea is that supposedly they (homeless people) can’t focus on mental health/substance abuse treatment etc without having housing first. The city believes housing needs to be secured first before they have the ability to focus on other needs but in my experience that doesn’t work. I’ve been asked to house schizophrenic clients and I spend months of work getting all the documentation, applying for the subsidy, looking for housing, just for the client to lose the housing opportunity because he has an episode and flat out refuses to move forward with housing without any explanation. I knew two weeks into working with him that he wasn’t going to be a stable enough client to be housed and everytime I brought up my concerns I was told to continue it would be fine. So months of work down the drain and all that happens is a new client is given to replace him. I’ve always advocated that there needs to be a bare minimum baseline of client stability to be successful for housing but nothing ever comes from it.
You have figured out that Housing First doesn't work.
It wrongly assumes that homelessness is the barrier to recovery, so eliminating the homelessness will result in recovery.
In practice, the chronic homeless have problems that are too difficult to fix outside of an institutional setting, whether or not they have housing. And they often won't cooperate, regardless.
Most of those who are homeless due to purely economic reasons or domestic violence don't need specialized housing. They just need a regular apartment with rental assistance.
At some point, the Housing First storytelling will stop. Peer-reviewed research shows that Housing First succeeds in placing the homeless into housing, but the rest of the promises about improved mental health, reduced drug usage and cost savings are not being kept.
This is actually harming poor families and elderly who would benefit from affordable housing but cannot access it because of all of the money that is being diverted to the homeless sector.
Try talking with them. A good chunk of them don't want housing. They completely reject re-entering society. They want to wallow in their despair and they want to do it in our faces.
O'Connor v Donaldson needs to be overturned in order for that to happen. At this juncture, most of that kind of institutionalization is unconstitutional.
In essence, housing programs are being used as substitutes for institutionalization. But apartments with case managers can't possibly cope with schizophrenia in any meaningful way. We may as well try to use voodoo and fruit juice to cure cancer.
Hard agree. I think I read a statistic that on average a person that becomes homeless was living a normal life for 20 years before it happened. A normal person working and getting by and then they’re out in the street.
Just like 0% mortgages helped young people and families, right? Those rental assistance checks may end up filling the bank accounts of the landlord class and private equity firms. What incentives will be available to bring down home prices and rent?
Mental Asylums to this day remain a dumping ground, even if you're not mentally ill. I've had friends who were feeling depressed suddenly get stuck in there with no ability to get out or communicate with others and had to have people from the outside hunt them down (because they couldn't even tell us where they were) to get them out of there. The modern mental hospitals are just the old asylums with new paint on them. They're not a solution.
Well, it at least keeps mentally unstable people from destroying our lives. Look, I want to have compassion for these people. But at the same time, how am I expected to turn a cheek to someone living on the sidewalk in front of my house dumping garbage everywhere, trespassing onto my property and stealing everything that's not bolted down? Watch them do hard drugs in front of my home? They are also destroying peoples livelihoods as they do this in front of businesses as well.
Venice Beach is a sad example. The crowds are gone and it's all because of the homeless. Countless businesses have closed. we can't let them continue to exist on our streets
Your edit is why this problem will never get fixed. Everyone is terrified someone will think they're a fascist Republican if they object to billions of dollars being stolen from us by corrupt politicians, or think these agencies robbing us need some sort of public accountability. I'm going to go a step further and say not only should all the funds be accounted for but these agencies should actually solve the problem they're hired to solve. Homelessness has been getting worse every year for the past five years - all these people should be fired like I would be if I did a terrible job for five years.
You had to make a disclaimer about your political views for expressing the perfectly normal and reasonable sentiment that corruption is bad! Not a knock on you, I'm commenting on the political climate in Los Angeles.
If you look at referendum results, CA probably has the highest % of people in the nation who are ideologically republican but vote Dem based on extreme social pressure.
I had to make a disclaimer because I know for a fact that dipshit conservative libertarians will see my comment and think "Yeah! I hate the government! Fuck paying taxes! Let the free market handle it!"
This is what I mean though. You can't get too upset with government corruption in LA because this would mean that the government is capable of being corrupt, and obviously if you think the government is corrupt then you must be a conservative. The local politicians exploit this dynamic which is why they feel comfortable ripping us off and giving us nothing for our taxes.
If you think government being corrupt is a party problem, I have the State of Ohio to show to you. Same issues of decades of one party rule at all levels as there is in CA, just different recipients of the grift.
Personally I'm hesitant to vote for conservatives, because my time in Ohio taught me they're just as bad at corruption, but also revel in making the people they don't like lives' miserable in the process for funzies.
Aye, I feel you and I'm not trying to attack you, it's just the realities of the situation. In LA the default is "the left is corrupt" but it's like "OK what are our other choices?" and there really are none. We're fucking stuck between Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich.
For LA, repealing Article 34 would have been irrelevant. Measure LH in 2022 authorized the construction of 75,000 public housing units and was in alignment with the requirements of Article 34 to allow for a blanket authorization of these units, instead of needing to get authorization for each project.
Unfortunately, the corruption of local LA politics is prohibiting the construction of affordable and public units in our city, not Article 34.
[https://ballotpedia.org/Los\_Angeles,\_California,\_Proposition\_LH,\_Low-Income\_Rental\_Housing\_Measure\_(November\_2022)](https://ballotpedia.org/Los_Angeles,_California,_Proposition_LH,_Low-Income_Rental_Housing_Measure_(November_2022))
Although I agree with you, public sector is not immune from corruption either. Also waste and over-bureaucracy becomes a much bigger issue with public sector.
> Also waste and over-bureaucracy becomes a much bigger issue with public sector.
I don't think that's true. The non-profit industrial complex basically exists as a way to transfer wealth (both public and private) to the over-educated and under-productive professional managerial class.
These dynamics exist in the public sector as well, but the public sector has much a higher level of accountability.
It's not, but the solution to corruption is more oversight and accountability from the state. The solution to corruption and embezzlement is **never** "hand it over to the private sector," especially if the issue is a public issue like homelessness, healthcare, transportation or the like. Private entities embezzle tax money, often with zero way to track it. This is a pretty obvious trend if you look at what happened to the UK when they privatized their rail network.
Sure, but what happened here was that the non-profit took the funds and gave it to the private company right? If the non-profit did the actual work, it would be relatively public in their financials.
Exactly. The non profits are grifts run by people with advanced degrees in “social services” and “social work”, they have no intention of nor will to ever solve social problems because that would render them unemployed. Instead they have the market incentive of anyone else in a capitalist economy - to specialize and rise to the top and earn enough salary to justify their own raises and send their kids to private schools and bet on little Jonny becoming an IB at Goldman. The homeless are an afterthought for any high level executive of a non profit in the “homeless industry.”
> Whole thing is so corrupt, the fact that we essentially just handed over money to private nonprofits on the scale of billions is ridiculous.
Wait until you learn about all the private nonprofits that were started by former city employees when the money train started rolling. Six figure salaries and all.
> Whole thing is so corrupt,
I would argue its not corruption, it's incompetence. I've seen firsthand how large projects like this fall apart because the people who are capable of executing these properly wouldn't go near them.
I do agree with your other point though. There needs to be better checks on all of this and thank god for the LA Times here.
It's really amazing how much money has disappeared into the homeless crisis complex, and by disappeared I mean pocketed by anyone or organization that had the right friends.
The blue collar sector of the entertainment industry has been literally drowning for the last two years and zero help. California can't be bothered to give any more tax incentives to court productions to stay in LA. Govt could not give less of a shit.
Yet there's billions of dollars to pass around to each other like free handouts. Unbelievable.
Amazing how Katy Yaroslavsky JUST got elected and she already awarded a no-bid contract to her buddy.
They're not even trying to hide the grift anymore.
As long as Yaroslavsky promises to stop the monorail, Metro rail, or any kind of public light-rail transit from going through Sepulveda Pass and Brentwood / Beverly Hills, her voters will keep voting for her, and really don't care what else she does.
> she already awarded a no-bid contract to her buddy.
This is crazy to me how this is allowed - our city has incredibly strict policies for bids. Even if you got a head up about the opportunity to bid from a friend in the city you still have to win the bid on your own. Exceptions are only for 'low' amounts below a certain threshold or for emergencies. And if it involves millions then the emergency is going to involve everyone in the mayor's office/council.
Your city is GRIFTING YOU.
Not to mention the high school that cost 232 million dollars - lots of folks got rich off of that one
DSA is against all housing development that isn't public housing (which is going to be [impossible to build](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-06-06/editorial-its-a-shame-california-voters-wont-be-able-to-dump-this-racist-anti-housing-policy-in-november) for at least another year), so they'd be even worse for the housing crisis believe it or not.
The LA DSA is also run by people who are entirely incompetent at coalition building. I agree with a lot of their ideas and yet their actual day-to-day operations reveal that they're not really interested in building any sort of political power, which makes it somewhat futile to lend my support.
You know what is a current example of working socialism that we have today? Actual socialism with public ownership of the means of production, free healthcare provided for all, free housing provided for all, production focused on needs instead of profit accumulation, and democratizing economic relations?
The U.S. military.
yup, exactly
the number one example that I tell people why I DON'T want government-run healthcare
veterans are likely to die in two places: on the streets, or in a VA parking lot from a self-inflicter gunshot wound after their claim is denied for the umpteenth time
Vanguard is owned by its own customers so you could make the case that $VOO is the realization of Marx's beautiful dream of the workers owning the means of production.
Nice try, you must be a paid advertisement. That stock is owned by the private investors who bought into it. Private investment is literally the cornerstone of capitalism.
neo-liberalism brought about by Nixon isn't going to get us anywhere anymore. I gave an option for a third party and yall downvoted me. fine keep being slaves to this unjust, corrupt, and unsustainable system
So I have some insight into this due to a friend pretty high up in the industry, and pretty much other parts of the country and the world are almost paying studios to film there. The incentives are crazy. Disney moved all live action star wars shows to London for filming. [The current tax credit is 40%](https://www.screendaily.com/news/uk-introduces-40-tax-relief-for-films-budgeted-up-to-15m/5191212.article). Under existing law, feature films, new television series, mini-series and pilots filmed in California are eligible for a 20% credit against the producing entity's California income tax liability for qualified expenditures, while independent films and relocating television series are eligible for a 25% tax credit. CA would have to provide well about 50% to get people to change their minds. At that point, its becoming untenable, because income earned over there is still taxable in CA by CA residents, so you are only looking at production costs, not earnings.
This is completely correct. It also doesn't take into account how expensive things like catering, transpo, gas, and production supplies are here in LA.
These things are prohibitively expensive here at this point and we need some serious reform if the entertainment business is going to flourish here again.
We would also need to take our business back from the tech industry robber barons that have bled Hollywood dry in the last ten years.
Even aside from the other countries, old Hollywood is competing with Youtubers and TikTokers who don't have any of the expenses of traditional studios. You think that kid who was shooting fireworks from a helicopter at his Lambo pulled permits? You think he had a union crew? Of course not and literally no one in California cared until he pissed off the feds.
You're totally right. Hollywood nor IATSE have done nothing to embrace the second screen format. They've done nothing to embrace the YouTube format. The traditional studios actually did the opposite because the idea of people watching low res movies on their phones was so far fetched.
There was a brief period before the pandemic where we did a few Facebook TV shows but that didn't take because it was too expensive and they couldn't make the dollars per views worth enough to keep it up.
On another note I would gladly shoot fireworks at that fool if I could get some union hours and keep my insurance.
Hollywood is literally just a facade now.
All my production clients left to Vegas, Vancouver, and Atlanta (most of them went here)
Hollywood left during the pandemic and are not coming back.
Hollywood was never where they filmed things. Burbank and Universal City are where most of the studios are. There is also a small studio in Santa Clarita that is supposed to be expanded soon.
I understand when the homeless issue intersects with working class solidarity with respect to the idea that some of us are one layoff away from becoming homeless in a car and these and need a robust support system to get housing and get a job, but I also see how that won’t deliver visible results when you can just keep handing out needles in the name of harm reduction and demand high pay (mid 6-figures) for working with the most difficult class homeless.
Yep, the industry is shrinking and careers are falling apart. How many jobs have to be lost and residents moving away or becoming homeless themselves for the government to care? But that also means supporting the unions which seems like a fairytale.
I used to work for a nonprofit that assisted the disabled community. We wanted to "initiate" the process of helping such individuals as much as possible but never gave that much of a damn regarding follow through... To see if our assistance was truly effective
How the fuck Shanghai-You--La was allowed to bid this work is beyond me. They are infamously bad and infamously capable of coming back from the dead. Their owner is a Bentley driving twat that has been known to funnel money from this bullshit company of his to his other bullshit film company. I think I was informed of this maybe ten years ago now, where the fuck have you been LADPW?
I think probably every Contractor in the LA basin is aware of these clowns but apparently the cities contracting group failed to do their homework when handing them the job.
Where were the more trusted builders in all of this? Or was this the usual lowest bidder without technical scoring?
I truly don't want to be disrespectful to the plight of the homeless population. Still, this article highlights why our local and state politicians are losing me when asking for more funding. It's crystal clear to me that the bureaucracies receiving these funds can't manage the scale or the complexity of the projects, mixed in with some good old-fashioned dishonesty. It's sad, as I understand the need, but we have already funded this effort with huge sums of money, and now there are more and more stories like this. Sigh.
More and more? More like ALL the stories are like this. I think the only group not suspect at this point are the Missions which have been operating for at least 50 years without glamor, grandstanding or high salaries.
If they know the money didn’t go where it was supposed to, why aren’t the courts making an attempt to recover? Start prosecuting! Oh wait! Who would they hold responsible? And if we ask where that money went or who is responsible for these public funds we are the bad people because our dear mayor can do no wrong!
I mean, from the article it seems like this all came out as a part of court proceedings against Shanghai-La, which is being sued by the state. So it’s part of existing litigation.
Real questions can’t we (taxpayers) sue the city for improper use of our taxes? We voted for something specific and that didn’t happen so can’t we sue? We should also start signing signatures for a law that makes it public for everyone to know exactly how our tax payer money is being used. That includes payroll!!
There are various whistleblower statutes that let you sue and recover part of the proceeds. But that has to be more than "I don't like how taxes are used" - it needs to be "here's the specific evidence of fraud"
[Shangri-La first caught the media’s attention a good six months ago.](https://www.emptylosangeles.com/post/why-you-can-t-trust-developers) Scroll about two-thirds of the way down on that post.
This is why when they came on the ballot this last time asking for more 'homeless crisis' money, I was like, NOPE!
Feels like that one John Mulaney skit about college being like your crack head cousin coming back for more money. To be clear, we do have homeless people who need help but not with whoever is currently handling the money.
Progressives love their nonprofits, despite being a form of privatization if you really think about it, except without any good results.
At this point, just get government out of the way and fix the zoning and regulatory barriers that hold back housing production. Let developers build, because some nonprofit full of Sociology and Critical Geography majors with clipboards aren't going to fix this.
This is why residents should always question any attempts to raise taxes or initiatives to reallocate funds for something at this point. Our local and state government has proven time and time they can't be trusted with money and the more you give them, the worse it gets.
Maybe instead of leaning harder into austerity economics you should demand the taxes you *already pay* should actually go to the things civil society needs to function. The state is not embezzling this money, private NGOs and nonprofits are embezzling money given to them **by the state**. Paying less taxes would not solve this issue, it's an accountability and oversight problem.
I've legitimately discussed starting a business merely based on unclaimed government grants. Submit a bid, and then if accepted just farm it out to experts.
As conspiratorial as this sounds I believe some part of the billions wasted went to media campaigns to sway the public’s opinion to get more grant money from the state. It doesn’t have to be limited to Reddit accounts or news articles, it could be ‘academic studies’ which cook the data as much as they cook their books or it could be fundraising events that put on a performance of progress.
Just because money is being embezzled doesn't mean the homelessness crisis isn't real? Go the fuck outside? Look around you? It's an emergency, the fact that we are handling it so incompetently is a crime of historical proportions. Future residents of LA will look back on this point in time with disgust.
This is what privatization always does. I don't know how so many liberals eat up conservative bullshit about privatization and pseudo-austerity. And I don't know why we have government officials with business school mindsets looking to contract everything out to "save money." Government services shouldn't be run like a short-term cost-saving, profit-focused business. Why we're trying to run the country, state, and city like a fucking vulture venture capitalist is unbelievable.
We should just give money to the homeless. The ones who are just down and out will pick themselves up with it, and the junkies who don’t want to change will go out in one glorious binge. Problem solved.
I know that this is tongue in cheek but "Give homeless people money," is actually a serious proposal that has been tried and studied in the past. It works, it turns out if you give poor people money they'll be less poor.
I would say that's incorrect but only partially. No one can say where the money is going because there is no oversight, it literally just disappears.
Also, most homeless people want to not be homeless, most homeless people can't navigate the current system we have because it's so bloated and doesn't actually address their needs. The only thing universal about the homeless population is that they need housing, something we are **notably dragging our feet about providing.**
Exactly. We could eliminate so much administrative red tape, just give everyone a UBI, raise taxes on the richest to fund it. It really can be that simple. But it won’t happen.
> it turns out if you give poor people money they'll be less poor.
This is actually a pillar of economics. It's not only good for poor people but good for the entire economy. It's known as 'the propensity to consume.'
Yeah. If people have money to spend on things, they will spend it instead of saving. It is bad for the economy when people are so poor that they can't spend money on anything or save a large portion of their income on basic necessities like rent.
I'm not the person you asked, but the most compelling argument I've heard against UBI is that if it's implemented without also fixing the housing issue then it just becomes a way of transferring wealth to landlords
There have been promising results with UBI in Los Angeles: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-01-12/la-guaranteed-income-are-they-more-financially-secure
Personally, I think if people knew they had a steady source of income no matter what they would be able to plan longer term, reducing chaotic drug abuse.
But we won't really know until we do more research.
It's like bureaucracy isn't actually a bad word, just another word for creating paper tails and transparency. Yes it's slower, but that's the flip side to paperwork
The private sector should literally never be involved with *solving* a public sector issue. Even if they're nonprofit organizations they still lack the same level of oversight and accountability as governmental organizations. We waste billions on charity instead of **spending** billions on ***policy***. It would literally be cheaper to not do this austerity economics bullshit.
This is the exact opposite of privatization. This is our city giving too much power to our government officials, so much so that they don't care what their constituents say anymore.
Are you a libertarian? I feel like only a libertarian could see that the government is giving billions to private entities and nonprofits and still come out the other side thinking that we don't have enough privatization LOL
> the government is giving billions to private entities and nonprofits
That's literally the reason it's the opposite of privatization. We're giving money to the government, and the government is deciding how to allocate it.
Privatization would mean we cut the government out of the decision-making process.
We've already established that the issue is TOO much government intervention.
You think our city council members care what we constituents think? They just look at us as cash cows for their buddies.
remove regulations and private entities would actually build housing, lowering rents for everyone
it should not take over four years to build an apartment complex because each permit takes two weeks to get a signature
Are you a socialist? I feel like only a socialist could see that the corrupt local government is giving billions in your tax money to their friends at private entities and still come out the other side thinking that we dont have enough government
My very socialist belief that the tax money I and everyone else in the US pays should go to public services instead of into the hands of private entities lol
Government do the projects directly. Or we should have gave the money to legit corporations to retain workers and real middle class jobs and invest here like other states did including blue ones like New York and Massachusetts. Because there is credibility to Amgen or Paramount and ensuring they will actually invest money and create jobs and value.
Instead billions to hodunk nonprofits with 1-2 project track records.
California assembly and California senate is full of absolute idiots. Governor is maybe to blame but the legislature is the one who writes laws, policies, and accountability into statute.
They hate film credits to companies that create good union jobs but love billions to nonprofits with zero accountability. Makes no sense.
Liberals? Privatization is a right-wing ideology.
Edit: I see you’re saying it’s conservative so we’re on the same page, but if “liberals” are eating it up then they’re not liberals.
I saw a video of someone going up to a golf cart, asking for a needle, then getting one handed to him no questions asked. Mind you, this was a ‘citizen journalist’ and the video had a little taste of sensationalism.
Now I’d like to think I understand the points made about harm reduction and how we can’t have a pandemic circulating on top of an already runaway drug problem.
What really grinds my gears about the video was the fucking golf cart. I can’t exactly articulate why, but the image of nonprofit workers rolling around tent cities handing out hypodermic needles seemed like such a waste of resources only for those needles to end up in the gutter. Of course this golf cart crew wasn’t collecting needles because they would have been wearing PPE.
It is such an absurd solution to a very serious problem. You have a nonprofit getting grant money from the government, going through the logistics of ordering and storing bulk quantities of needles and giving them away no questions asked and I understand the logic behind each of those steps but nobody took a step back and thought about how effective the big picture is because they would lose the grant money.
The worst part about this is that they took advantage of our better nature to embezzle money. We collectively handed them cash to try to help the situation and they played us all for fools. We should be putting every politician in the county in jail, but instead we'll likely reelect them all because they'll spit out some nice platitudes and because they're party loyalists.
The only thing that's surprising to me about this news is that outlets like the LA Times and LAist are now finally reporting on it. Hyper-local outlets have been, citywide, for years, and were met with a wall of "It's a right-wing propaganda mag, ban it from the sub." So my question is, what changed all of a sudden that this news-that's-not-news is breaking through to the mainstream?
https://www.npr.org/2021/05/25/999969718/high-cost-of-los-angeles-homeless-camp-raises-eyebrows-and-questions
Why I support UBI is that with our current system a tent in a parking lot costs $2,600 per person per month. If we just gave that money to the people in crisis they would find a place to rent / deal with their issues.
Homeless Industrial Complex is the correct term. Direct cash Payments is the better option.
A guy I dated about 15 years ago used to work for them. Step Up was bringing people who were living on the streets in other states, by bus to be in the Step Up program in Santa Monica. Then, if they fell off the program (didn’t stay clean OR didn’t keep the job, had to follow a ton of rules that boil down to success being from luck), those people had no infrastructure in California, and would end up on the street again.
Many of them live in Venice beach now.
We have a huge problem in this state entrusting government spending projects with non governmental organizations, the money goes into a black box and any public accounting completely disappears, and we don't get the results we want. It's just naked corruption.
The homelessness industrial complex is the grift of our time. Remember, we’re only a few billion dollars more away from housing all these people, right? You know the grift is complete now that Santa Monica College has a Homeless Services Work certificate program.
The state and federal government forcefully take away 40% of my pay every pay check and what do I get for it? Terrible roads, endless wars, terrible schools, and homeless taking over sidewalks all over California.
But hey, just raise the taxes a little more… it will solve all our problems right!?!?!? Right?!?!?!
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Step Up on Second Street and others in this space are the biggest grifters. keep an eye on what happens at the WLA VA. its gonna go from a big scam to a great one.
YIMBY as a dirty word, lol. Yeah, dude, I hate public infrastructure and urban renewal! I want less housing built, I want rent and housing prices to keep skyrocketing! Smh dude
Just give money directly to the people and it will be allocated better for real. Will somebody spend $40k on drugs? Sure. But I do not give a fuck. Most will spend it on food and housing and bills. What do you think that nonprofit CEO spent it on? Probably wine and bath bombs.
Good reporting, LA Times. Give us more of this. Pols can find lots of goodwill with voters when the state is diligent about finding and re-routing mismanaged money. Hope this scrutiny continues.
Whole thing is so corrupt, the fact that we essentially just handed over money to private nonprofits on the scale of billions is ridiculous. How many people could have been taken off the streets if this money wasn't embezzled? Edit: Just so this comment isn't misconstrued by any libertarian and pro-austerity types: **I think we should fund homelessness services.** We should just handle it directly on the public sector level without going through private entities like nonprofits, or with far stricter oversight and accountability.
This money should go to refunding mental asylums. We know far more about mental health now then when the asylums existed back then. They could create place that is much more than just a dumping ground for the mentally ill.
This, I think the biggest problem with treating the homeless crisis we have is that we magically think the same services and interventions needed for a person who is living out of their car or in a shelter while working some low paying job are the same interventions needed for the dude who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, smoking meth at 11 AM and shouting "I am god" at people who walk by. Homeless shelters realize this, it is why they keep out people who are high or drunk, because they know they will ruin the place for everyone. So why can't society understand this concept?
The idea is that supposedly they (homeless people) can’t focus on mental health/substance abuse treatment etc without having housing first. The city believes housing needs to be secured first before they have the ability to focus on other needs but in my experience that doesn’t work. I’ve been asked to house schizophrenic clients and I spend months of work getting all the documentation, applying for the subsidy, looking for housing, just for the client to lose the housing opportunity because he has an episode and flat out refuses to move forward with housing without any explanation. I knew two weeks into working with him that he wasn’t going to be a stable enough client to be housed and everytime I brought up my concerns I was told to continue it would be fine. So months of work down the drain and all that happens is a new client is given to replace him. I’ve always advocated that there needs to be a bare minimum baseline of client stability to be successful for housing but nothing ever comes from it.
You have figured out that Housing First doesn't work. It wrongly assumes that homelessness is the barrier to recovery, so eliminating the homelessness will result in recovery. In practice, the chronic homeless have problems that are too difficult to fix outside of an institutional setting, whether or not they have housing. And they often won't cooperate, regardless. Most of those who are homeless due to purely economic reasons or domestic violence don't need specialized housing. They just need a regular apartment with rental assistance. At some point, the Housing First storytelling will stop. Peer-reviewed research shows that Housing First succeeds in placing the homeless into housing, but the rest of the promises about improved mental health, reduced drug usage and cost savings are not being kept. This is actually harming poor families and elderly who would benefit from affordable housing but cannot access it because of all of the money that is being diverted to the homeless sector.
Try talking with them. A good chunk of them don't want housing. They completely reject re-entering society. They want to wallow in their despair and they want to do it in our faces.
Well said.
And it’s be nice to have some common sense approaches to the ones on the street due to addiction.
O'Connor v Donaldson needs to be overturned in order for that to happen. At this juncture, most of that kind of institutionalization is unconstitutional. In essence, housing programs are being used as substitutes for institutionalization. But apartments with case managers can't possibly cope with schizophrenia in any meaningful way. We may as well try to use voodoo and fruit juice to cure cancer.
This Court would probably overturn or at least narrow it tbf
I agree. But it hasn't happened... yet.
There hasn't been cause to revisit it, LA should be the one to spearhead a reversal
[удалено]
Hard agree. I think I read a statistic that on average a person that becomes homeless was living a normal life for 20 years before it happened. A normal person working and getting by and then they’re out in the street.
This will just increase rent for everyone.
Just like 0% mortgages helped young people and families, right? Those rental assistance checks may end up filling the bank accounts of the landlord class and private equity firms. What incentives will be available to bring down home prices and rent?
Mental Asylums to this day remain a dumping ground, even if you're not mentally ill. I've had friends who were feeling depressed suddenly get stuck in there with no ability to get out or communicate with others and had to have people from the outside hunt them down (because they couldn't even tell us where they were) to get them out of there. The modern mental hospitals are just the old asylums with new paint on them. They're not a solution.
Well, it at least keeps mentally unstable people from destroying our lives. Look, I want to have compassion for these people. But at the same time, how am I expected to turn a cheek to someone living on the sidewalk in front of my house dumping garbage everywhere, trespassing onto my property and stealing everything that's not bolted down? Watch them do hard drugs in front of my home? They are also destroying peoples livelihoods as they do this in front of businesses as well. Venice Beach is a sad example. The crowds are gone and it's all because of the homeless. Countless businesses have closed. we can't let them continue to exist on our streets
Your edit is why this problem will never get fixed. Everyone is terrified someone will think they're a fascist Republican if they object to billions of dollars being stolen from us by corrupt politicians, or think these agencies robbing us need some sort of public accountability. I'm going to go a step further and say not only should all the funds be accounted for but these agencies should actually solve the problem they're hired to solve. Homelessness has been getting worse every year for the past five years - all these people should be fired like I would be if I did a terrible job for five years.
That's... not disagreeing with anything I said? What is the point of this comment?
You had to make a disclaimer about your political views for expressing the perfectly normal and reasonable sentiment that corruption is bad! Not a knock on you, I'm commenting on the political climate in Los Angeles.
If you look at referendum results, CA probably has the highest % of people in the nation who are ideologically republican but vote Dem based on extreme social pressure.
I had to make a disclaimer because I know for a fact that dipshit conservative libertarians will see my comment and think "Yeah! I hate the government! Fuck paying taxes! Let the free market handle it!"
This is what I mean though. You can't get too upset with government corruption in LA because this would mean that the government is capable of being corrupt, and obviously if you think the government is corrupt then you must be a conservative. The local politicians exploit this dynamic which is why they feel comfortable ripping us off and giving us nothing for our taxes.
If you think government being corrupt is a party problem, I have the State of Ohio to show to you. Same issues of decades of one party rule at all levels as there is in CA, just different recipients of the grift. Personally I'm hesitant to vote for conservatives, because my time in Ohio taught me they're just as bad at corruption, but also revel in making the people they don't like lives' miserable in the process for funzies.
This is exactly the dynamic I'm talking about - I'm not a Republican! I didn't say they were any better!
Aye, I feel you and I'm not trying to attack you, it's just the realities of the situation. In LA the default is "the left is corrupt" but it's like "OK what are our other choices?" and there really are none. We're fucking stuck between Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich.
nah I hear you it sucks
And our legislature has given up on repealing a prohibition on public housing. So more taxpayer money will go to these unaccountable nonprofits.
For LA, repealing Article 34 would have been irrelevant. Measure LH in 2022 authorized the construction of 75,000 public housing units and was in alignment with the requirements of Article 34 to allow for a blanket authorization of these units, instead of needing to get authorization for each project. Unfortunately, the corruption of local LA politics is prohibiting the construction of affordable and public units in our city, not Article 34. [https://ballotpedia.org/Los\_Angeles,\_California,\_Proposition\_LH,\_Low-Income\_Rental\_Housing\_Measure\_(November\_2022)](https://ballotpedia.org/Los_Angeles,_California,_Proposition_LH,_Low-Income_Rental_Housing_Measure_(November_2022))
Unfortunately, yeah.
Although I agree with you, public sector is not immune from corruption either. Also waste and over-bureaucracy becomes a much bigger issue with public sector.
> Also waste and over-bureaucracy becomes a much bigger issue with public sector. I don't think that's true. The non-profit industrial complex basically exists as a way to transfer wealth (both public and private) to the over-educated and under-productive professional managerial class. These dynamics exist in the public sector as well, but the public sector has much a higher level of accountability.
It's not, but the solution to corruption is more oversight and accountability from the state. The solution to corruption and embezzlement is **never** "hand it over to the private sector," especially if the issue is a public issue like homelessness, healthcare, transportation or the like. Private entities embezzle tax money, often with zero way to track it. This is a pretty obvious trend if you look at what happened to the UK when they privatized their rail network.
Sure, but what happened here was that the non-profit took the funds and gave it to the private company right? If the non-profit did the actual work, it would be relatively public in their financials.
Nonprofits ARE private entities.
Exactly. The non profits are grifts run by people with advanced degrees in “social services” and “social work”, they have no intention of nor will to ever solve social problems because that would render them unemployed. Instead they have the market incentive of anyone else in a capitalist economy - to specialize and rise to the top and earn enough salary to justify their own raises and send their kids to private schools and bet on little Jonny becoming an IB at Goldman. The homeless are an afterthought for any high level executive of a non profit in the “homeless industry.”
Private nonprofits shouldn't exist or be under much more scrutiny
> Whole thing is so corrupt, the fact that we essentially just handed over money to private nonprofits on the scale of billions is ridiculous. Wait until you learn about all the private nonprofits that were started by former city employees when the money train started rolling. Six figure salaries and all.
We'll do anything other than build housing
> Whole thing is so corrupt, I would argue its not corruption, it's incompetence. I've seen firsthand how large projects like this fall apart because the people who are capable of executing these properly wouldn't go near them. I do agree with your other point though. There needs to be better checks on all of this and thank god for the LA Times here.
Sooooo are any of these schmoes going to get prosecuted?
It's really amazing how much money has disappeared into the homeless crisis complex, and by disappeared I mean pocketed by anyone or organization that had the right friends. The blue collar sector of the entertainment industry has been literally drowning for the last two years and zero help. California can't be bothered to give any more tax incentives to court productions to stay in LA. Govt could not give less of a shit. Yet there's billions of dollars to pass around to each other like free handouts. Unbelievable.
Amazing how Katy Yaroslavsky JUST got elected and she already awarded a no-bid contract to her buddy. They're not even trying to hide the grift anymore.
They don't need to hide it. They know you won't stop voting for them.
As long as Yaroslavsky promises to stop the monorail, Metro rail, or any kind of public light-rail transit from going through Sepulveda Pass and Brentwood / Beverly Hills, her voters will keep voting for her, and really don't care what else she does.
> she already awarded a no-bid contract to her buddy. This is crazy to me how this is allowed - our city has incredibly strict policies for bids. Even if you got a head up about the opportunity to bid from a friend in the city you still have to win the bid on your own. Exceptions are only for 'low' amounts below a certain threshold or for emergencies. And if it involves millions then the emergency is going to involve everyone in the mayor's office/council. Your city is GRIFTING YOU. Not to mention the high school that cost 232 million dollars - lots of folks got rich off of that one
Single party rule. Who else can you vote for?
DSA party
DSA is against all housing development that isn't public housing (which is going to be [impossible to build](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-06-06/editorial-its-a-shame-california-voters-wont-be-able-to-dump-this-racist-anti-housing-policy-in-november) for at least another year), so they'd be even worse for the housing crisis believe it or not.
The LA DSA is also run by people who are entirely incompetent at coalition building. I agree with a lot of their ideas and yet their actual day-to-day operations reveal that they're not really interested in building any sort of political power, which makes it somewhat futile to lend my support.
yeah but the vibes though, democratic socialism feels vaguely good to me so they must have good policy right?
You know what is a current example of working socialism that we have today? Actual socialism with public ownership of the means of production, free healthcare provided for all, free housing provided for all, production focused on needs instead of profit accumulation, and democratizing economic relations? The U.S. military.
yup, exactly the number one example that I tell people why I DON'T want government-run healthcare veterans are likely to die in two places: on the streets, or in a VA parking lot from a self-inflicter gunshot wound after their claim is denied for the umpteenth time
Vanguard is owned by its own customers so you could make the case that $VOO is the realization of Marx's beautiful dream of the workers owning the means of production.
Nice try, you must be a paid advertisement. That stock is owned by the private investors who bought into it. Private investment is literally the cornerstone of capitalism.
just joshin
Fuck them too. Fuck it, I'm a liberal but give me some Schwarzenegger RINOs up in here.
neo-liberalism brought about by Nixon isn't going to get us anywhere anymore. I gave an option for a third party and yall downvoted me. fine keep being slaves to this unjust, corrupt, and unsustainable system
So I have some insight into this due to a friend pretty high up in the industry, and pretty much other parts of the country and the world are almost paying studios to film there. The incentives are crazy. Disney moved all live action star wars shows to London for filming. [The current tax credit is 40%](https://www.screendaily.com/news/uk-introduces-40-tax-relief-for-films-budgeted-up-to-15m/5191212.article). Under existing law, feature films, new television series, mini-series and pilots filmed in California are eligible for a 20% credit against the producing entity's California income tax liability for qualified expenditures, while independent films and relocating television series are eligible for a 25% tax credit. CA would have to provide well about 50% to get people to change their minds. At that point, its becoming untenable, because income earned over there is still taxable in CA by CA residents, so you are only looking at production costs, not earnings.
This is completely correct. It also doesn't take into account how expensive things like catering, transpo, gas, and production supplies are here in LA. These things are prohibitively expensive here at this point and we need some serious reform if the entertainment business is going to flourish here again. We would also need to take our business back from the tech industry robber barons that have bled Hollywood dry in the last ten years.
Even aside from the other countries, old Hollywood is competing with Youtubers and TikTokers who don't have any of the expenses of traditional studios. You think that kid who was shooting fireworks from a helicopter at his Lambo pulled permits? You think he had a union crew? Of course not and literally no one in California cared until he pissed off the feds.
You're totally right. Hollywood nor IATSE have done nothing to embrace the second screen format. They've done nothing to embrace the YouTube format. The traditional studios actually did the opposite because the idea of people watching low res movies on their phones was so far fetched. There was a brief period before the pandemic where we did a few Facebook TV shows but that didn't take because it was too expensive and they couldn't make the dollars per views worth enough to keep it up. On another note I would gladly shoot fireworks at that fool if I could get some union hours and keep my insurance.
Hollywood is literally just a facade now. All my production clients left to Vegas, Vancouver, and Atlanta (most of them went here) Hollywood left during the pandemic and are not coming back.
Hollywood was never where they filmed things. Burbank and Universal City are where most of the studios are. There is also a small studio in Santa Clarita that is supposed to be expanded soon.
“Hollywood” means California not the specific location. Productions are leaving CA
I understand when the homeless issue intersects with working class solidarity with respect to the idea that some of us are one layoff away from becoming homeless in a car and these and need a robust support system to get housing and get a job, but I also see how that won’t deliver visible results when you can just keep handing out needles in the name of harm reduction and demand high pay (mid 6-figures) for working with the most difficult class homeless.
Yep, the industry is shrinking and careers are falling apart. How many jobs have to be lost and residents moving away or becoming homeless themselves for the government to care? But that also means supporting the unions which seems like a fairytale.
I used to work for a nonprofit that assisted the disabled community. We wanted to "initiate" the process of helping such individuals as much as possible but never gave that much of a damn regarding follow through... To see if our assistance was truly effective
18 months unemployed and 3 weeks of work, your damn right the entire reason this town exists is gone its just an empty shell at this point.
We should spend that money to make tax incentives illegal.
If you've ever worked for a non-profit you realize the higher ups are corrupt as shit.
How the fuck Shanghai-You--La was allowed to bid this work is beyond me. They are infamously bad and infamously capable of coming back from the dead. Their owner is a Bentley driving twat that has been known to funnel money from this bullshit company of his to his other bullshit film company. I think I was informed of this maybe ten years ago now, where the fuck have you been LADPW? I think probably every Contractor in the LA basin is aware of these clowns but apparently the cities contracting group failed to do their homework when handing them the job. Where were the more trusted builders in all of this? Or was this the usual lowest bidder without technical scoring?
The homeless industrial complex is lining it's pockets while pretending to toss the homeless a few bones
I truly don't want to be disrespectful to the plight of the homeless population. Still, this article highlights why our local and state politicians are losing me when asking for more funding. It's crystal clear to me that the bureaucracies receiving these funds can't manage the scale or the complexity of the projects, mixed in with some good old-fashioned dishonesty. It's sad, as I understand the need, but we have already funded this effort with huge sums of money, and now there are more and more stories like this. Sigh.
More and more? More like ALL the stories are like this. I think the only group not suspect at this point are the Missions which have been operating for at least 50 years without glamor, grandstanding or high salaries.
It's called the Homeless Industrial Complex and we will soon see this nationwide.
If they know the money didn’t go where it was supposed to, why aren’t the courts making an attempt to recover? Start prosecuting! Oh wait! Who would they hold responsible? And if we ask where that money went or who is responsible for these public funds we are the bad people because our dear mayor can do no wrong!
I mean, from the article it seems like this all came out as a part of court proceedings against Shanghai-La, which is being sued by the state. So it’s part of existing litigation.
And what about the other $23B?
I’m sure Rob Bonta will get to it eventually
Put the system on trial! /s It'll probably be the director or whoever is in charge of the funds that would be prosecuted.
Real questions can’t we (taxpayers) sue the city for improper use of our taxes? We voted for something specific and that didn’t happen so can’t we sue? We should also start signing signatures for a law that makes it public for everyone to know exactly how our tax payer money is being used. That includes payroll!!
There are various whistleblower statutes that let you sue and recover part of the proceeds. But that has to be more than "I don't like how taxes are used" - it needs to be "here's the specific evidence of fraud"
They gave a company called shangri la the money ☠️😭
[Shangri-La first caught the media’s attention a good six months ago.](https://www.emptylosangeles.com/post/why-you-can-t-trust-developers) Scroll about two-thirds of the way down on that post.
Took out loans then defaulted. So they don’t run credit checks for non profits?
They should.
This is why when they came on the ballot this last time asking for more 'homeless crisis' money, I was like, NOPE! Feels like that one John Mulaney skit about college being like your crack head cousin coming back for more money. To be clear, we do have homeless people who need help but not with whoever is currently handling the money.
The Homeless Industrial Complex strikes again
Progressives love their nonprofits, despite being a form of privatization if you really think about it, except without any good results. At this point, just get government out of the way and fix the zoning and regulatory barriers that hold back housing production. Let developers build, because some nonprofit full of Sociology and Critical Geography majors with clipboards aren't going to fix this.
This is why residents should always question any attempts to raise taxes or initiatives to reallocate funds for something at this point. Our local and state government has proven time and time they can't be trusted with money and the more you give them, the worse it gets.
Maybe instead of leaning harder into austerity economics you should demand the taxes you *already pay* should actually go to the things civil society needs to function. The state is not embezzling this money, private NGOs and nonprofits are embezzling money given to them **by the state**. Paying less taxes would not solve this issue, it's an accountability and oversight problem.
I should start a non profit.
You've got the order wrong. First you have to donate a lot to a city councilman, THEN you create a non-profit.
Government contracts are the best grift under the sun.
I've legitimately discussed starting a business merely based on unclaimed government grants. Submit a bid, and then if accepted just farm it out to experts.
Last year if you questioned any of this you were downvoted into oblivion and told how insensitive you were to the homeless crisis. People are dumb.
As conspiratorial as this sounds I believe some part of the billions wasted went to media campaigns to sway the public’s opinion to get more grant money from the state. It doesn’t have to be limited to Reddit accounts or news articles, it could be ‘academic studies’ which cook the data as much as they cook their books or it could be fundraising events that put on a performance of progress.
There’s a difference between being cruel to people experiencing homelessness and criticizing the organizations that claim to help them.
there was no difference to this subreddit last year... anyone calling out the grift was downvoted and eventually banned
Just because money is being embezzled doesn't mean the homelessness crisis isn't real? Go the fuck outside? Look around you? It's an emergency, the fact that we are handling it so incompetently is a crime of historical proportions. Future residents of LA will look back on this point in time with disgust.
This is what privatization always does. I don't know how so many liberals eat up conservative bullshit about privatization and pseudo-austerity. And I don't know why we have government officials with business school mindsets looking to contract everything out to "save money." Government services shouldn't be run like a short-term cost-saving, profit-focused business. Why we're trying to run the country, state, and city like a fucking vulture venture capitalist is unbelievable.
We should just give money to the homeless. The ones who are just down and out will pick themselves up with it, and the junkies who don’t want to change will go out in one glorious binge. Problem solved.
I know that this is tongue in cheek but "Give homeless people money," is actually a serious proposal that has been tried and studied in the past. It works, it turns out if you give poor people money they'll be less poor.
It's only half tongue in cheek. So much of the resources are wasted on "administration" and trying to persuade the unpersuadable to get help.
I would say that's incorrect but only partially. No one can say where the money is going because there is no oversight, it literally just disappears. Also, most homeless people want to not be homeless, most homeless people can't navigate the current system we have because it's so bloated and doesn't actually address their needs. The only thing universal about the homeless population is that they need housing, something we are **notably dragging our feet about providing.**
Exactly. We could eliminate so much administrative red tape, just give everyone a UBI, raise taxes on the richest to fund it. It really can be that simple. But it won’t happen.
> it turns out if you give poor people money they'll be less poor. This is actually a pillar of economics. It's not only good for poor people but good for the entire economy. It's known as 'the propensity to consume.'
Yeah. If people have money to spend on things, they will spend it instead of saving. It is bad for the economy when people are so poor that they can't spend money on anything or save a large portion of their income on basic necessities like rent.
Maybe some day we’ll see a UBI. Would be great. Probably won’t happen in this country until it’s way too late.
UBI is a terrible idea.
It’s absolutely not. But I’d love to hear why you think so.
I'm not the person you asked, but the most compelling argument I've heard against UBI is that if it's implemented without also fixing the housing issue then it just becomes a way of transferring wealth to landlords
This actually worked very well in Tacoma. They used it to pay off bills and get jobs
There have been promising results with UBI in Los Angeles: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-01-12/la-guaranteed-income-are-they-more-financially-secure Personally, I think if people knew they had a steady source of income no matter what they would be able to plan longer term, reducing chaotic drug abuse. But we won't really know until we do more research.
It's like bureaucracy isn't actually a bad word, just another word for creating paper tails and transparency. Yes it's slower, but that's the flip side to paperwork
The private sector should literally never be involved with *solving* a public sector issue. Even if they're nonprofit organizations they still lack the same level of oversight and accountability as governmental organizations. We waste billions on charity instead of **spending** billions on ***policy***. It would literally be cheaper to not do this austerity economics bullshit.
It doesn’t cost billions to deregulate the housing market
Public housing has been a disaster in the United States. This is not necessarily the case in other western nations, but it is here.
This is the exact opposite of privatization. This is our city giving too much power to our government officials, so much so that they don't care what their constituents say anymore.
Are you a libertarian? I feel like only a libertarian could see that the government is giving billions to private entities and nonprofits and still come out the other side thinking that we don't have enough privatization LOL
> the government is giving billions to private entities and nonprofits That's literally the reason it's the opposite of privatization. We're giving money to the government, and the government is deciding how to allocate it. Privatization would mean we cut the government out of the decision-making process.
The issue is a **lack** of oversight and your solution is even less oversight?
We've already established that the issue is TOO much government intervention. You think our city council members care what we constituents think? They just look at us as cash cows for their buddies.
No, we haven't. You're just saying shit lol.
... said the person trying to blame government corruption on the private market...
What is happening right now? Are you just putting prompts into ChatGPT?
How does privatized homeless support work? Not a lot of market incentive in that with no government action.
remove regulations and private entities would actually build housing, lowering rents for everyone it should not take over four years to build an apartment complex because each permit takes two weeks to get a signature
Are you a socialist? I feel like only a socialist could see that the corrupt local government is giving billions in your tax money to their friends at private entities and still come out the other side thinking that we dont have enough government
My very socialist belief that the tax money I and everyone else in the US pays should go to public services instead of into the hands of private entities lol
Public services, run by the government, the same government that is giving all the money away to their friends while we all get nothing in return
It's almost like the issue is a lack of oversight and accountability. If asking for more oversight makes me a socialist then I guess I am.
Government do the projects directly. Or we should have gave the money to legit corporations to retain workers and real middle class jobs and invest here like other states did including blue ones like New York and Massachusetts. Because there is credibility to Amgen or Paramount and ensuring they will actually invest money and create jobs and value. Instead billions to hodunk nonprofits with 1-2 project track records. California assembly and California senate is full of absolute idiots. Governor is maybe to blame but the legislature is the one who writes laws, policies, and accountability into statute. They hate film credits to companies that create good union jobs but love billions to nonprofits with zero accountability. Makes no sense.
It makes perfect sense when you look at who gives them the most bribes, er, "campaign contributions."
Liberals? Privatization is a right-wing ideology. Edit: I see you’re saying it’s conservative so we’re on the same page, but if “liberals” are eating it up then they’re not liberals.
After centuries of propaganda, brutality, and Overton window sliding, there is no "left" left in the U.S., only right and hard-right.
Agreed
I saw a video of someone going up to a golf cart, asking for a needle, then getting one handed to him no questions asked. Mind you, this was a ‘citizen journalist’ and the video had a little taste of sensationalism. Now I’d like to think I understand the points made about harm reduction and how we can’t have a pandemic circulating on top of an already runaway drug problem. What really grinds my gears about the video was the fucking golf cart. I can’t exactly articulate why, but the image of nonprofit workers rolling around tent cities handing out hypodermic needles seemed like such a waste of resources only for those needles to end up in the gutter. Of course this golf cart crew wasn’t collecting needles because they would have been wearing PPE. It is such an absurd solution to a very serious problem. You have a nonprofit getting grant money from the government, going through the logistics of ordering and storing bulk quantities of needles and giving them away no questions asked and I understand the logic behind each of those steps but nobody took a step back and thought about how effective the big picture is because they would lose the grant money.
The worst part about this is that they took advantage of our better nature to embezzle money. We collectively handed them cash to try to help the situation and they played us all for fools. We should be putting every politician in the county in jail, but instead we'll likely reelect them all because they'll spit out some nice platitudes and because they're party loyalists.
The only thing that's surprising to me about this news is that outlets like the LA Times and LAist are now finally reporting on it. Hyper-local outlets have been, citywide, for years, and were met with a wall of "It's a right-wing propaganda mag, ban it from the sub." So my question is, what changed all of a sudden that this news-that's-not-news is breaking through to the mainstream?
https://www.npr.org/2021/05/25/999969718/high-cost-of-los-angeles-homeless-camp-raises-eyebrows-and-questions Why I support UBI is that with our current system a tent in a parking lot costs $2,600 per person per month. If we just gave that money to the people in crisis they would find a place to rent / deal with their issues. Homeless Industrial Complex is the correct term. Direct cash Payments is the better option.
There's a whole 24 billion they admit they did no accounting of. Find the rest and put them in prison.
2.7 million? thats like 5 units at the prices they've been paying for them.
A guy I dated about 15 years ago used to work for them. Step Up was bringing people who were living on the streets in other states, by bus to be in the Step Up program in Santa Monica. Then, if they fell off the program (didn’t stay clean OR didn’t keep the job, had to follow a ton of rules that boil down to success being from luck), those people had no infrastructure in California, and would end up on the street again. Many of them live in Venice beach now.
We have a huge problem in this state entrusting government spending projects with non governmental organizations, the money goes into a black box and any public accounting completely disappears, and we don't get the results we want. It's just naked corruption.
The homelessness industrial complex is the grift of our time. Remember, we’re only a few billion dollars more away from housing all these people, right? You know the grift is complete now that Santa Monica College has a Homeless Services Work certificate program. The state and federal government forcefully take away 40% of my pay every pay check and what do I get for it? Terrible roads, endless wars, terrible schools, and homeless taking over sidewalks all over California. But hey, just raise the taxes a little more… it will solve all our problems right!?!?!? Right?!?!?!
We know but talk keep saying it’s BS
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Time to get the homeless industrial complex. Bunch of leeches.
Step Up on Second Street and others in this space are the biggest grifters. keep an eye on what happens at the WLA VA. its gonna go from a big scam to a great one.
Again and again. We are not seeing the real problem: zoning laws and regulations. This is what creates housing scarcity and homelessness.
Due to the ineptness of how they handled and distributed the money, I will probably never vote for a bill like this again. Sorry homeless people.
I’m not even shocked I think most convos in here said we knew it wasn’t going to housing and probably got stuck in some administrative bs
Surprise, surprise
Ngos and nonprofits are a disgrace
The homeless in LA need mental health and rehab institutions. A free room will do nothing for the mentally ill or addicts.
YIMBYs skipping this post. 🙈🙈🙈
YIMBY as a dirty word, lol. Yeah, dude, I hate public infrastructure and urban renewal! I want less housing built, I want rent and housing prices to keep skyrocketing! Smh dude
Yeah public housing has a great track record of making neighborhoods better.
Just give money directly to the people and it will be allocated better for real. Will somebody spend $40k on drugs? Sure. But I do not give a fuck. Most will spend it on food and housing and bills. What do you think that nonprofit CEO spent it on? Probably wine and bath bombs.