The Shaky Foundations of LA's Housing 'Entitlement' for the Homeless

By Christopher F. Rufo, RealClearInvestigations  April 21, 2021

 

In 2016 influential political leaders, activists, and media outlets in Los Angeles said they had a simple solution to homelessness: build more housing. Echoing an argument heard across the country, they claimed that rising rents have thrown people onto the streets and that by directly providing free “permanent supportive housing,” cities can reduce the number of people on the streets and save costs on emergency services.

In response, 77% of Los Angeles voters approved a $1.2 billion bond for the construction of 10,000 units for the city’s homeless. That commitment made Los Angeles the most significant testing ground for the “Housing First” approach that has become the dominant policy idea on homelessness for West Coast cities. Even before the passage of the bond, the concept’s creator, Sam Tsemberis, was lavished with praise by the national media. In 2015, the Washington Post wrote that Tsemberis had “all but solved chronic homelessness” and that his research “commands the support of most scholars.”

Sam Tsemberis... has been hailed by the Washington Post as having "all but solved homelessness." But Los Angeles..... challenges his "Housing First" model.

In the years since, “Housing First” has taken even greater hold in California and the across the West. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti recently declared that “we need to have an entitlement to housing.” California Gov. Gavin Newsom went a step further, arguing that “doctors should be able to write prescriptions for housing the same way they do for insulin or antibiotics.”

Five years in, the project has been plagued by construction delays, massive cost overruns, and accusations of corruption. The Los Angeles city controller issued a scathing report, “The High Cost of Homeless Housing,” which shows that some studio and one-bedroom apartments were costing taxpayers more than $700,000 each, with 40% of total costs devoted to consultants, lawyers, fees, and permitting. The project is a boon for real estate developers and a constellation of nonprofits and service providers, but a boondoggle for taxpayers. The physical apartment units are bare-bones — small square footage, cheap flooring, vinyl surfaces — but have construction costs similar to luxury condos in the fashionable parts of Los Angeles. Meanwhile, unsheltered homelessness has increased 41%, vastly outpacing the construction of new supportive housing units. Los Angeles magazine, which initially supported the measure, now wonders whether it has become “a historic public housing debacle.”

Before completing a single housing unit, the city reduced its projected construction from 10,000 units to 5,873 units over 10 years, with the potential for further reductions in the future. But the long-term problem runs much deeper: Even if one accepts that permanent supportive housing is the solution, there are currently more than 66,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County. Under the best-case scenario, Proposition HHH will solve less than 10% of the problem over the course of a decade.......To Read More....

 My Take -  Just like every other far left panacea that promises utopian outcomes, this is another failed leftist scheme that's in reality a tap on taxpayers money for leftist scam artists, promoted by leftist con artists with junk studies and fudged data to make it look meaningful, and agreed to by leftist true believers.  All of whom have a screw loose.

In reality it's an abject failure , economically, socially and philosophically.   But, why should we expect it to be otherwise? It's a leftist scheme, a movement that's almost has an exclusive monopoly on failure. 

 All these failed leftist schemes follow the same pattern.  They're preceded with lies and emotional pleas.  Then they continue with corruption and massive outlays of taxpayer's money that seems to be filling a bottomless sink hole.   Afterward, they're all followed with excuses and finger pointing, ultimately claiming the reason these schemes fail is because America is at fault.