California’s Homeless Housing Scam

Pogressive politicians have created the homeless crisis. Their policies have made housing unaffordable, driven away decent job opportunities, and encouraged vagrancy and drug addiction. Their solution—taxpayer subsidized housing, provided free and with no conditions imposed on any homeless person—is a special interest scam, guaranteed never to solve the problem. And nowhere in America is that problem worse than in Los Angeles, California.

Over the past week, two local elected officials in Los Angeles have made public statements on the homeless crisis that grips the region. They represent two completely different perspectives on how to resolve that crisis.

The first came in the form of a thank you letter from retiring Los Angeles City Council member Mike Bonin, sent to those of his constituents who wish him well in whatever he does next. With respect to his legacy, Bonin writes: “By providing housing and services, we are changing lives and providing a pathway out of homelessness. Since the launch of the Venice Beach Encampments to Homes initiative, 76 people have been permanently housed.”

Seventy six people. Remember that number.

Bonin’s philosophy is consistent with what remains of the prevailing progressive doctrine regarding homelessness, known as “Housing First.” It is defined on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development website as “an approach to quickly and successfully connect individuals and families experiencing homelessness to permanent housing without preconditions and barriers to entry, such as sobriety, treatment or service participation requirements.”

This approach has made Bonin infamous even among the mostly progressive residents of Venice Beach, where an estimated 2,000 homeless have taken over this tiny beachfront suburb of Los Angeles. Only a small fraction of them have been given “supportive housing” or temporary shelter, and only a small fraction are held accountable for using and selling hard drugs, public intoxication, theft, vandalism, or worse.

The other public official who has recently weighed in on L.A.’s challenges is the outspoken county sheriff, Alex Villanueva. In an interview with California Insider, Villanueva describes how progressive policies have combined to “defund, defame, and defang” his department.

But it is the county’s response to the homeless crisis that draws Villanueva’s most withering remarks.

“The problem with city government and county government is that they [woke ideologues] occupy every seat at the table,” according to Villanueva. “That’s why every single plan the city has, or the county has, with regard to homelessness is destined to fail. No other opinion gets in.”

“They think that if we build enough supportive housing we will end homelessness in Los Angeles,” he continued. “But the more you build, the more people will come. Right now we have 25 percent of the nation’s homeless in Los Angeles County. What’s going to prevent more homeless people from coming to Los Angeles if they see someone living in a $500,000 condo with a beach view? They’ll say, ‘hey, I want one too.’ We cannot create the magnet that brings other people here.”

Subsidized Housing: The Boondoggle Archipelago

Villianueva is not exaggerating, and the problem has been known for some time.

In a 2019 report by the California Policy Center titled “The Boondoggle Archipelago,” several representative examples of staggering costs for “supportive housing” were documented. San Francisco’s Proposition A funded housing at an estimated cost of $500,000 per unit. Alameda County’s Measure A1 funds housing at $736,000 per unit. San Jose’s Measure A funds housing at between $406,000 and $706,000 per unit. Los Angeles’ plan to repurpose an existing structure on the Veterans Affairs campus in West Los Angeles cost $926,000 per unit. Also in Los Angeles, $1.2 billion in bonds to construct supportive housing will cost an estimated $550,000 per unit.

And back in Venice Beach, Mike Bonin’s backyard, officials plan to build 140 new apartment units on a city-owned property that is currently the only significant beach parking available to the public. Dubbed “The Monster on the Median” by outraged residents, the estimated total project cost comes up to at least $1.1 million per unit.

These costs are not coming down. For the 2021-2022 fiscal year, Los Angeles County has budgeted $527 million to address homelessness. For same fiscal year, the city of Los Angeles has allocated $1 billion, nearly 10 percent of all spending, “for the homeless crisis.” Add to that the spending by many other cities in Los Angeles County, plus direct state and federal spending, plus the ongoing disbursements from bonds approved for homeless housing. Will it work?

The last time Los Angeles County counted its homeless was in 2020, because the 2021 count was canceled due to COVID. The 2022 count has been postponed for the same reason. But in 2020 there were an estimated 66,000 homeless in Los Angeles County. It is unlikely that housing has kept up with the influx since, as Villanueva accurately proclaims, Los Angeles is a national magnet for homeless migration. At $500,000 per unit, it would cost $33 billion to house every homeless person in Los Angeles, assuming no more arrived. That doesn’t include the swollen bureaucracy and ongoing costs to manage homeless housing, nor any spending to actually treat them and get them on a path to independence.

As noted in a lengthy 2019 study published by the California Policy Center titled “The Homeless Industrial Complex,” and as expressed more recently in a provocative and compelling book, San Fransicko, by the writer and activist Michael Shellenberger, homelessness is not simply a housing problem to be solved with more housing. It is primarily a mental illness, drug addiction, and crime problem. At the very least, some of the billions in public funds for “housing first” need to be redirected, with equal amounts spent immediately on treatment, and for some, incarceration. In many cases, involuntary treatment—i.e., incarceration—is the only way to rescue people from addiction.

A Confluence of Interests

Mike Bonin, along with countless other intransigent progressives, refuses to accept this reality. But ideological idiocy alone does not explain why common sense reforms aren’t sweeping away these failed policies.

The homelessness and crime problems afflicting California’s cities, especially Los Angeles, have not been solved because there is a confluence of interests between public bureaucrats, powerful nonprofits, and politically connected housing developers, who prefer that policies remain unchanged. The billions pour in, and as the problem only gets worse, additional billions pour in, enriching a Homeless Industrial Complex that thrives on failure.

Eventually, we may hope common sense will prevail. Deregulate home construction. Stop harassing private employers and let them create jobs. Stop decriminalizing crime. Build inexpensive and safe shelters on inexpensive real estate. Reject entirely the absurd position that drug addiction is a legitimate “lifestyle.” Get addicts off the streets and get them sober.

As it is, Los Angeles is more than just a progressive failure. It is a false beacon to every troubled person in America who stands at the crossroads between recovering their dignity with hard work and self-discipline, and succumbing to drugs and dissolution. It is a blazing, nihilistic beacon, telling these souls they can give up, come to California, live on the beach, and disintegrate.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.