Make California Post a Preferred Source Karen Bass took a victory lap this week after cutting the ribbon on a $72 million homeless housing project.
For that kind of money, you’d think she’d have built something significant.
But the new facility is just a converted Motel 6. Not even a new building.
And as The California Post reported, the new facility only includes 111 units, putting the cost per unit at about $650,000.
On a per-square-foot basis, the price is even crazier.
Given that a typical motel room is about 300 square feet, the costs for the new homeless shelter are above $2,000 per square foot.
So while Karen Bass seems to think that the new shelter is a monument to her administration’s efforts to tackle the homeless problem, it’s really a monument to her failure.
Bass, like Mayor Eric Garcetti before her, and Gov. Gavin Newsom statewide, has embraced the idea that the only things homeless people lack are a roof and four walls.
The “Housing First” policy has led to billions of dollars of losses, while barely making a dent in the problem.
Spending massive amounts of money on homeless services clearly is not the answer.
The money just feeds the “homeless-industrial complex” — an army of nonprofit organizations that thrives on government grants.
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Many of those organizations have no interest in solving homelessness. If every homeless person found a home tomorrow, those organizations would have to close.
Spending more money on homeless services also creates perverse incentives.
Homeless people from other parts of the country already prefer California for the warmer weather. Giving them more services — and fancy living quarters — gives them another reason to come here, and to stay.
LA should enforce its existing laws against camping out on the street.
It should also require homeless people to join sobriety programs as a condition of occupying city shelters or rooms.
It should determine which homeless people are mentally ill, and provide options for treatment.
Finally, LA needs to send a signal that California is not a place for homeless people to bask in the sun, nor is it a place to which other cities and states can send their homeless population.
Nithya Raman has vowed to cut homelessness in half by the Olympics.
Perhaps she can. But her policies are simply more ambitious versions of Karen Bass’s failed approach.
