L.A. Spending $800K to House a Single Homeless Person

An audit of the city of Los Angeles funds found that the city spent $1.2 billion on a program that was meant to build housing for the homeless, but the cost is now projected to cost around $837,000 per unit.

QUICK FACTS:

• Los Angeles is found to have spent around $1.2 billion on a housing project for the city’s growing homeless population, according to News 10.
• The program’s slow progress and growing cost caused auditors to discover the program will likely spend upwards of $800,000 for each unit.
• Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti disputes that the program, approved in 2016 and known as Proposition HHH, is off track.
• The mayor claims that the project “is producing more units than promised, at a lower cost than expected.”

HHH has increased our production of supportive housing by almost 600%, from 300 to 2,000 per year.

I thank all of our partners for continuing to support our vision of housing all Angelenos in need.

— MayorOfLA (@MayorOfLA) February 23, 2022

AUDIT DETAILS:

• The audit found that the HHH program has about 1,200 units built so far, but is “wholly inadequate,” according to Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin, The Associated Press reported.
• Around 14% of the units built cost $700,000 each, with one project costing nearly $837,000 per unit, according to AP.
• The project is slated to build 8,091 housing units for the homeless in LA, spread out over 125 projects and the funds outside the program will be used to build another 2,369 units.

BACKGROUND:

• Los Angeles is sometimes called the “homeless capital of America” by housing advocates due to the fact that more than one in 10 homeless Americans reside in Los Angeles County, according to Reason.
• A Feb. 23 report from TheRealDeal, a LA area real estate new publication, indicated that LA County is also looking to acquire 18 hotels and apartment buildings for homeless housing.