A homeless facility in Los Angeles came into spotlight recently. The city built dozens of sheds and named them tiny homes to shelter people who experienced homelessness. However, a 64-square-foot unit costs $130,000, which is about 10 times what other Southern California cities have spent.
Jerry Sullivan, a journalist who studies this issue, shared some of his insights with California Insider.
“The city of Los Angeles and the county of Los Angeles have taken upon themselves, to increase their taxes to dedicate billions of dollars towards this problem, and it’s only getting worse,” said Sullivan.
Los Angeles has been criticized for spending unwisely on the homeless issue for a long time. Sullivan cited another case where the city agreed to pay double the average price to rent a warehouse it planned to turn into a homeless shelter.
“More recently there was some proposals to expand on that deal, even though that deal hasn’t lead to the completion of the first phase, the initial price based on the emails I obtained through California public records act, would be about three times the price,” said Sullivan.
Sullivan pointed out that the price might come as a result of high “soft cost.” These soft costs consist of fees for consulting, zoning, lobbying, and surveying. He was also concerned that corruption could be a driving factor.
“Most of what we would think of as corrupt, or not right, or unethical, or questionable, most of it’s legal, and it can be simple as campaign donations. If the amounts of money had been less or written to a political action committee or his campaign or within limits, there will be nothing illegal about that,” said Sullivan.
A Los Angeles councilman asked city agencies to reduce the costs. But the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which oversees the project, is planning to build more tiny homes throughout the city next year.