Mayor Bass’s Billionaire Bake Sale

“I Gave a Million Dollars to Mayor Bass to Fight Homelessness and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt…and My Rolex Stolen.”

Perhaps we are making an assumption that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will be giving away “thank you” gifts to rich people who respond to her call to pony up even more money to fight homelessness, but if she does she can feel free to use the above line.

During her pantingly anticipated annual “State of the City” address Monday, Bass pleaded with wealthy Angelenos to open their digital wallets and give.

“We have brought the public sector together,” Bass claimed in her speech.  “Now we must prevail upon the humanity and generosity of the private sector.”

Putting aside for the moment that that is what taxes are paid for, are LA’s richest going to agree to drop even more cash down the homeless-industrial complex rathole?  

Considering that few if any of the programs tried so far have worked at all, let alone if compared to the political promises made about them, and that the state auditor just last week that they can’t really figure out where the last $24 billion spent had any positive impact  at all, the answer to a “give more money” request would seem most likely to be a hard pass.

And not one of those “oh, I forgot my wallet” when you walk by Girl Scots selling cookies kind of noes, but something more like this:

It is true that Los Angeles has lots and lots of very rich, very progressive, very guilt ridden people who donate to practically every silly thing imaginable.  But Bass’ idea leaves out one rather crucial detail – rich people got that way (unless they inherited and are now squandering their grandfather’s years of toil and sweat on a custom yurt at Burning Man) because they do things like watch money carefully, invest properly, and in general – outside of trips to Vegas and third marriages – tend not to throw good money after bad.

And the money spent so far has been so bad as to defy description.

By every conceivable metric, the city, county, and state efforts to “end homelessness” have been abominable failures – abominable because they not only wasted money but have specifically damaged the people they purport to be helping.

The only upside to the billions spent has been for the people who very much have homes and jobs and cars and such who get paid to do the spending.  In that sense, one could argue that the billions have actually housed a great number of people – well, considering the salaries of involved, housed better than they used to be able to afford.

During her first State of the City address a year ago, Bass touted the “Inside Safe” program, promising an additional $250 million for the program that moves homeless people into hotels and motels.  

Since then, about 3,200 of the city’s 46,000 (estimated and that’s just city and does not include the entire county) homeless people have taken advantage of the program, or about nine people a day. Of that, Bass claims that about 2,600 people have been moved inside, though about 700 of them moved back outside, were jailed, or died.  It is also not exactly clear how many people of the remaining 2,600 are still “inside,” as tracking the results of homelessness reduction programs is notoriously difficult – especially if you don’t bother to try (see auditors report above).

But Bass did announce that at least three donations have already been pledged to what she is calling the “LA4LA” program. Stephen Cloobeck has donated $1 million, the Conrad Hilton Foundation another $3 million, and the California Community Foundation – which oversees about $300 million a year in grants in various areas and though various programs – has loaned the project $5 million.

All of these are impressive sounding numbers, but even if the program raises, say, $200 million, that will still only amount to about 10% of the what the city spends already and less than 1% of what the state has spent over the past five years.

And that is one of the key problematic issues with the concept – yes, rich people have a lot of money but the government has a lot lot lot lot lot more money so any donations would only be – at best – icing on the cake as it were.

In other words, if you already have a 55 gallon drum of money, adding a couple more pints will not have a significant impact.

One avenue of donations could, theoretically, actually have an impact – buildings and land.  First, they are physical assets, meaning the donation will not be frittered away on hiring yet another DEI consultant for the bureaucracy.

Second, improvements to physical items can be tracked rather obviously and honestly – people can see things being fixed and made ready.  

Maybe Karen should call the owners of the graffiti-scarred, BASE jumper attractive nuisance Oceanwide Towers?

Buildings for Bums instead of Kars for Kids?

Maybe she could offer them a tote bag.