The Homeless Industrial Complex
Every major city in California is spending tens of millions or more on programs for the homeless
By Edward Ring, May 28, 2019 2:15 am
Los Angeles could be at risk of a deadly typhus epidemic this summer according to Dr. Drew Pinsky, an outspoken celebrity doctor and specialist in addiction medicine. Pinsky, a Los Angeles native, recently quoted on Fox News, said: “We have tens and tens of thousands of people living in tents. Horrible conditions. Rats have taken over the city. We’re the only city in the country, Los Angeles, without a rodent control program. We have multiple rodent-borne, flea-borne illnesses, plague, typhus. We’re going to have louse-borne illness. Measles could break into that population. We have tuberculosis exploding.”
All of this is easily confirmed. Los Angeles already has outbreaks of typhus, hepatitis and tuberculosis, as do other cities in California. Shigella, a communicable form of diarrhea, is now common among the homeless. There have even been outbreaks of trench fever, spread by lice. As reported by the Atlantic earlier this year “Medieval Diseases Are Infecting California’s Homeless.”
There are estimated to be over 55,000 homeless in Los Angeles County, and at least 130,000 statewide, living on sidewalks, parks and parking lots, vacant lots and on the beach. There is no sanitation and no trash collection. The populations of disease carrying animals and insects that thrive in these conditions are exploding: rats, fleas, mosquitoes, ticks, mites, lice.
The problem of the homeless could be completely solved in a few months if there were the political and judicial will to get it done. The national guard could be deployed, working with city and county law enforcement. The homeless could be sorted into groups; criminals, substance abusers, mentally ill, undocumented aliens, and all the rest. For each of these groups, separate facilities could be built on vacant or underutilized government land in or near urban centers but away from downtowns and residential areas. They could consist of tents, porta-potties, and mobile modules providing food and medical services.
There’s plenty of money available to do this. Just in Los Angeles, in 2016 voters approved Measure HHH, allocating $1.2 billion in bonds to build 10,000 units to house the homeless. Since then, Los Angeles voters approved a quarter cent sales tax increase, also to help the homeless. Additional hundreds of millions are coming from the state to help the homeless.
Every major city in California is spending tens of millions or more on programs for the homeless. But most of the money is being wasted. Why? Because there is a Homeless Industrial Complex that is getting filthy rich, wasting the money, while the homeless population swells.
WHAT IS THE HOMELESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX?
Here’s how the process works: Developers accept public money to build these projects to house the homeless – either “bridge housing,” or “permanent supportive housing.” Cities and counties collect building fees and hire bureaucrats for oversight. The projects are then handed off to nonprofits with long term contracts to run them.
That doesn’t sound so bad, right? The problem is the price tag. Developers don’t just build housing projects, they build ridiculously overpriced, overbuilt housing projects. Cities and counties don’t just collect building fees, they collect outrageously expensive building fees, at the same time as they create a massive bureaucracy. The nonprofits don’t just run these projects – the actual people staffing these shelters aren’t overpaid – they operate huge bureaucratic empires with overhead and executive salaries that do nothing for the homeless.
An example of wasteful spending can be found in the homeless shelter being built in Venice Beach, where a permanent population of over 1,000 homeless have taken over virtually every public venue, including the beach. Because their tents are now protected by law as private space, they not only serve as housing, but as pop-up drug retailers and brothels. To get these folks off the streets and off the beach, a 154 bed shelter has been approved by the Los Angeles City Council. It will be a “wet” shelter, meaning druggies and drunkards will be able to come and go as they please. The estimated cost for this shelter so far is $8 million, which equates to over $50,000 per bed. Why doesn’t anyone ask why?
These costs aren’t that bad if you consider the cost of new construction in exorbitant California. But this isn’t new construction, it’s “temporary” construction of very large tents on three acres of land. Eight million dollars, to put up some large tents and plumb for bathrooms and a kitchen. As a “wet” shelter, it will become a hotel for freeloading partiers as much as a refuge for the truly needy. Not only is it only capable of housing a small fraction of the 1,000+ homeless already in Venice, it will attract more homeless people to relocate to Venice.
Finally, this property, owned by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit District and located on some of the most precious real estate on earth, could have been sold to private investors to generate tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. Why wasn’t that choice made? Why, for that matter, aren’t homeless shelters being built in Pacific Palisades, or Brentwood, or Beverly Hills, or the other tony enclaves of LA’s super rich? Because as with all boondoggles that destroy neighborhoods in the name of compassion, the Homeless Industrial Complex knows better than to defecate where they masticate.
The Homeless Industrial Complex’s expensive maltreatment of Venice Beach in particular, and taxpayers in general, is an example of how “bridge housing” projects are co-opted and corrupted. But even more horrendous waste is exemplified by the efforts to construct “permanent supportive housing.”
According to an NPR report from June 2018, “when voters passed Measure HHH, they were told that new ‘permanent supportive housing’ would cost about $140,000 a unit. But average per unit costs are now more than triple that. The PATH Ventures project in East Hollywood has an estimated per-unit cost of $440,000.”
A privately funded development company, Flyaway Homes, has debuted in Los Angeles with the mission of rapidly providing housing for the homeless. Using retrofitted shipping containers, the company’s modular approach to apartment building construction is purported to streamline the approval process and cut costs. But the two projects they’ve got underway are too expensive to ever offer a solution to more than fraction of the homeless.
Their 82nd Street Development will cost $4.5 million to house 32 “clients” in 16 two-bedroom, 480 square foot apartments. That’s $281,250 per two-bedroom apartment. The firm’s 820 W. Colden Ave. property will cost $3.6 million to house 32 clients in eight four-bedroom apartments. That’s $450,000 per apartment.
These costs are utterly unsustainable. But the Homeless Industrial Complex has grown into a juggernaut, crushing the opposition. At community hearings across California, “homeless advocates,” who are often bused in from other areas expressly to shout down local opposition, demand action, because “no one deserves to live on a sidewalk.”
Money is squandered, and the population of homeless people multiplies. This is not compassion in action, rather, it’s corruption in action.
WAYS TO REIN IN THE HOMELESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
(1) Acknowledge there’s a problem. Agree that it’s no longer acceptable to throw money at the homeless epidemic without questioning all the current proposals and the underlying premises. Billions of dollars are being wasted. Admit it.
(2) Recognize that a special interest, the Homeless Industrial Complex – comprised of developers, government bureaucrats, and activist nonprofits – has taken over the homeless agenda and turned it into a profit center. They are not going to solve the problem, they are going to milk it. Their PR firms will sell compliant media a feel-good story about someone who turned their life around, living in a fine new apartment. What they won’t tell you is that because of the $400,000 they charged to build that single apartment unit, dozens if not hundreds of people are still on the street with nothing.
(3) Act at the municipal and state level to set a limit on the cost per shelter “bed.” This cost must represent a compromise between ideal facilities for homeless people, and what is affordable at a scale sufficient to solve the problem. There is no reason the capital costs for a shelter bed should be $50,000 each, but that’s exactly what’s proposed in Venice – $8 million for a semi-permanent “tent” with 154 beds. Similarly, there is no reason a basic apartment unit for the homeless should cost over $400,000, but in Los Angeles, by most accounts, that’s what they cost. This is outrageous. Durable tents and supportive facilities should be set up for a small fraction of that amount. Pick a number. Stick to it. Demand creative solutions.
(4) Stop differentiating between “bridge housing” (basic shelter) and “permanent supportive housing.” Permanent supportive housing IS “bridge housing.” Amenities better than a durable, dry, sole occupancy tent and a porta-potty can belong exclusively in the realm of privately funded nonprofits and charities. Until there isn’t a single homeless person left on the street, not one penny of taxpayer money should be paying for anything beyond basic bridge housing.
(5) Accept that homeless shelters will be more cost-effectively constructed and operated if they are in industrial, commercial (where appropriate), or rural areas, and not in downtown areas or residential neighborhoods.
(6) Abandon decentralized solutions that involve seeding safe neighborhoods with mini-homeless shelters in converted residential homes. Estimates vary, but between 35 and 77 percent of homeless people suffer from substance abuse, and between 26 and 58 percent have mental illness, and by some accounts over half of them have a criminal record. It is not just too expensive, it is dangerous to mix a homeless population into family neighborhoods.
(7) Go to court. Challenge the decision in Jones vs the City of Los Angeles, that ruled that law enforcement and city officials can no longer enforce the ban on sleeping on sidewalks anywhere within the Los Angeles city limits until a sufficient amount of permanent supportive housing could be built.
(8) File a state ballot referendum to overturn Prop. 47, which downgraded drug and property crimes. Prop. 47 has led to what police derisively refer to as “catch and release,” because suspects are only issued citations with a court date, and let go.
(9) Recognize that the rights of the homeless must be balanced with the rights of local residents, and that homeless accommodations should be safe but should never be better than the cheapest unit of commercial housing.
10) Confront the fact that a lot of homeless people are homeless by choice, not because they’ve ran out of options, and they DON’T WANT HELP. Act accordingly: Do we give these people control over our public spaces, our neighborhoods, our parks and beaches? And what of the others? The mentally ill, the substance abusers, the criminals? Do we give them control of over our public spaces?
It is terribly difficult for proponents of rational policies to be heard in public hearings on the homeless. Professional activists, often hired by developers or well-heeled nonprofits, abetted by sincere homeless advocates who simply haven’t ran the numbers, will usually outnumber and shout down neighborhood “NIMBYs” who have come to raise objections. But the NIMBYs are right.
We have a moral obligation to help the homeless. But we are not obligated to cede our downtowns, our tourist attractions, and our residential neighborhoods to homeless encampments. And as a society, we also have a moral obligation to protect the general population from rampant infectious diseases. What if Dr. Pinsky is right? What if there is a major infectious disease epidemic in Los Angeles this summer? Is that what it’s going to take before we clean up our streets and get the homeless into cost-effective, safe, supervised, sanitary encampments?
The moral question of how to help the homeless cannot rest apart from financial reality. It is impossible to solve the homeless crisis under current law and according to current policies. Therefore a new approach must be taken.
Before criticizing the suggestion that we spend a $5,000 per bed (or less) instead of $50,000 per bed (or more) to build bridge housing facilities, imagine what could be done with all the money we save. We might be able to help a lot of people get their lives back on track. Instead of feeding the insatiable excesses of the Homeless Industrial Complex, which helps a few but neglects so many.
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Leave the homeless be and nature will take its course. The homeless like their situation of being on the street. They have everything they need, each other.
Unfortunately, working people often need to walk by these public health hazards to get to their jobs. I agree with the author that these “camps” need to be cleaned up.
IF they required no taxpayer assistance, perhaps one could claim that we should leave them alone (though I disagree for the usual reasons). But since they are in reality usually wards of the state, we own them. We can do what we want with their choices of where and how to live. That’s the price of taxpayer dependence.
Absolutely. I can’t tell you how I have cringed when I hear some of these young squatters claim to be “libertarians” one minute, then scream “housing is a right” the next one.
Yes!
Stop wasting taxpayer money. That’s what charity (non-government homeless shelters, rescue missions, etc.) organizations are for.
Exactly!
A great and properly alarmist article — very informative to expose why the politicians et al have been non-responsive to what has become a dangerous situation — for the vagrants as well as for regular residents just trying to live their lives without threat of random attack and disease.
Extremely impressed that Drew Pinsky came out swinging: “Here’s what I want to do, I want to take away qualified immunity from the politicians so we can go after them for reckless negligence.” YES! He sounds serious; hope he is. With Drew Pinsky in our corner, look out. This has become a public health emergency and must be dealt with NOW.
With the wealth of information and analysis that has come out lately about the true nature of this scourge the public is catching on fast and apparently realizes they’ve been had. It looks like they can no longer be manipulated into feeling guilty and on the defensive. NIMBY protest at public meetings (formerly mocked) is now something to be proud of and respected. It exposes the true motives of our “leaders” and backs them against a wall.
Good luck to all the scam artists involved in the Homeless Industrial Complex — you are making angry activists out of people who would otherwise be busy with their own lives and of little concern to you.
I’m very concerned about the Black plague this summer. It’s also is carried by fleas. With the Da Mayor of LA doing nothing but playing politics with the taxpayers, he needs to focus and the Concrete Campers, who just might have to be inconvenienced for once, so the majority won’t become infected with Typhus or Plague.
Not to mention that Assemblyman Bloom is pushing a bill to ban rodenticides . The furry carriers would be allowed massive reign to spread these wonderful diseases without any bars.
Its now common to find uncapped needles, used condoms, human feces, shoes, clothes and general garbage on the beaches throughout Long Beach due to the coordinated efforts between community leaders, out of touch in denial activists and to some degree law enforcement. Homeless industrial complex is alive and well in Long Beach. California USA.
Offer freebies & a Sanctuary from crime millions will come from all over the world. Destruction of CA and then the USA is what the communist democrats want.
Let us know when you get tired of liberals turning your state into Norte Mexico.
“…Demand creative solutions.”
I did… where were you? HHH has a Civic Oversight Committee and if you want to be heard you need to know when and where these are happening (DTLA) and SHOW UP. Make your voices heard.
Move them to Hollywood. Celebs seem to always support the homeless.
Don’t worry Tom – they’re already here. Hollywood has more frigging tents propped around then base camp to Everest.
It’s appalling really – I’ve stopped walking my kids to school (5 minute walk) because of the ‘encampments’ along the way, sometimes IN THE WAY. Seriously, when I have to cross the street to get up the road because a homeless person’s tent is literally blocking the side-walk, it’s gone too far. Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for helping these people, but living on the street is not the answer. And with the amount of taxes we pay in this state you’d think this would be something that could be handled, but clearly our leaders and governing bodies couldn’t give a crap or are completely incompetent. Sad state of affairs.
I’ve seen the situation in Hollywood and it IS shocking. Now crime has gone way up too. And, as you probably know already, vagrants have become so bold they are breaking into uninhabited houses (because of remodels or being for sale) and living there. And it’s not so easy to get these squatters out either.
Re the “leaders” and their cronies — it’s worse than not caring or being incompetent. We see big false shows of compassion but they are actually getting rich off the backs of the people they claim to be helping. That’s why they veer away from common-sense answers and following models that would work because it wouldn’t be in their interest to fix the situation — they have too much at stake
The homeless are everywhere in L.A. I don’t go out much anymore, but drove from West L.A. (near Santa Monica) over to an art gallery on La Brea via WIlshire Blvd. There was a major “housing project” of one individual going up on Barrington and Wilshire just a few blocks from where I live. (A few weeks later, it had grown.) Saw all sorts of tents along the way, some where there was undeveloped property/property in transition, but some right in front of businesses.
On my return trip, coming up Santa Monica Blvd., I stopped to pick up dinner at a Lebanese restaurant on Westwood Blvd. and took a shortcut back to my car through a couple of parking lots. There was a fellow in horrible shape picking on himself in the parking lot behind a strip shopping area, surrounded by a ton of garbage. Just a car-lenght away an Asian woman from the nail salon there was chirping away on her cell phone.
The next week, I was a few blocks from home off Bundy and Santa Monica Blvd. A block off SM Blvd. There was a whole encampment! My destination was the Mazda service center, and I asked my car service guy, a few blocks away, about it. He said, “Oh, yah, that’s been there for years.” !!!!!
There are so many stories and unpleasant sights.
It’s freaking surreal here and extremely depressing.
Absolutely unacceptable on every level.
Arrived in LA late 2013 to be closer to my brother. Live in Hollywood on Bronson Ave. next to the freeway overpass and a homeless encampment/and parked trailers. And surrounded by two others one/two blocks away. We have mentally ill and transients wandering around. It’s truly a nightmare scenario. BTW: NONE of this was here back then..It all changed in late 2015/16 thanks to our feckless leadership that caved into the demands of the ACLU and other activists and sanctioned encampments on our sidewalks. Pedestrians MUST walk in street with cars because sidewalk is blocked by circus size tents/junk/carts/bicycles/waste/furniture that impede travel. Sanitation rarely comes by and has taken away the garbage containers, (were useless), because they have been set on fire multiple times. Tons of filth/trash/rats are what is out on the street piling up daily.. Next to me in the other direction if a different scene..We have the Scientology Celebrity Center. And security staff along with retired and off duty police are outside monitoring the activities on the street as this neighborhood has a MULTITUDE of “free” services for the homeless: nightly dinner/showers/medical/shelter/vouchers/laundry/metro that attracts everyone to this area.
Good idea, let them pitch their tents in the backyards of the stars.
A perfectly rational proposal that will be ignored by leftist politicians who secretly gain satisfaction from the homeless problem because it bolsters their narrative of an evil, uncaring America. Enjoy the coming epidemics.
Incredible piece which provides insight into why this problem is being addressed in name only. Criminalfornia all like to call it has been morphed into, by the political leadership in concert with the ignorant voting populace, a mecca for criminals and homeless. Everyone is responsible for creating the environment which attracts this 3rd world squalor. It seems California manages to squander every well intentioned effort no matter how big or small because, well, that’s what they do and what everyone comes to expect. This is mismanagement at the very top folks, but remember, you voted for this so enjoy.
Corruptifornia
So glad that finally people are starting to see through the BS of the Homeless Industry. And that there are different groups like drug addicts and criminal that don’t want help, just free hand outs. There are people getting rich off this and really don’t want to see a true cure, because that would mean their pay check will end. So much of the tax payers money is mismanaged and wasted. The majority of the Nations homeless are in California and Hawaii. This population needs to be broken up and spread back to the other states. There needs to be more housing in every state, not just California.
So true,it is about time to end the BS. Now to get the politicians on board
Having been homeless in California, I can say that the overall cost of living and the general systemic abuses by employers that prevent easily earning enough to even rent a room makes it really difficult to say that the homelessness issue is entirely about choosing to live like that. I agree the solution is something we all need to recognize is our solution. I hadn’t heard any of these figures before but I am not surprised, as with everything else in California the cost is hyper inflated to line the pockets of the few who are already dealing with an abundance of money. I spent 10 years on the streets in Santa Rosa not because I wanted to be there but because as a aged out foster youth with no family to live with and a part time job that averaged out at $800 a month, while even rooms were regularly going for $600 how do you afford to rent a room and feed yourself when, you are ineligible for food benefits. The reality is there needs to be something there that’s at least reduces the risk of epidemics because they don’t just effect the homeless population they impact us all we have to recognize that, then take a stand to resolve the issue. Letting nature run it’s course is a bad idea as those outbreaks can easily impact the guys who walks past that encampment to got work everyday or the guy who got in line for coffee at Starbucks behind the homeless guy who hasn’t shown symptoms yet but is carrying a communicable disease. It isn’t and us and them problem it’s a them and us problem, in an all of us problem. Don’t bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t effect you because if you can see it in your life than it is effecting your life.
Andy,
This is what you do:
Go in with someone else and rent a place. Your rent will be cut in half!
Get a box of oatmeal and cook some for breakfast. Easy, good, and cheap.
Robin – I suspect your comment is not particularly helpful. You want the guy share a ROOM. I think the point was that you can’t work at a basic job and even make enough money to have even a room. Have you heard, “Dont’ beat a guy when he’s down?”
Just a thought … to think first.
Author Edward Ring talks about The Homeless Industrial Complex on the John & Ken Show, KFI-AM.
Well worth the time:
https://www.spreaker.com/user/kfiam640/052919-full-show
(Interview begins at 85:05 mark, about 14 mins long)
Well researched article. I work in downtown Los Angeles and have been concerned about flea-borne illnesses with the number of homeless camps near heavily-traveled areas of Los Angeles. The big problem with Bubonic Plague is if it morphs into Pneumonic Plague (airborne). With so many people in close proximity it has the potential to spread well outside of the City of Los Angeles with all of the people that commute to Los Angeles from the suburbs. It could quickly spread into the adjacent counties. Something to think about.
Bring back the workhouses of yesteryear. If you are living on the street, you must be enrolled in a workhouse. You get sober, clean, healthy, have housing, learn and practice a rudimentary skill, get paid, and eventually leave to rejoin society. It is “tough love time” for the homeless. In every animal society, individual value is demanded. If you do not add value over time, you are harshly removed from that society. We need to establish value in the homeless as the alternative is horrible.
That’s actually a great idea.
I read your article, but also my son is doing great things in San Bernardino County, perhaps you two would be interested in meeting?
https://www.dailybulletin.com/2019/05/05/how-upland-shrank-its-homeless-population-even-as-san-bernardino-countys-has-grown/?fbclid=IwAR3JT0W7tVNI-v80lcOHfvDEzyZhohcJLOIRWLFkX58y6-wvNb1jM2eUdd4
Simple solution to “the homeless problem”:
Stop spending taxpayer money on them.
Make them fend for themselves. There are private charitable homeless shelters and rescue missions they can turn to when they want a handout or to get help from when they finally decide to be productive citizens again and get back on their feet.
Also, make them obey the law like the rest of us. Police should not let them block sidewalks with their tents.
Extremely simplistic view. When you have 100,000 people living rough, you can’t just let them “fend for themselves.”
First, that’s uncivilized, and second, unfortunately the situation impacts everyone of us unless you live in an Ivory Tower and never go out. It’s a health, safety, environmental and humanitarian crisis.
There’s a tremendous cost if you “do nothing,” and there’s a cost if you do something. Either way, it’s costly. But, allowing it to get to the point it has in Los Angeles, I would argue, has created unnecessary additional cost. Doubt there’d be a $5 million lawsuit against the city by the city worker who contracted typhus if they’d dealt with the problem.
Inepitude by the administration of Eric Garcetti.
https://www.change.org/p/eric-garcetti-recall-city-of-los-angeles-mayor-eric-garcetti-for-inaction-on-the-homelessness-crisis?fbclid=IwAR3wiYHL2ZLlz8t2XFzteETKiNjBCv4Y3xZwakqHCB_ZbnZQWImAPrMoFJ4
Didn’t see Hepatitis A in that list of diseases running rampant. Read this week in the paper it is moving up the coast from San Diego through drugs and sexual contact among those on the street. California is quickly becoming a 3rd world region.
Very good article. Just what I have been thinking.
Millions being wasted. Good thoughts but bad outcomes. Remember when we had State Hospitals? That might be something to put the money into. Many of the homeless belong in a state hospital and would be better off. Agnews State Hospital was a beautiful place.
Vote RED
It’s a National Security Threat.
Like he said Round them up, but Draft Them into the Navy. Put them to work on the Docks or something.
Trump 2020.
I would like to make a distinction between the types of homeless. Most homeless stay that way for a relatively short period, like months to less than 2 years. These are the down on their luck, lost job while living paycheck to paycheck, families not making enough in an area with rapidly rising housing prices and other such conditions. These are also referred to as the invisible homeless. You may even work with one, or possibly hired one and not even know it.
Then there are the chronic homeless which I believe are the subject of this article. I mostly agree with the prescriptions given here for that group. We tend to concentrate on the ones we see and the ones that are creating immediate problems for us, but the majority of homeless are the ones you rarely notice who are trying to get their lives back together, not looking for the next fix.
Let’s not conflate the two groups as they require very different solutions.
Step 1 is providing shelter and housing for the total unsheltered homeless population.
Step 2 is moving the homeless out of the bush and off the streets into shelters or housing.
Step 3 is legally removing the homeless encampments permanently from the riverbed and other campsites.
Step 4 is volunteering to help count the homeless for the annual PITC.
Step 5 is repealing Proposition 47 making it a felony and they can be arrested if they are caught using drugs or committing petty crimes – 2020 ballot.
Step 6 is repealing Article 34, which no longer requires voter approval before public housing is built in a community – 2020 ballot
Step 7 is funding Proposition 36 as true prison reform, which offers non-violent drug offenders treatment instead of incarceration.
Step 8 is sending the police out to arrest the homeless who are engaging in criminal activities.
Step 9 is sending the homeless who suffer from mentally illness to treatment and if they become a danger to themselves or others, they can be declared 5150.
I see a lot of “opinions” in this article with zero documentation or facts to substantiate
the thesis of the article.
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They are seeing people as just money, instead of human beings.