3 Comments

When there are empty high rises and motels, and lots of homeless people, the problem is systemic. It sounds like governments don't really care. If they were to buy these empty buildings and turn them into low cost permanent housing, they'd solve a lot of the problems of homelessness while generating a stable monthly income. But no, that doesn't seem to be the priority of any level of government.

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Definitely systemic! Turning the entire thing into that would bring to mind housing projects. If the deal were to go forward, there would undoubtedly be demand for concessions for "affordable" or "low-cost permanent housing." The bigger point, though, is that there's no clear model for success here, but rather a scattershot approach that seeks to be "robust" without having any plan for "alignment." We'll be writing more about what a model plan looks like and also trying to keep updated with all the action including in/near so-called Skid Row.

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Mixed affordability is a good recipe. Dr. Sam Tsembris’ Housing First generally calls for 20% of any one building to be affordable to the lowest income bracket (30% of $2k/year GR income). The other units can be other levels of affordability, like LI and regular “affordable” (based on 30% of AMI, which is nearly 6-figures in LA County) is fine.

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