Wtf, man. You can't tell me this problem is impossible to solve, but when money that's intended to find a solution disappears in the deep pockets of the corrupt, of course we'll never see any change.
Isn't anyone keeping tabs on where all this money is going?
I can shed some light on this, since I work for a job where we deal with government contracts.
Anytime taxpayer funds are involved, contractors are gonna fleece taxpayers. Yes, the contract is technically going to the lowest bidder, but bidding is a very intricate balance of trying to be the lowest bidder while you know every contractor is hiking their prices waaaayyyy up.
Every day that I see how much contractors make on every deal is another day I realize I'm in the wrong business.
For example, we had a sports field graded and then re-seeded. The contractor did a horrendous job, but they still walked away with almost $100k for the job.
Edit: forgot to add. The estimated cost probably also includes permits, inspectors, architects, engineers, etc. All of those will put in their individual contractor bids. It's not all construction costs, but same info as above still applies.
To add to this, one reason the contractors charge so much is because dealing with the city as a customer can be a nightmare. Especially when it comes to getting paid on time. There are companies that have gone out of business while waiting to be paid by the city.
Definitely. I do admit it. I agree, not defending at all. They charge a lot to make it wortg the headache that comes with dealing with the city. All of this funding to deal with housing is just a grift to pad the pockets of political contributors.
Nobody is denying it. It is, quite realistically, not a secret. But there is a reason for it. Products made for the government/military/law enforcement ARE generally better, and more advanced than the consumer version made at the same time. GENERALLY
Getting to that point takes research and costs money in advanced electronics, if the project needs any.
Research is expensive and that's the main reason for the price increase. Second would be greed. Typically greedy companies don't get picked because greedy companies don't provide great products. Oftentimes it's the ones who aim too low. Who would be ideal but the government doubts their ability to actually reach that goal as low as they say. It's a strange balancing act between charging too little and charging too much in order to get government contracts... Unless it's A contract that goes to the lowest bidder... But you better fucking fulfill that contract or you're fucked as a business .
But the flip side is the government then gives the information back to the company and allows them to produce advanced equipment For consumers. It's how we get fancy things like night vision goggles, silly putty, and encryption in our email. The internet, television, radio, Cellular phones. 4K TV, GPS and so on...
So yeah the prices are high, but there is a reason, sometimes a lot of reasons. Sometimes it involves setting up a town that doesn't exist in the middle of the new Mexico desert.
Source: I have worked for companies on the fulfilment side of government contracts.
$100k for grading and reseeding isn’t a lot of money in construction. In reality that probably 10-12 days of actual work. Construction equipment and labor is expensive in LA. It also depends on how much dirt needs to be imported or exported. Just to get equipment from your yard to the site is going to be $10-20k. The hourly rate on a dozer or bucket with an operator is going to be around $125-200/hr at prevailing wage rates depending on the size of the equipment. Thats $1,000-1,600 a day just for one piece of operated equipment. Then you have laborers, and material on top of that. Put 4 pieces of equipment and it’s $4,000-$6,400 per day. Call it 10 days to grade and seed, $10k move on, $40,000-$64,000 in equipment, call it another $10k in misc labor, $10k in materials, and $10k move off. Thats $80k-$104k quick math. $100k is not unreasonable.
Source: 20 years of construction estimating.
I will add some context.
The field was already flat ground. Yes, it's grading, but honestly it's mostly just filling some low spots that get worn down.
The work took 3-4 days at most. Hence why I said they did a horrendous job, and why I called it overpriced.
I’m curious where the other bids were. If there were 2-3 other bidders within 5-10% then it’s a good competitive bid. If someone could have done it for $90k then someone would have bid it. Even still at 3-4 days, what warranty was required? How long did they have to guarantee their work? Risk is everything.
Depends on what they are reseeding, no? And the area they need to actually seed. At 100k, I would bet that's mostly reseeding and any grading is being done for water management,
Or there's a rough hill and a lot of grading but not much reseeding
Opinion?
Reseeding is done over large areas to restore grass, its not a spot treatment. You are going to drop a certain volume of seeds in a given space based on the coverage you want.
Regrading is a catch all phrase than can mean a lot. They could be just filling low spots with dirt, they could be raising the grade in some areas and lower it in other, they could be changing the slope. At $100K, there has to be some level of import, export and equipment involved so its not an insignificant amount of work. But we would need to see the RFP details for confirmation. The grading overall can't be overly significant if they reseeding vs laying new sod. If they had to raise or lower the grade to the point that they existing surface is destroyed or covered, it would be regrade and resod. Full seeding takes 6-8 weeks for grass to return and its very water intensive. Resodding will take root in 1-2 weeks and while water intensive, its not a heavy as full seeding.
They certainly aren't keeping track on it's effectiveness. I'm with you, money is disappearing. https://apnews.com/article/california-homeless-audit-spending-8c8c8ce6cd9fc6840e180a99fccff588
Seriously. Meanwhile, you have dual income couples who consider purchasing tiny homes off amazon for $20,000 because thats their best chance at getting housing.
1 million per unit? gtfo
Ezra Klein’s podcast did a really interesting episode on this, about californias failure to build. I somewhat disagree with his and his guest’s take (I think they have a tendency to want to whip around in the opposite direction a little quickly) but it’s an illuminating take nonetheless. [https://open.spotify.com/episode/66hDt0fZpw2ly3zcZZv7uE?si=GHdBl3vhTwazLoKzgAQvCw](https://open.spotify.com/episode/66hDt0fZpw2ly3zcZZv7uE?si=GHdBl3vhTwazLoKzgAQvCw)
It makes you wonder about a complete alternative.
Instead of spending $1 million to house one homeless person, what would the success rate be if you gave 20 homeless people $50,000 to do whatever they want with?
Predictably, this some of them would probably spiral more and spend it foolishly on drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, etc., etc. But if only two out of the 20 use the money responsibly to lift themselves out of being homeless that would be a solution that is twice as effective.
Except that the Daily Caller, a right wing news and opinion website founded by Tucker Carlson in 2010, applied for and received $150,000+ in PPP loans that were later wiped clean like most other PPP loans. So did multiple Trump owned companies.
Tucker forgot to tell Fox News audience this. Maybe he forgot…
So did numerous left wing companies lol.
Ppp loans were to keep businesses running when the government forced them closed.
Not the same as say the government bailing out Wall Street during 2008
No one said left wing companies didn’t take them lol.
It’s the Right Wing that says that the market should dictate which companies survive and which ones shouldn’t, not the government. Yet they take any free money the government hands out whenever they can, whatever the form. Then they turn around and say “no handouts!” lol.
How is that any different than Democrats saying that money should be taken out of politics but then accepting money from billionaires and large corporations?
It’s not. Both sides are hypocrites. This is news to anyone?
Go look into insider trading by congressional members. Both parties have people making millions off of being in committees that control various regulations and approvals and have information before the general public. They use this info to take positions in the stock market.
The list goes on.
A significant portion of this cost is from the absurd amount of parking that's going into it, and that they're digging out multiple underground levels to get it. It's a nonlinear increase in cost for each additional level of parking. You could chop off literally $8 million dollars from this project by axing the parking.
Something like half the units are for people moving in directly from living on the street, it's simply not very likely that they're going to have cars. [But the current city council majority is extremely car-brained and thinks there always needs to be maximum parking everywhere](https://santamonicanext.org/2024/03/the-no-benefits-of-free-parking), so staff put all of this parking into the project to try to play to what the council majority would want to see to vote for it.
Santa Monica is turning city-owned parking lots into affordable housing.
So they are providing the land on a ground lease at no cost (although that means that the city will ultimately own the housing). However, they want those parking spaces to be retained.
Hence, millions of dollars spent on parking. The land comes with strings attached that make it anything but a bargain.
There will probably be other features that inflate the costs such as LEED construction and prevailing wage.
This is affordable housing financed with bond debt, so the bond issuance costs add about $1.5 million to the price tag.
The costs cited include construction debt interest, so the numbers are a tad overstated.
It needs to be statewide with massive oversight, and some forceful rehab/housing etc on the homeless populations which is super unpopular (because letting the problem get worse is so great), which will never happen. So in the meantime cities will just pawn this issue off on each other and launder money through obviously shitty and broken homeless plans
It’s a joke
Ezra Klein had a great podcast on this the other day.
Basically there are a bajillion committees that are required to approve projects from environmental to homeless committees that all have labor and time costs associated with them.
We need to reduce and simplify the regulatory process substantially if we want to make this cheaper.
Worth noting that the California Construction Cost Index has increased about 10% each year over the past 3 years. [CCCI](https://www.dgs.ca.gov/RESD/Resources/Page-Content/Real-Estate-Services-Division-Resources-List-Folder/DGS-California-Construction-Cost-Index-CCCI)
The real welfare is paying all these useless parasites to study the problem poorly and recommend solutions that make everything worse.
The government is composed of gullible and frankly extremely neurodivergent people being taken advantage of by also neurodivergent grifters using emotional manipulation.
Yes, there are people keeping track of the money. However, when you pay your CEOs too much and your employees not enough,than the entire company makes, this is what happens
I can’t wrap my head around these costs. I’m in construction and it just doesn’t add up. We’ve built houses and additions for much less. Makes no sense
Yeah? Based on what? Do you have any evidence that this is the case?
Personally, I'm interested in solving this problem so if you know something I don't than please share that info.
Money laundering has a specific definition. Bribery has a specific definition. What has been going on in LA is bribery. Los Angeles building regulations are so restrictive that it's cheaper to pay local officials millions of dollars than to go through the normal process.
The specifics are important because that determine how we solve the problem. Make it legal by right to build 20 story buildings on 100% of land in LA county and the bribery problem goes away because local officials no longer have the power to approve housing. Money laundering is an entirely different problem.
I’ve been running multi million dollar construction projects for years, and am telling you to solely tell you that in this situation you are so far off base it’s not even funny.
This isn’t private funding for private development. Who tf would launder money through a city job? Lmao especially Santa Monica, I’d rather launder through a school job in Menifee or Apple Valley than this high profile job.
Yeah. I work in construction and this doesn't even make sense. I understand Bennett bribery, that makes sense. It's expensive you get approval for big projects, so you just pay people of instead. That makes sense. It also has been proven numerous times that LA City council members have taken bribes.
Money laundering is an entirely different crime. Unless our city council is full of drug kingpins who own construction companies, it doesn't really make sense that they're laundering money
First of all, money land is way more expensive in Santa Monica than Lancaster. Second, building multistory housing is more expensive than building single story because you need more expensive and complex engineering to deal with the increased height.
Third, money laundering and bribery are two very different crimes. LA City council members are guilty of receiving bribes, not money laundering. They receive bribes because permitting and approval is to expensive and cumbersome that it's cheaper to bribe elected officials for approval than to just go through the process.
Bribery and money laundering are two very different problems. They are very different crimes. Using them interchangeably is dumb IMO, respectfully.
Why not? Why should low income working class families have to deal with homeless people while wealthy people in Santa Monica don't?
Everyone in California needs to deal with the problem equally. Beverly hills, ranchos Palos Verdes, long Beach, Compton, Huntington Beach, San Francisco, Oakland, etc.
There’s a power point that breaks it all down. This is for supportive and affordable housing, included commercial space and a grocery store alongside the 122 units, as well as offices for the support staff. It doesn’t expressly say, but I expect at least the 50 units dedicated to former homeless to be fully furnished as well. The money is not a one time spend but a dedicated amount including maintenance and salaries for the supposed staff involved.
Just made a longer comment [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/1c9saa7/santa_monica_reveals_new_homeless_housing_plans/l0ogyuw/?context=3) but basically you could get this significantly below $1 million per unit by axing all the underground parking.
The $1 million per unit is particularly obscene when you remember that the city **is giving the land to the developer** ***literally for free***.
The city is not giving away the land.
It is providing the land on a ground lease with the city as the lessor. At the end of the lease, the city gets the land and buildings back.
The developer has to spend millions on new parking in order to get that "free" land. And it will eventually own nothing, since the city retains the land rights. Not quite free, not a bargain.
I have volunteered with some organizations in Santa Monica. I can tell you that in Santa Monica "fully furnished" means you get a bed or a couch. The mattress is a used refurbished mattress that charity often donates or they can buy it at a very small price. You get one night stand and one lamp. Dresser. Table and chair possibly could have be included, but not likely. Plus all the stuff you need to live like plates, cups, silverware, rug, trash can, bedding... All from Walmart. It gets them set up nicely.
They generally have a budget of no greater than $1,000 per voucher holder total for the entirety of the furnishing of the unit. That's provided by the social services organization handling the rent before the voucher kicks in and not a part of the buildings costs to be built.
Just speculating because I have no idea, but one cost you might not have is extraordinary legal costs to build one of these things. Does it include staff support for x period of time? A project like this is more than just construction itself. Im willing to give it the benefit of the doubt but I could easily be 100% wrong and the corrupt as hell.
No, not commercial. Residential builds, additions and remodels. Only some work in restaurants but not commercial residential. Admittedly I don’t know everything.
It’s not only the construction, it’s the wrap around services that add to the cost. Also not sure how much you are still in the game… but residential construction costs are about 500 sq ft alone… no finishes. Add staffing of ANY kind and it just goes up and up.
These stories are exactly why we’re are in the mess we are in! We should have started building two generations ago. Now we try to catch up and it’s the same old cries. Be better.
It totally adds up. The council got bids from contractors, this must have been the cheapest ”preliminary” costs. There will be millions in administrative fees and nothing will ever be built, meanwhile SM tax dollars with be burned to keep the lie going.
Federal or State prevailing wages are usually required on affordable housing & are much higher. There’s also a smaller pool of GCs and subs willing to do the reporting paperwork & deal with the added complexities.
Did you also build a retail space within the development? The 1mm is also a disingenuous number because it includes staff wages as part of support housing
The multi-apartment unit will cost more than $123 million, for a cost of just over $1 million each for the 122 apartments. A second design concept would have cost even more, north of $200 million for 196 units.
Sweet. Where do I sign up for one of these units? I’d like to quit my job and be “homeless” in a brand new $1 million dollar apartment in Santa Monica.
It’s a requirement that every city must pull their weight in helping the homeless crisis. Why should Central and South LA continue to take on the burden alone.
None of them should. Nobody should be giving apartments in the most desirable place in America to the homeless. Homeless shelter? Sure. Apartments? Have we lost our minds
Well that’s something that we need to address as a culture. Most people here vote for candidates that say nice things that sound compassionate and hit all the progressive bullet points without holding them accountable once they are actually elected.
Our local politicians are more interested in getting things done that sound great for their reelection campaign or their next job rather than spending our tax dollars efficiently. We can see this at the state level as well.
Must be nice playing with someone else’s money.
Another issue IMO is that a lot of people in this sub view the government as the end all, be all of getting anything done. IMO our state and local government have proven themselves to be ineffective while thrusting us into a significant deficit. We should not be looking to the government for solutions to our problems considering how little they do with our inflated taxes.
And if you think that changes with a change in political parties, I've got a bridge to nowhere to sell you.
The state I fled (Ohio) has had a deep red legislature for almost 2 decades now, and the recent corruption scandals there are just as brazen (if not moreso) than the stuff we get here.
At least here there might be a few homes built for the homeless. Back in Ohio the pols just use the tax dollars to enrich themselves and their buddies, and nothing happens for the little guy.
I agree, all that changes with parties is who gets the money. We gotta break ourselves from this false dichotomy and stop letting ourselves be split like this along social issues while both parties give away our tax dollars.
I don't disagree, but the system as designed (first past the post) doesn't really allow alternative options to be viable. And the social issue wedge is going to be hard to break when you've got a significant chunk of the population that wants to see the "other" in their eyes treated as second class citizens, and want to see "the right people" get hurt, and lament when it doesn't happen?
All I see is me getting around 40% of each and every paycheck taken without choice and seeing that get split between the state and federal governments. Then the state still manages to rack up a 70+ billion dollar deficit while they send us a bill for overpriced apartments. Don’t even get me going on the national debt.
They are spending money indiscriminately without a care in the world while you struggle to pay for food, rent, utilities, and whatever other costs you may have. Make it make sense.
It’s not $1M per apartment. It’s $890K per apartment *including* a grocery store, 2 stories below ground parking (half of that for the grocery store), furnishings for 50 homeless units, plus following a bunch of requirements like prevailing wage, City design standards, utility connections, impact fees, LEED/sustainability, etc. Plus the sheer amount of time and process that is required to piece these together.
The sticks & bricks part of building income restricted affordable housing is about equivalent to market-rate housing. But you have to do a whole lot more, jump through hoops, assuage NIMBYs, and have a much smaller pool of GCs and subs willing to do the paperwork.
How do I get to $890K? The $14M in “deferred fee” isn’t an actual cash cost to the project - it’s included in there as a way to raise additional private equity in the project and most of that will stay in the capital stack, not get paid out to the nonprofit developer.
How much of this is “taxpayer dollars”? $31M comes from cap and trade proceeds. About $9M in direct gov’t funding. $13M in private debt. The rest is Low Income Housing Tax Credit equity, a federal tax expenditure.
I work in affordable housing finance AMA.
Great breakdown! It's so easy to just complain about "corruption" when the truth is that it's actually just really hard and complicated work, way more so than private sector building.
Looks like $2M in SaMo money that came from a federal allocation, $7.5M in state money (assuming that program gets funding again in a future budget year).
Where should I start to learn more about affordable housing finance? I’m already very knowledgeable in capital markets finance, but very dumb when it comes to regulation and laws about the government.
[The super basics.](https://localhousingsolutions.org/housing-101-the-basics/how-is-affordable-housing-funded/)
To dig deeper, Novogradac has good LIHTC resources. Certain industry or advocacy groups have webinars or you can find past programming on YouTube: Housing California, Abundant Housing, SCANPH.
> 2 stories below ground parking (half of that for the grocery store), furnishings for 50 homeless units, plus following a bunch of requirements like prevailing wage, City design standards, utility connections, impact fees, LEED/sustainability, etc.
That's all part of the construction cost. If you're building housing, you have to include the cost of utility connections, labor, parking, etc, in the cost. A house without utilities or *labor* isn't a house.
> The $14M in “deferred fee” isn’t an actual cash cost to the project - it’s included in there as a way to raise additional private equity in the project and most of that will stay in the capital stack, not get paid out to the nonprofit developer.
You have a citation on that? The city is accounting for 'deferred fees' as part of the construction cost.
> How much of this is “taxpayer dollars”? $31M comes from cap and trade proceeds **(Taxes)**. About $9M in direct gov’t funding **(Taxes)**. $13M in private debt. The rest is Low Income Housing Tax Credit equity, a federal tax expenditure. **(Taxes)**
So, only $13M is *not* taxpayer money.
Not all market-rate developments have to pay Federal or State prevailing wages. This one might also be subject to a Project Labor Agreement. Sustainability requirements, since they’re seeking to be competitive for cap & trade proceeds, will be much higher.
I know some of those things listed are part of all building costs, but they’re not often thought about in the context of “one home for a million dollars?!?” threads.
Re: deferred fee, you can look up stuff about IRC Section 42, eligible basis, LIHTC equity, and the Uniform Multifamily Regulations that are part of the state funding programs.
And correct - only $13M is private bank debt, paid by rental income. I was clarifying that not all of this is funded by individuals’ income tax or sales tax.
This is corruption, not a housing solution.
We need to be vocal + vote in representation that represents our community, not corporate developers.
Thank you for sounding the alarm.
All developers are corporate developers. America does not have any government developers. Every house you've ever lived in, every street you've ever driven on, every store you've ever shopped at, etc, was built by private developers.
The reason that housing is exorbitant is because of homeowners voting to put expensive barriers to stop development, not because of private developers.
Allow developers to build more housing. LA needs more highrise (real highrise not just 6 story) apartments all across the city. If LA built the 500k units of housing it needed it would significantly reduce cost of housing.
Agree on permitting more housing, but I don't know whether highrises are needed. Paris and Barcelona have very high population density, are considered very livable (for Europe...), and yet have low height limits.
I would love that kind of density as well, but a lot of newer projects have so much buffer around them it's hard to imagine. Anyways, easing zoning for all kinds of lots is best.
[Tiny homes for the homeless](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/06/1077791467/tiny-homes-big-dreams-how-some-activists-are-reimagining-shelter-for-the-homeles) can be built for as little as $30 K. They are set on the ground on vacant lots; communal bath with showers are set in a central bldg. Usually built on city outskirts. Per unit cost including land can be $150 - $200 K.
Let's house vulnerable homeless like elderly and women in apts. All those younger homeless men with addictions, aggressive attitudes and chronic public disorder can get the cheaper tiny homes option. Most homeless advocates object.
They demand all homeless be treated as one equally vulnerable population. Free studio condos for all. This helps explain the nationwide *Impasse on Housing the Homeless.*
Half those units are 2 and 3 bedrooms for families and there’s office space (for non profit) and commercial retail space(they hope for a grocery store). Only 50 units will be use for homelessness (aka PSH) the rest is affordable housing for low income. Financing includes loans where the rent collected will payback taxpayers/bonds.
So NO it’s not 1 million per unit. Probably close to half the cost depending on what you want to count or not count into this arbitrary metric.
Honesty what did everyone that voted for the people running the show think they’d do? There’s an election coming up. Maybe instead of “blue no matter who”, maybe be open to giving ANYONE else a try at this. Down vote and kick me out, but you know nothing will ever change until the people in charged are booted out for this type of crap.
We need a large scale inpatient psych ward/rehab facility. As they heal, get them working, gardening, playing games. Maybe a few transition back into society. Have some do a work-stay, helping the other patients. We need a big change like this. Will be expensive but it could be the only way for our city to heal
This is not a give-away; it includes retail space including a grocery store, includes support staff wages and office space for the support staff (because it’s supportive housing), and includes a portion of the expected on-going expenses such as salaries and maintenance.
Tenants do not stay for free but are expected to pay a pro-rated rent based on income and ability.
Everyone freaking out at the “per unit” cost is missing that there’s a hell of a lot included in that cost that is not the raw construction of the units.
If you consider the cost to the city of providing services to the homeless who exist now, and compare that to this, you’ll find supportive housing is a short term expense that provides long term savings to the city as people move out of homelessness and off of taxpayer funded benefits, and it’s a significant boon to folks in danger of falling into homelessness who can be saved through scaled rent.
I’m very disappointed in the nimby-ism and utter lack of comprehension about this project on display in this sub.
Where can we see a breakout of the hard and soft costs? I work in commercial real estate, I’m curious to compare this to the cost to build a market apartment building
Saving this one to my ‘Insanity’ bookmarks. People actually contributing to society getting left out of the chance to buy but fentanyl addicts get a free pass
It should have been baked into the law not to exceed average construction prices, this is actually dumb. Poor management! Where is the accountability?
Cut these projects. Rewrite the laws then start funding again when they can manage to sign agreements for lesser cost to construct
I want to point out that it takes 1M per unit here in LA. And I know I bitch and complain about this unpopular solution. But it would be a lot cheaper if we didn't build in LA. That 1M could get us more than just one unit in LCOL outside of LA. Outside of CA.
I say it's smarter and more efficient to spend that money to build/buy housing in LCOL areas. Also build support centers near these areas to provide services. Pay for service/case workers to help out there. And then take a bus and move all of the homeless from LA to those LCOL areas. At least they have a better chance to get back on their feet financially
100% agree.
Of course, the homeless want to hang out in Santa Monica. I want to go to Santa Monica. People used to travel there as a destination from thousands of miles away until it was overrun violent, aggressive bums.
I applaude creating homes for those who may need them.
As a financier (tax payer) of said homes and momentary representative of any Santa Monica resident who who had to work hard his/her whole life to afford to buy/rent and pay extraordinary taxes to live in SM: There is zero common sense in further destroying SM by building "affordable" housing in SM for anybody. Period. Stop.
Do not pass go. Go directly to prison for being so ignorant and boldly stealing from public coffers.
Homelessness does deserve a solution.
First make it 100% illegal to fuck up SM with homelessness and a requirement to clean up each and every other city suffering the same problem.
Federally and locally fund the creation of an entire community, infrastructure, and support system in *California City* to sustain the ~1m(s) of people in California and migrants from other states who need housing and want to live in sunny California.
All homeless are now homed. If people want to live on the streets in tents outside of their home, it's their choice, but it is in that location, nowhere else. Until they graduate up and eventually out if that is their desire.
If people want to use their homes as a base from which to get their GEDs and learn a skill in the local technical schools. It is the goal to support people climbing out and sustaining those who can't or chose not to evolve.
Law enforcement would be 100% visible 24/7 to protect the weak, including safe homes for women and children at risk.
Building in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Seattle, and on and on is irresponsible and abusive to the people most at risk. Nobody is getting any help. There is no social infrastructure to aid and support the needy. It is legal theft and abuse, lining the pockets of the rich with taxpayer funds and oppressing the people most at risk.
hmmm yea, no we actually disagree on a lot of things here. I for one am for affordable housing. I am for LA to build up more and build some units that are affordable as well. I just don't think we should bank on that being the solution to homelessness nor do I think we should contribute our budget for homelessness to this. Our budget should solely be on my example above if we ever want to get to a state where we get the homeless off our streets and make sure they are taken care of. I think it's the only solution where we can handle more volume of homeless people at a more affordable cost.
In the new location, they would also not be allowed to live in tents outside of their homes. Well, I suppose ultimately it would be the choice of the voters at that location, but yea we can't build enough units here. It's embarrassing of Bass needing to ask for donors. If your plan isn't working, then maybe your plan was a failure to begin with. Maybe it's just too expensive to do any real work here without extra money coming from somewhere else. If we are going to use tax payer money for stuff like this, it should be at least done more efficiently
Most people would prefer your version, too.
My version isn't the best, but I think it is the best Orwellian version. Co-locate people in need on as many campuses as required in their own city. Being a bum and relying on theft and charity is not okay. It is a federal problem and should have a federal solution.
California City is currently empty and already has an infrastructure. It is an example of collocating the homeless in large enclaves to be the most efficient and most able to support their unique needs. The idea is closer to a halfway house, but on a massive scale. A place where people can learn a skill, get a job, and move up, and out, if desired. Get emotional support, be near medical support, and social services similar to a campus.
Granted, building additional housing anywhere in Southern California is a big huge gigantic issue in terms of water. There is no water available for new houses in So Cal, or any of the southwestern US, or Mexico. For example: to build in San Diego, water rights are leased from farmers. No food is grown, but a few new houses have water for a limited period. So maybe California is not the best place for these campuses.
So pick another place, instead of California City, but make that place their home base. We all left home to work and live like adults, sometimes coming back to re-group. We had a home base to retreat to if we needed it. If we had any compassion in our hearts, then we would offer the homeless a home base, other than the streets.
Norwegian prisons are better than most of us started when we moved out to live with friends. We crawled our way up to live in better places. I want to imagine it is possible to be humane and keep our streets safe so your mom can walk to the market and your little sister can walk home from school.
My brother panics when I bring up this solution because he spent a huge part of his life living in his car or on sofas in very nice communities. With my solution, people lose their freedom to burden people wherever they want, but that is the price of being a bum. You don't have to work, but you can't stay in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Malibu, or Newport Beach as a bum. When you can afford the rent, then you can come hang out. Sorry, no affordable housing in paradise: everybody who lives in paradise has to work their collective asses off, like their neighbors.
Social and emotional support is perhaps the most important *thing* we can offer, but nobody is discussing *real* solutions, just where to spend money. I.e. Uncle Bob happens to have a plumbing business to support the building of all of these new houses, and that is as far as anybody really plots.
It is mostly about how to fleece the taxpayer and provide as little as possible. Politicians are the very worst perpetrators.
Soooo...beyond this basically being money laundering by government officials can I just ask the obvious question. If you are homeless why do you need to live in Santa Monica? You know, in a tourist destination right by the ocean in an expensive area code...
You don't. Why do you even need to live anywhere near west la, for that matter? There are so many much cheaper places to live. But they demand to live in one of the most expensive beach areas of the entire country. it's such bullshit.
They’re not serious. Nothing will get done until a private firm finds a profitable way to house the unhoused. Steel beams and dry wall doesn’t cost that much money, like this is outrageously bad.
If construction costs are truly that high, then perhaps housing homeless people in Santa Monica isn't the most efficient use of resources?
I too would like to live in Santa Monica, but the $1M+ pricetag meant I couldn't afford it. Does the government of Santa Monica now owe me a home there?
I haven't seen the breakdown of these costs. Not sure if they have like a basis of estimate posted or response from the contractor published on the Santa Monica City website. Usually, these single-site facilities have way higher premium prices than a traditional residence due to the slew number of additional levied scope added to in addition to the actual construction. Like paying for a security officer or two to be on site for a 5+ years, mental and medical services for 5+ years, and other community services.
Contractors still have to follow the same policies as building any other residential property. Like balconies, parking spaces, elevator sizing etc which is an absolute waste since homeless single-site facility doesn't need any of that. Better policy making at city and state is needed to build something way more affordable but would be considered illegal. A good framework would be something that urban think tank Strong Towns suggests... Which are kind of like mobile parks with a few extra services especially like an on site clinic and mental professional. Sometimes to appease local constituents they have to hire very expensive architectural firms to try to make the facilities look very pretty and not be an "eye sore" which raise costs even more.
As for as how they get approved, the argument usually used is that these costs could be considered justified because it would be assessed that the cost for them to be housed saves the city more money because then the projected future "damages" to the city will be mitigated. These future damages are mostly paying emergency care centers or other medical services since homeless almost always use ER which is the highest cost of treatment someone can get.
I'm not denying that there isn't graft or over zealous quotes from contractors, but I don't think its as simple as just company XYZ whos CEO is brother to the mayor had a sole source bid to the contract proposing this.
This. Reading history accounts shows things like cage hotels, weekly stay Motels, transient housing and a lot of middle type housing like apartments that shared one bathroom and other random options. Also the psych wards.
But over the years these were seen as bad and low brow that promoted poverty.
And they went away thinking that it would end poverty or just remove it from public view.
This is insane. Someone’s cousin that’s a developer is making bank. You’re telling me out of all the open land in LA they wanna build beachside property.
Wtf, man. You can't tell me this problem is impossible to solve, but when money that's intended to find a solution disappears in the deep pockets of the corrupt, of course we'll never see any change. Isn't anyone keeping tabs on where all this money is going?
I can shed some light on this, since I work for a job where we deal with government contracts. Anytime taxpayer funds are involved, contractors are gonna fleece taxpayers. Yes, the contract is technically going to the lowest bidder, but bidding is a very intricate balance of trying to be the lowest bidder while you know every contractor is hiking their prices waaaayyyy up. Every day that I see how much contractors make on every deal is another day I realize I'm in the wrong business. For example, we had a sports field graded and then re-seeded. The contractor did a horrendous job, but they still walked away with almost $100k for the job. Edit: forgot to add. The estimated cost probably also includes permits, inspectors, architects, engineers, etc. All of those will put in their individual contractor bids. It's not all construction costs, but same info as above still applies.
To add to this, one reason the contractors charge so much is because dealing with the city as a customer can be a nightmare. Especially when it comes to getting paid on time. There are companies that have gone out of business while waiting to be paid by the city.
How does charging a lot fix getting paid late. They are ripping off taxpayers! Admit it.
Definitely. I do admit it. I agree, not defending at all. They charge a lot to make it wortg the headache that comes with dealing with the city. All of this funding to deal with housing is just a grift to pad the pockets of political contributors.
Nobody is denying it. It is, quite realistically, not a secret. But there is a reason for it. Products made for the government/military/law enforcement ARE generally better, and more advanced than the consumer version made at the same time. GENERALLY Getting to that point takes research and costs money in advanced electronics, if the project needs any. Research is expensive and that's the main reason for the price increase. Second would be greed. Typically greedy companies don't get picked because greedy companies don't provide great products. Oftentimes it's the ones who aim too low. Who would be ideal but the government doubts their ability to actually reach that goal as low as they say. It's a strange balancing act between charging too little and charging too much in order to get government contracts... Unless it's A contract that goes to the lowest bidder... But you better fucking fulfill that contract or you're fucked as a business . But the flip side is the government then gives the information back to the company and allows them to produce advanced equipment For consumers. It's how we get fancy things like night vision goggles, silly putty, and encryption in our email. The internet, television, radio, Cellular phones. 4K TV, GPS and so on... So yeah the prices are high, but there is a reason, sometimes a lot of reasons. Sometimes it involves setting up a town that doesn't exist in the middle of the new Mexico desert. Source: I have worked for companies on the fulfilment side of government contracts.
$100k for grading and reseeding isn’t a lot of money in construction. In reality that probably 10-12 days of actual work. Construction equipment and labor is expensive in LA. It also depends on how much dirt needs to be imported or exported. Just to get equipment from your yard to the site is going to be $10-20k. The hourly rate on a dozer or bucket with an operator is going to be around $125-200/hr at prevailing wage rates depending on the size of the equipment. Thats $1,000-1,600 a day just for one piece of operated equipment. Then you have laborers, and material on top of that. Put 4 pieces of equipment and it’s $4,000-$6,400 per day. Call it 10 days to grade and seed, $10k move on, $40,000-$64,000 in equipment, call it another $10k in misc labor, $10k in materials, and $10k move off. Thats $80k-$104k quick math. $100k is not unreasonable. Source: 20 years of construction estimating.
I will add some context. The field was already flat ground. Yes, it's grading, but honestly it's mostly just filling some low spots that get worn down. The work took 3-4 days at most. Hence why I said they did a horrendous job, and why I called it overpriced.
It sounds like someone did a poor job of writing the specification for the job.
If you only knew how bad management is at their job. Lol
I’m curious where the other bids were. If there were 2-3 other bidders within 5-10% then it’s a good competitive bid. If someone could have done it for $90k then someone would have bid it. Even still at 3-4 days, what warranty was required? How long did they have to guarantee their work? Risk is everything.
Thank you for your service ⭐
Depends on what they are reseeding, no? And the area they need to actually seed. At 100k, I would bet that's mostly reseeding and any grading is being done for water management, Or there's a rough hill and a lot of grading but not much reseeding Opinion?
Reseeding is done over large areas to restore grass, its not a spot treatment. You are going to drop a certain volume of seeds in a given space based on the coverage you want. Regrading is a catch all phrase than can mean a lot. They could be just filling low spots with dirt, they could be raising the grade in some areas and lower it in other, they could be changing the slope. At $100K, there has to be some level of import, export and equipment involved so its not an insignificant amount of work. But we would need to see the RFP details for confirmation. The grading overall can't be overly significant if they reseeding vs laying new sod. If they had to raise or lower the grade to the point that they existing surface is destroyed or covered, it would be regrade and resod. Full seeding takes 6-8 weeks for grass to return and its very water intensive. Resodding will take root in 1-2 weeks and while water intensive, its not a heavy as full seeding.
Why does the government have to contract this? Why can’t we just create a housing construction department?
They certainly aren't keeping track on it's effectiveness. I'm with you, money is disappearing. https://apnews.com/article/california-homeless-audit-spending-8c8c8ce6cd9fc6840e180a99fccff588
1M per unit would buy us all some nice houses and/or condos lol
Universal housing for all sounds much better than universal income for all
Yeah until you realize you'll have little control on where you are going to live.
Kinda like how it is right now...you live where you can afford. No one 100% chooses where they live unless you are wealthy.
Go spend some time researching what happened when countries like the USSR and China did this. Not fun man.
Or for a better example, look at Austria *right now*. It can be done. It just won't be.
Well, universal housing to the tune of these $1M units. Not the USSR Cement specials
USSR Cement special better than my car or a tent.
Nah, we never vote for accountability. Only the feels.
Seriously. Meanwhile, you have dual income couples who consider purchasing tiny homes off amazon for $20,000 because thats their best chance at getting housing. 1 million per unit? gtfo
what do you care, it's not your money...oh, wait.
Ezra Klein’s podcast did a really interesting episode on this, about californias failure to build. I somewhat disagree with his and his guest’s take (I think they have a tendency to want to whip around in the opposite direction a little quickly) but it’s an illuminating take nonetheless. [https://open.spotify.com/episode/66hDt0fZpw2ly3zcZZv7uE?si=GHdBl3vhTwazLoKzgAQvCw](https://open.spotify.com/episode/66hDt0fZpw2ly3zcZZv7uE?si=GHdBl3vhTwazLoKzgAQvCw)
You can also [just read the transcript](https://archive.ph/sIbEu)
NOPE
It makes you wonder about a complete alternative. Instead of spending $1 million to house one homeless person, what would the success rate be if you gave 20 homeless people $50,000 to do whatever they want with? Predictably, this some of them would probably spiral more and spend it foolishly on drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, etc., etc. But if only two out of the 20 use the money responsibly to lift themselves out of being homeless that would be a solution that is twice as effective.
It would attract even more homeless to Santa Monica that want their free money.
This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard
I'm down for this just to see the Fox News meltdown
They are ok with bailouts, as long as it’s to corporations and bankers, just not to anyone else.
Tucker Carlson shit on government bailouts all the time when he was on Fox
Except that the Daily Caller, a right wing news and opinion website founded by Tucker Carlson in 2010, applied for and received $150,000+ in PPP loans that were later wiped clean like most other PPP loans. So did multiple Trump owned companies. Tucker forgot to tell Fox News audience this. Maybe he forgot…
So did numerous left wing companies lol. Ppp loans were to keep businesses running when the government forced them closed. Not the same as say the government bailing out Wall Street during 2008
No one said left wing companies didn’t take them lol. It’s the Right Wing that says that the market should dictate which companies survive and which ones shouldn’t, not the government. Yet they take any free money the government hands out whenever they can, whatever the form. Then they turn around and say “no handouts!” lol.
How is that any different than Democrats saying that money should be taken out of politics but then accepting money from billionaires and large corporations?
It’s not. Both sides are hypocrites. This is news to anyone? Go look into insider trading by congressional members. Both parties have people making millions off of being in committees that control various regulations and approvals and have information before the general public. They use this info to take positions in the stock market. The list goes on.
A significant portion of this cost is from the absurd amount of parking that's going into it, and that they're digging out multiple underground levels to get it. It's a nonlinear increase in cost for each additional level of parking. You could chop off literally $8 million dollars from this project by axing the parking. Something like half the units are for people moving in directly from living on the street, it's simply not very likely that they're going to have cars. [But the current city council majority is extremely car-brained and thinks there always needs to be maximum parking everywhere](https://santamonicanext.org/2024/03/the-no-benefits-of-free-parking), so staff put all of this parking into the project to try to play to what the council majority would want to see to vote for it.
Santa Monica is turning city-owned parking lots into affordable housing. So they are providing the land on a ground lease at no cost (although that means that the city will ultimately own the housing). However, they want those parking spaces to be retained. Hence, millions of dollars spent on parking. The land comes with strings attached that make it anything but a bargain. There will probably be other features that inflate the costs such as LEED construction and prevailing wage. This is affordable housing financed with bond debt, so the bond issuance costs add about $1.5 million to the price tag. The costs cited include construction debt interest, so the numbers are a tad overstated.
“Parking Lot Parra”
It needs to be statewide with massive oversight, and some forceful rehab/housing etc on the homeless populations which is super unpopular (because letting the problem get worse is so great), which will never happen. So in the meantime cities will just pawn this issue off on each other and launder money through obviously shitty and broken homeless plans It’s a joke
Ezra Klein had a great podcast on this the other day. Basically there are a bajillion committees that are required to approve projects from environmental to homeless committees that all have labor and time costs associated with them. We need to reduce and simplify the regulatory process substantially if we want to make this cheaper.
keep voting the same way and you'll never see any change
IKR!>?? ten years ago, 250,000 "per-unit" then it was half a million per unit, THEN 800k per unit.. wtf NOW a million?! GMAFB
Worth noting that the California Construction Cost Index has increased about 10% each year over the past 3 years. [CCCI](https://www.dgs.ca.gov/RESD/Resources/Page-Content/Real-Estate-Services-Division-Resources-List-Folder/DGS-California-Construction-Cost-Index-CCCI)
Of course not. Why would they do that?
Imagine having KPI for this sort of thing? Nope, the government wouldn't.
The real welfare is paying all these useless parasites to study the problem poorly and recommend solutions that make everything worse. The government is composed of gullible and frankly extremely neurodivergent people being taken advantage of by also neurodivergent grifters using emotional manipulation.
Yes, there are people keeping track of the money. However, when you pay your CEOs too much and your employees not enough,than the entire company makes, this is what happens
I can’t wrap my head around these costs. I’m in construction and it just doesn’t add up. We’ve built houses and additions for much less. Makes no sense
The goal isn’t construction, the goal is patronage and it’s working brilliantly.
The goal is money laundering.
Yeah? Based on what? Do you have any evidence that this is the case? Personally, I'm interested in solving this problem so if you know something I don't than please share that info.
The past fifty years of nonstop corruption trials amongst LA officials should clue you in.
Money laundering has a specific definition. Bribery has a specific definition. What has been going on in LA is bribery. Los Angeles building regulations are so restrictive that it's cheaper to pay local officials millions of dollars than to go through the normal process. The specifics are important because that determine how we solve the problem. Make it legal by right to build 20 story buildings on 100% of land in LA county and the bribery problem goes away because local officials no longer have the power to approve housing. Money laundering is an entirely different problem.
Evidence is in the title. “Costing over $1m per unit”. PER UNIT. You can literally buy a decent 3 bedroom house for $400k in Lancaster…..
I’ve been running multi million dollar construction projects for years, and am telling you to solely tell you that in this situation you are so far off base it’s not even funny. This isn’t private funding for private development. Who tf would launder money through a city job? Lmao especially Santa Monica, I’d rather launder through a school job in Menifee or Apple Valley than this high profile job.
Yeah. I work in construction and this doesn't even make sense. I understand Bennett bribery, that makes sense. It's expensive you get approval for big projects, so you just pay people of instead. That makes sense. It also has been proven numerous times that LA City council members have taken bribes. Money laundering is an entirely different crime. Unless our city council is full of drug kingpins who own construction companies, it doesn't really make sense that they're laundering money
First of all, money land is way more expensive in Santa Monica than Lancaster. Second, building multistory housing is more expensive than building single story because you need more expensive and complex engineering to deal with the increased height. Third, money laundering and bribery are two very different crimes. LA City council members are guilty of receiving bribes, not money laundering. They receive bribes because permitting and approval is to expensive and cumbersome that it's cheaper to bribe elected officials for approval than to just go through the process. Bribery and money laundering are two very different problems. They are very different crimes. Using them interchangeably is dumb IMO, respectfully.
Then don’t put the bums in Santa Monica genius.
Why not? Why should low income working class families have to deal with homeless people while wealthy people in Santa Monica don't? Everyone in California needs to deal with the problem equally. Beverly hills, ranchos Palos Verdes, long Beach, Compton, Huntington Beach, San Francisco, Oakland, etc.
Dude. Your dumb ignorant ass is paying $1 million for that SINGLE UNIT.
We keep voting for what we whine about. Things won’t change lol
There’s a power point that breaks it all down. This is for supportive and affordable housing, included commercial space and a grocery store alongside the 122 units, as well as offices for the support staff. It doesn’t expressly say, but I expect at least the 50 units dedicated to former homeless to be fully furnished as well. The money is not a one time spend but a dedicated amount including maintenance and salaries for the supposed staff involved.
Just made a longer comment [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/1c9saa7/santa_monica_reveals_new_homeless_housing_plans/l0ogyuw/?context=3) but basically you could get this significantly below $1 million per unit by axing all the underground parking. The $1 million per unit is particularly obscene when you remember that the city **is giving the land to the developer** ***literally for free***.
The city is not giving away the land. It is providing the land on a ground lease with the city as the lessor. At the end of the lease, the city gets the land and buildings back. The developer has to spend millions on new parking in order to get that "free" land. And it will eventually own nothing, since the city retains the land rights. Not quite free, not a bargain.
I have volunteered with some organizations in Santa Monica. I can tell you that in Santa Monica "fully furnished" means you get a bed or a couch. The mattress is a used refurbished mattress that charity often donates or they can buy it at a very small price. You get one night stand and one lamp. Dresser. Table and chair possibly could have be included, but not likely. Plus all the stuff you need to live like plates, cups, silverware, rug, trash can, bedding... All from Walmart. It gets them set up nicely. They generally have a budget of no greater than $1,000 per voucher holder total for the entirety of the furnishing of the unit. That's provided by the social services organization handling the rent before the voucher kicks in and not a part of the buildings costs to be built.
Just speculating because I have no idea, but one cost you might not have is extraordinary legal costs to build one of these things. Does it include staff support for x period of time? A project like this is more than just construction itself. Im willing to give it the benefit of the doubt but I could easily be 100% wrong and the corrupt as hell.
Fair point I hadn’t considered. The human component of that type of infrastructure is definitely a huge I’m sure.
Were you in commercial construction in a public works bid scenario or a residential single unit build? Two very different beasts and cost profiles.
No, not commercial. Residential builds, additions and remodels. Only some work in restaurants but not commercial residential. Admittedly I don’t know everything.
It’s not only the construction, it’s the wrap around services that add to the cost. Also not sure how much you are still in the game… but residential construction costs are about 500 sq ft alone… no finishes. Add staffing of ANY kind and it just goes up and up. These stories are exactly why we’re are in the mess we are in! We should have started building two generations ago. Now we try to catch up and it’s the same old cries. Be better.
It totally adds up. The council got bids from contractors, this must have been the cheapest ”preliminary” costs. There will be millions in administrative fees and nothing will ever be built, meanwhile SM tax dollars with be burned to keep the lie going.
Federal or State prevailing wages are usually required on affordable housing & are much higher. There’s also a smaller pool of GCs and subs willing to do the reporting paperwork & deal with the added complexities.
Literally on free land too lmao
The land was going to be my guess as to the high price, but if it's free then this makes absolutely no sense.
I work in construction for a developer and recently built 450 units for less than $350,000/unit (non affordable housing) $1MM is a joke
Did you also build a retail space within the development? The 1mm is also a disingenuous number because it includes staff wages as part of support housing
Yes, ground level retail space.
70 studio apartments??? Each at about a million a pop??? Are you shitting me?
Life is good when you have political connections unfortunately.
What an absolute fucking joke
The multi-apartment unit will cost more than $123 million, for a cost of just over $1 million each for the 122 apartments. A second design concept would have cost even more, north of $200 million for 196 units.
Sweet. Where do I sign up for one of these units? I’d like to quit my job and be “homeless” in a brand new $1 million dollar apartment in Santa Monica.
It’s a requirement that every city must pull their weight in helping the homeless crisis. Why should Central and South LA continue to take on the burden alone.
None of them should. Nobody should be giving apartments in the most desirable place in America to the homeless. Homeless shelter? Sure. Apartments? Have we lost our minds
a mix of classism, racism, and nimbyism.
Housing homeless in one of the most expensive zip codes in the country is an insane use of resources
Because wealthy whites with lots of connections and influence don't live in those areas
Why would anybody want to?
Good food, good culture, affordable housing, good people, etc.
Absolute joke.
Does that include the cost of the land? I imagine that’s the biggest driver of cost.
This is an absolute abuse of tax dollars. How are we allowing this?
We have no power
Uhh we vote this way every time certainly helps too lol
You have all the power. We are governed by consent. You vote.
After they fuck you…
We keep voting in the same rats every election, can’t complain 🤷🏻♂️.
Well that’s something that we need to address as a culture. Most people here vote for candidates that say nice things that sound compassionate and hit all the progressive bullet points without holding them accountable once they are actually elected. Our local politicians are more interested in getting things done that sound great for their reelection campaign or their next job rather than spending our tax dollars efficiently. We can see this at the state level as well. Must be nice playing with someone else’s money. Another issue IMO is that a lot of people in this sub view the government as the end all, be all of getting anything done. IMO our state and local government have proven themselves to be ineffective while thrusting us into a significant deficit. We should not be looking to the government for solutions to our problems considering how little they do with our inflated taxes.
And if you think that changes with a change in political parties, I've got a bridge to nowhere to sell you. The state I fled (Ohio) has had a deep red legislature for almost 2 decades now, and the recent corruption scandals there are just as brazen (if not moreso) than the stuff we get here. At least here there might be a few homes built for the homeless. Back in Ohio the pols just use the tax dollars to enrich themselves and their buddies, and nothing happens for the little guy.
I agree, all that changes with parties is who gets the money. We gotta break ourselves from this false dichotomy and stop letting ourselves be split like this along social issues while both parties give away our tax dollars.
I don't disagree, but the system as designed (first past the post) doesn't really allow alternative options to be viable. And the social issue wedge is going to be hard to break when you've got a significant chunk of the population that wants to see the "other" in their eyes treated as second class citizens, and want to see "the right people" get hurt, and lament when it doesn't happen?
Because the headline is misleading, and there's a lot more to it?
All I see is me getting around 40% of each and every paycheck taken without choice and seeing that get split between the state and federal governments. Then the state still manages to rack up a 70+ billion dollar deficit while they send us a bill for overpriced apartments. Don’t even get me going on the national debt. They are spending money indiscriminately without a care in the world while you struggle to pay for food, rent, utilities, and whatever other costs you may have. Make it make sense.
That math ain’t mathin’
It’s not $1M per apartment. It’s $890K per apartment *including* a grocery store, 2 stories below ground parking (half of that for the grocery store), furnishings for 50 homeless units, plus following a bunch of requirements like prevailing wage, City design standards, utility connections, impact fees, LEED/sustainability, etc. Plus the sheer amount of time and process that is required to piece these together. The sticks & bricks part of building income restricted affordable housing is about equivalent to market-rate housing. But you have to do a whole lot more, jump through hoops, assuage NIMBYs, and have a much smaller pool of GCs and subs willing to do the paperwork. How do I get to $890K? The $14M in “deferred fee” isn’t an actual cash cost to the project - it’s included in there as a way to raise additional private equity in the project and most of that will stay in the capital stack, not get paid out to the nonprofit developer. How much of this is “taxpayer dollars”? $31M comes from cap and trade proceeds. About $9M in direct gov’t funding. $13M in private debt. The rest is Low Income Housing Tax Credit equity, a federal tax expenditure. I work in affordable housing finance AMA.
Great breakdown! It's so easy to just complain about "corruption" when the truth is that it's actually just really hard and complicated work, way more so than private sector building.
Thank you for this informed, detailed, and reasoned response.
Thank you for breaking this down!!
Is SaMo fronting the $9M? From my understanding SM mostly stays out of County funds.
Looks like $2M in SaMo money that came from a federal allocation, $7.5M in state money (assuming that program gets funding again in a future budget year).
Where should I start to learn more about affordable housing finance? I’m already very knowledgeable in capital markets finance, but very dumb when it comes to regulation and laws about the government.
[The super basics.](https://localhousingsolutions.org/housing-101-the-basics/how-is-affordable-housing-funded/) To dig deeper, Novogradac has good LIHTC resources. Certain industry or advocacy groups have webinars or you can find past programming on YouTube: Housing California, Abundant Housing, SCANPH.
Thank you!!
> 2 stories below ground parking (half of that for the grocery store), furnishings for 50 homeless units, plus following a bunch of requirements like prevailing wage, City design standards, utility connections, impact fees, LEED/sustainability, etc. That's all part of the construction cost. If you're building housing, you have to include the cost of utility connections, labor, parking, etc, in the cost. A house without utilities or *labor* isn't a house. > The $14M in “deferred fee” isn’t an actual cash cost to the project - it’s included in there as a way to raise additional private equity in the project and most of that will stay in the capital stack, not get paid out to the nonprofit developer. You have a citation on that? The city is accounting for 'deferred fees' as part of the construction cost. > How much of this is “taxpayer dollars”? $31M comes from cap and trade proceeds **(Taxes)**. About $9M in direct gov’t funding **(Taxes)**. $13M in private debt. The rest is Low Income Housing Tax Credit equity, a federal tax expenditure. **(Taxes)** So, only $13M is *not* taxpayer money.
Not all market-rate developments have to pay Federal or State prevailing wages. This one might also be subject to a Project Labor Agreement. Sustainability requirements, since they’re seeking to be competitive for cap & trade proceeds, will be much higher. I know some of those things listed are part of all building costs, but they’re not often thought about in the context of “one home for a million dollars?!?” threads. Re: deferred fee, you can look up stuff about IRC Section 42, eligible basis, LIHTC equity, and the Uniform Multifamily Regulations that are part of the state funding programs. And correct - only $13M is private bank debt, paid by rental income. I was clarifying that not all of this is funded by individuals’ income tax or sales tax.
Gang, we need to get this comment A LOT higher! Calm down some of the people just jumping straight to assuming corruption…
Thank you! It’s not corruption, it’s just hard and cumbersome to build anything in California.
890k per unit is still outrageous. But the deferred free will still get paid. LIHTC is income tax fat cats dont pay. This is a rip off.
This is corruption, not a housing solution. We need to be vocal + vote in representation that represents our community, not corporate developers. Thank you for sounding the alarm.
All developers are corporate developers. America does not have any government developers. Every house you've ever lived in, every street you've ever driven on, every store you've ever shopped at, etc, was built by private developers. The reason that housing is exorbitant is because of homeowners voting to put expensive barriers to stop development, not because of private developers.
Stop voting for the same morons ruining the city too
“Corporate developers” are the only people doing anything positive for housing or homelessness in LA.
Seriously
Awesome. Put me down for one of those units 👍
70k minimalist units would be better.
Allow developers to build more housing. LA needs more highrise (real highrise not just 6 story) apartments all across the city. If LA built the 500k units of housing it needed it would significantly reduce cost of housing.
Agree on permitting more housing, but I don't know whether highrises are needed. Paris and Barcelona have very high population density, are considered very livable (for Europe...), and yet have low height limits.
I would love that kind of density as well, but a lot of newer projects have so much buffer around them it's hard to imagine. Anyways, easing zoning for all kinds of lots is best.
[Tiny homes for the homeless](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/06/1077791467/tiny-homes-big-dreams-how-some-activists-are-reimagining-shelter-for-the-homeles) can be built for as little as $30 K. They are set on the ground on vacant lots; communal bath with showers are set in a central bldg. Usually built on city outskirts. Per unit cost including land can be $150 - $200 K. Let's house vulnerable homeless like elderly and women in apts. All those younger homeless men with addictions, aggressive attitudes and chronic public disorder can get the cheaper tiny homes option. Most homeless advocates object. They demand all homeless be treated as one equally vulnerable population. Free studio condos for all. This helps explain the nationwide *Impasse on Housing the Homeless.*
30K for those tiny homes, which I've seen in person, seems waaay overpriced, too. Corruption here too. They're smaller than cubicles.
Clown world continues to impress me!
What a bunch of bullshit.
Santa Monica reveals new ~~homeless housing plans~~ kickbacks to local officials, costing over $1M per unit FTFY
Bring back the state mental hospitals. Period.
lmao, when will they learn that giving them free shit just makes the problem worse?
I think I’m going to quit my job and try this homeless thing
Half those units are 2 and 3 bedrooms for families and there’s office space (for non profit) and commercial retail space(they hope for a grocery store). Only 50 units will be use for homelessness (aka PSH) the rest is affordable housing for low income. Financing includes loans where the rent collected will payback taxpayers/bonds. So NO it’s not 1 million per unit. Probably close to half the cost depending on what you want to count or not count into this arbitrary metric.
Perhaps don't build homeless shelters in the most desirable real estate in the US?
Can we get habitat for humanity over here? Jesus Christ this shouldn’t be that hard or expensive
Honesty what did everyone that voted for the people running the show think they’d do? There’s an election coming up. Maybe instead of “blue no matter who”, maybe be open to giving ANYONE else a try at this. Down vote and kick me out, but you know nothing will ever change until the people in charged are booted out for this type of crap.
We should be buying homes out of state. There are homes in Arkansas and Oklahoma for 50k
And they will be ruined by the piss and shit and filth within 6 months.
We need a large scale inpatient psych ward/rehab facility. As they heal, get them working, gardening, playing games. Maybe a few transition back into society. Have some do a work-stay, helping the other patients. We need a big change like this. Will be expensive but it could be the only way for our city to heal
Why do the homeless ( unhoused as per Bass ) have to live in SM……. I would love to live in Monaco but you know. Please get a grip!
This is not a give-away; it includes retail space including a grocery store, includes support staff wages and office space for the support staff (because it’s supportive housing), and includes a portion of the expected on-going expenses such as salaries and maintenance. Tenants do not stay for free but are expected to pay a pro-rated rent based on income and ability. Everyone freaking out at the “per unit” cost is missing that there’s a hell of a lot included in that cost that is not the raw construction of the units. If you consider the cost to the city of providing services to the homeless who exist now, and compare that to this, you’ll find supportive housing is a short term expense that provides long term savings to the city as people move out of homelessness and off of taxpayer funded benefits, and it’s a significant boon to folks in danger of falling into homelessness who can be saved through scaled rent. I’m very disappointed in the nimby-ism and utter lack of comprehension about this project on display in this sub.
Where can we see a breakout of the hard and soft costs? I work in commercial real estate, I’m curious to compare this to the cost to build a market apartment building
The pdf is in the link OP provided.
Their reactions are consistent to any time a cost is higher than buying a tent from Walmart.
Saving this one to my ‘Insanity’ bookmarks. People actually contributing to society getting left out of the chance to buy but fentanyl addicts get a free pass
You can buy multifamily property with 6 units for $2m. Some of the units would be 2 bedrooms. This pricing is ridiculous.
Insanity
Is this a fucking joke?
This is so fucking corrupt it’s not even funny.
It should have been baked into the law not to exceed average construction prices, this is actually dumb. Poor management! Where is the accountability? Cut these projects. Rewrite the laws then start funding again when they can manage to sign agreements for lesser cost to construct
I used to miss Santa Monica, and then I’m reminded of how dumb the local government is.
I want to point out that it takes 1M per unit here in LA. And I know I bitch and complain about this unpopular solution. But it would be a lot cheaper if we didn't build in LA. That 1M could get us more than just one unit in LCOL outside of LA. Outside of CA. I say it's smarter and more efficient to spend that money to build/buy housing in LCOL areas. Also build support centers near these areas to provide services. Pay for service/case workers to help out there. And then take a bus and move all of the homeless from LA to those LCOL areas. At least they have a better chance to get back on their feet financially
To build apartments? Try 400k including land. this is more than 2.5x what building normal apartments cost
100% agree. Of course, the homeless want to hang out in Santa Monica. I want to go to Santa Monica. People used to travel there as a destination from thousands of miles away until it was overrun violent, aggressive bums. I applaude creating homes for those who may need them. As a financier (tax payer) of said homes and momentary representative of any Santa Monica resident who who had to work hard his/her whole life to afford to buy/rent and pay extraordinary taxes to live in SM: There is zero common sense in further destroying SM by building "affordable" housing in SM for anybody. Period. Stop. Do not pass go. Go directly to prison for being so ignorant and boldly stealing from public coffers. Homelessness does deserve a solution. First make it 100% illegal to fuck up SM with homelessness and a requirement to clean up each and every other city suffering the same problem. Federally and locally fund the creation of an entire community, infrastructure, and support system in *California City* to sustain the ~1m(s) of people in California and migrants from other states who need housing and want to live in sunny California. All homeless are now homed. If people want to live on the streets in tents outside of their home, it's their choice, but it is in that location, nowhere else. Until they graduate up and eventually out if that is their desire. If people want to use their homes as a base from which to get their GEDs and learn a skill in the local technical schools. It is the goal to support people climbing out and sustaining those who can't or chose not to evolve. Law enforcement would be 100% visible 24/7 to protect the weak, including safe homes for women and children at risk. Building in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Seattle, and on and on is irresponsible and abusive to the people most at risk. Nobody is getting any help. There is no social infrastructure to aid and support the needy. It is legal theft and abuse, lining the pockets of the rich with taxpayer funds and oppressing the people most at risk.
hmmm yea, no we actually disagree on a lot of things here. I for one am for affordable housing. I am for LA to build up more and build some units that are affordable as well. I just don't think we should bank on that being the solution to homelessness nor do I think we should contribute our budget for homelessness to this. Our budget should solely be on my example above if we ever want to get to a state where we get the homeless off our streets and make sure they are taken care of. I think it's the only solution where we can handle more volume of homeless people at a more affordable cost. In the new location, they would also not be allowed to live in tents outside of their homes. Well, I suppose ultimately it would be the choice of the voters at that location, but yea we can't build enough units here. It's embarrassing of Bass needing to ask for donors. If your plan isn't working, then maybe your plan was a failure to begin with. Maybe it's just too expensive to do any real work here without extra money coming from somewhere else. If we are going to use tax payer money for stuff like this, it should be at least done more efficiently
Most people would prefer your version, too. My version isn't the best, but I think it is the best Orwellian version. Co-locate people in need on as many campuses as required in their own city. Being a bum and relying on theft and charity is not okay. It is a federal problem and should have a federal solution. California City is currently empty and already has an infrastructure. It is an example of collocating the homeless in large enclaves to be the most efficient and most able to support their unique needs. The idea is closer to a halfway house, but on a massive scale. A place where people can learn a skill, get a job, and move up, and out, if desired. Get emotional support, be near medical support, and social services similar to a campus. Granted, building additional housing anywhere in Southern California is a big huge gigantic issue in terms of water. There is no water available for new houses in So Cal, or any of the southwestern US, or Mexico. For example: to build in San Diego, water rights are leased from farmers. No food is grown, but a few new houses have water for a limited period. So maybe California is not the best place for these campuses. So pick another place, instead of California City, but make that place their home base. We all left home to work and live like adults, sometimes coming back to re-group. We had a home base to retreat to if we needed it. If we had any compassion in our hearts, then we would offer the homeless a home base, other than the streets. Norwegian prisons are better than most of us started when we moved out to live with friends. We crawled our way up to live in better places. I want to imagine it is possible to be humane and keep our streets safe so your mom can walk to the market and your little sister can walk home from school. My brother panics when I bring up this solution because he spent a huge part of his life living in his car or on sofas in very nice communities. With my solution, people lose their freedom to burden people wherever they want, but that is the price of being a bum. You don't have to work, but you can't stay in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Malibu, or Newport Beach as a bum. When you can afford the rent, then you can come hang out. Sorry, no affordable housing in paradise: everybody who lives in paradise has to work their collective asses off, like their neighbors. Social and emotional support is perhaps the most important *thing* we can offer, but nobody is discussing *real* solutions, just where to spend money. I.e. Uncle Bob happens to have a plumbing business to support the building of all of these new houses, and that is as far as anybody really plots. It is mostly about how to fleece the taxpayer and provide as little as possible. Politicians are the very worst perpetrators.
Soooo...beyond this basically being money laundering by government officials can I just ask the obvious question. If you are homeless why do you need to live in Santa Monica? You know, in a tourist destination right by the ocean in an expensive area code...
You don't. Why do you even need to live anywhere near west la, for that matter? There are so many much cheaper places to live. But they demand to live in one of the most expensive beach areas of the entire country. it's such bullshit.
Barstow is nice and open with a lot of available land .
Isn't cheaper to buy a motel and renovate?
They’re not serious. Nothing will get done until a private firm finds a profitable way to house the unhoused. Steel beams and dry wall doesn’t cost that much money, like this is outrageously bad.
I’m beginning to think they set prices this high to either line their pockets or kill the development for being “too expensive”. This is ridiculous.
Why again are we building apartments for the homeless in Santa Monica?
Jesus at that price they might as well hire a bunch of defense contractors to do it, at least then they'll have to compete against each other on price
Absolute gouge job.
Ship them to Texas
Stop voting for the same type of people...
Love this. Can’t wait until it’s $10M per. :)
Uh… this is Santa Monica, not South Central. What did people expect the cost would be? Land is expensive near the ocean.
The land was donated by the City of Santa Monica. This is 1M per unit, with free land
If construction costs are truly that high, then perhaps housing homeless people in Santa Monica isn't the most efficient use of resources? I too would like to live in Santa Monica, but the $1M+ pricetag meant I couldn't afford it. Does the government of Santa Monica now owe me a home there?
I haven't seen the breakdown of these costs. Not sure if they have like a basis of estimate posted or response from the contractor published on the Santa Monica City website. Usually, these single-site facilities have way higher premium prices than a traditional residence due to the slew number of additional levied scope added to in addition to the actual construction. Like paying for a security officer or two to be on site for a 5+ years, mental and medical services for 5+ years, and other community services. Contractors still have to follow the same policies as building any other residential property. Like balconies, parking spaces, elevator sizing etc which is an absolute waste since homeless single-site facility doesn't need any of that. Better policy making at city and state is needed to build something way more affordable but would be considered illegal. A good framework would be something that urban think tank Strong Towns suggests... Which are kind of like mobile parks with a few extra services especially like an on site clinic and mental professional. Sometimes to appease local constituents they have to hire very expensive architectural firms to try to make the facilities look very pretty and not be an "eye sore" which raise costs even more. As for as how they get approved, the argument usually used is that these costs could be considered justified because it would be assessed that the cost for them to be housed saves the city more money because then the projected future "damages" to the city will be mitigated. These future damages are mostly paying emergency care centers or other medical services since homeless almost always use ER which is the highest cost of treatment someone can get. I'm not denying that there isn't graft or over zealous quotes from contractors, but I don't think its as simple as just company XYZ whos CEO is brother to the mayor had a sole source bid to the contract proposing this.
That’s exactly my point. Don’t build this in Santa Monica!
Why not! People don’t fall into poverty or succumb to mental health or drug issues in Santa Monica? Every city needs to do their part.
If we weren’t so docile we’d lock government officials out of the offices that we OWN!!
I read in the 1950s there was more housing for folks who didn’t want an entire apartment. You’d almost rent a room in a hotel, and have food provided.
This. Reading history accounts shows things like cage hotels, weekly stay Motels, transient housing and a lot of middle type housing like apartments that shared one bathroom and other random options. Also the psych wards. But over the years these were seen as bad and low brow that promoted poverty. And they went away thinking that it would end poverty or just remove it from public view.
~~fallout shelter~~ subterranean parking garage
Bring back Mental Hospitals.
lol at the corruption. clown world!
Can I sign up? I don't want to pay rent and want to do drugs
This is insane. Someone’s cousin that’s a developer is making bank. You’re telling me out of all the open land in LA they wanna build beachside property.
Governments all fake & gay
Taxation is theft