Help Los Angeles Homeless Now!!!

by Scott Zwartz

Thursday, April 21, 2016

 

Los Angeles Has Plenty of Vacancies

to House Its Homeless

   Mayor Garcetti wants to spend hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars to construct homes for L.A.’s homeless.  That construction will not help a single homeless person tonight.  Yet, Los Angeles has tons of vacancies where the homeless could start living living right now.  This article explores how L.A. could provide homes for the homeless.  The most illustrative example is the huge vacant high rise at 5929 Sunset Boulevard.

Yes, this building is vacant and we could work out a deal, which we know Judge Chalfant would approve, to house hundreds of Los Angeles homeless people.

     As the Los Angeles Times has reported and as the City Housing Community Investment and Development [HCIDLA] department has confirmed, thousands of rent controlled apartments have been torn down to make way for these type luxury high-rises.
http://lat.ms/1RTOjST April 2, 2016, LA Times, More Rent-controlled Buildings Are Being Demolished to Make Way for Pricier Housing, by Ben Poston and Andrew Khouri   http://bit.ly/1r05XPe April 20, 2016, Zwartz Talk, The Great L.A. Housing Scam

   First priority would go to homeless people who lost their rental controlled homes due to demolition and second priority would go to homeless families.  Here is why Zwartz Talk proposes these two priorities.

    Priority #1:

    People, who were made homeless due to his/her/their rent controlled apartments being demolished or removed from Rental Control under the Ellis Act,  are likely to be homeless due to lack of money and not due to mental illness or a life-style which prefers being homeless.  Also, there is an equity to restoring the homes of people whom we can identify as victims of developer greed to replace rent controlled units with luxury units.

    Priority #2:

    Homeless people with families are more likely to suffer from lack of money and not from some serious mental illness.  Also, children need a stable environment which living on the streets cannot provide.

       The Special Situation of the Mentally Ill:

    The homeless situation is extremely complex and the problems of the mentally ill homeless requires expertise. The needless crisis which faces thousands of homeless, who are not mentally ill, needs to be addressed right now.  What’s more, it can be addressed right now. At the same time, we need to lay a foundation for helping the mentally ill.  One fact among many of the homeless mentally ill is that they cannot live cooperatively with other people.  Thus, rashly housing them with families and with non-mentally ill individuals deteriorates the quality of life of the other homeless people who are being housed, but it provides no real benefit to the mentally ill.

          5929 Sunset Can Probaby House

          All of Hollywood’s Recent Homeless

   More likely than not, 5929 Sunset is large enough to house all of Hollywood’s recent homeless and then some.  Although it won’t admit it, the City has lists which identify most of the people whose rent controlled units were demolished.  Thus, it will be very easy to identify the Priority Group #1.  Also, it is even easier to identify Priority Group #2. They are families, i.e., they have at least one parent and at least one child.

    Why Doesn’t Garcetti House the Homeless now?

    The developers do not want the dirty unwashed poor people — Oh,  the horror of it all — pooooor peeeeople, living in their clean buildings, touching the walls, and OMG,  urchins with germs in our pristine building!

If We Cared, LA would not have a Homeless Problem

     The reality is that LA’s homeless problem has been intentionally manufactured in order to create an artificial demand for subsidized housing.  As the November 15, 2015 Report of LA’s own HCIPLA department admits, we have a glut of apartments constructed in the last decade.  The 12% vacancy rate for these units shows that the additional units which Garcetti is cramming into Hollywood are financial disasters for his developer buddies in the making.  As the data shows, the developers can build them, but the people will not come . . .  as much as Garcetti may desire that.

     Thus, the City embarked on a plan to demolish rent controlled units, create a homeless problem and then get federal, state and local subsidizes for Garcetti’s friends to construct “Affordable Housing.”   Not only does Affordable Housing bring tax dollars to the developers to construct the buildings, the finances of Affordable Housing also allow a host of other scams involving LLPs and LLCs whereby the developer pockets the profits and leaves the government with the debts.

    Thus, the last thing Garcetti wants is for the Homeless Problem to disappear by allowing the homeless to live in the apartments which are vacant.  Without the faux homeless crisis, Garcetti’s ruse to divert hundreds of millions of dollars to his buddies will fall part.

    Let’s face it.  The Homeless are a money maker for the billionaires and they are not about to allow this grand opportunity to suck off millions more tax dollars to disappear by letting homeless people have a decent life.

       House The Homeless Now!

   5929 Sunset is not the only project which significant vacancies.  Rather than allowing Garcetti to enact new legislation to give millions of dollars to his buddies to build units in the future, let’s house the homeless now in the vacant apartments which we have available now.   The $17.4 Million  that Garcetti has already given to CIM Group for 5929 Sunset should cover a lot of rent charges.
http://bit.ly/1N1Jx4U May 13, 2014, CityWatchLA, Big Developer Looking for Another Handout from LA Taxpayers, by Ziggy Kruse

       Since Angelenos have advanced paid $17.4 Million in rent for 5929 Sunset Set, let’s use the space for the less fortunate among us.  Garcetti has declared Homelessness an  Emergency.  Let’s see him put his actions where his mouth is.