California spending billions to house homeless in hotels

[ansible]

Homekey is the lynchpin of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $12 billion plan to combat homelessness in the nation's most populous state. California has an estimated 161,000 unhoused people, more than a quarter of the nationwide total of 580,000, according to the the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Newsom signed the funding bill July 19, calling it the "largest single investment in providing support for the most vulnerable in American history."

Newsom's office said $800 million — most of it federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act money — was spent on Homekey in 2020 to provide shelter for 8,200 people. Now the administration plans to go even bigger: California will spend $5.8 billion of state and federal funds over two years to expand the program and create an estimated 42,000 housing units.

“If you think of last year as a proof of concept, you can think of this year as taking this strategy to scale and making it a centerpiece of California’s approach to housing the homeless,” said Jason Elliott, senior counselor to Newsom.

Newsom has made tackling homelessness one of his top priorities. Now that the governor faces a recall election, Republican candidates have released their own plans to combat the crisis. John Cox wants to require unhoused people to receive any needed treatment for addiction or mental illness before they can get housing. Kevin Faulconer wants to build more shelters to make it easier to clear encampments.

https://www.aol.com/news/california-spending-billions-house-homeless-193842495-215740425.html

[KPN]

1. F'ing Rs. They are just beside themselves .... Newsome

is actually solving a problem they had hoped to attack them on. F’ing hypocritical swine.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. You telling me that almost $100K EACH was spent on the homeless in one year?

And that's just State money, solely for 'shelter'?

That is astounding, if accurate.

10K each I'd believe, but 100K each?

[MichMan]

3. Going to be 138,000 per for the next round

[Hugh_Lebowski]

4. Yeah, well, I don't mean to sound stingy or uncaring, but that's a pretty extreme sum

That's more than I make in a year by a good margin, after 25 years as a professional in my IT field. To be fair, if I were in Cali, that's probably about what I'd make. But not just for my shelter, that's for everything. Before taxes.

It may not be 'fair', but a number like that is not going to go over well with the taxpayers and workers.

[cinematicdiversions]

5. Why would this surprise you. Big Money in homelessness. NT

[Hugh_Lebowski]

7. Because it's ... too freaking much. That's why.

I suspect a correction will be forthcoming, it'll be 8,200 families or the like, not individuals.

[madville]

6. Hotel corps most likely getting rich off of it

They get guaranteed occupancy throughout non-peak times, sounds like a big win for their bottom line.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

8. Last year? More like 'barely staying open, and giving their employees jobs'

And 8,200 people isn't going to keep all that many hotels in business anyway.

I still think that number is inaccurate.

That's just too much money per person.

They put up 8,200 homeless people in rooms averaging $274/night/person?

C'mon.

[madville]

10. Federal lodging per diem in California is around $150-300 a night depending on location

$274 a day wouldn't be abnormal, especially if they are providing meals or food vouchers. If I was the hotel, in the contract with the state I would build potential damages and possibly the need for extra security into the rate since they are bringing in occupants that will have high rates of drug/alcohol addiction and untreated mental illness.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

12. I see what you're saying, but that's assuming every single person gets their own room?

And if there's an estimated 160K homeless folks in the state, how did they decide which 5% got themselves a free $100K?

Those kind of numbers just do NOT look good when you have so many working families struggling as much as they are to put a roof over their own heads.

Almost sounds like you're better off not working, paying rent, etc.

[hunter]

9. You should see what it costs when they walk into the Emergency Room...

[Hugh_Lebowski]

11. Basically if someone is giving you $100K for lodging alone, that's like having a $400K/year job

Since most recommendations are 1/3 of after-tax income spent on your housing.

And then there's the taxes on the 400K, leaving you at around 300K.

It's completely unsustainable for a state to be providing basically a $400K/year fake job to ... anyone.

A single working mother of a family of 4 would be VERY lucky to pry $20K/year out of ALL government entities, and that's for everything, not just housing, for 4, not just 1.

I don't mean to sound like I lack empathy, but that is a serious political liability. People are going to be PISSED at Newsom if those numbers are correct.

Frankly I'm really hoping they are NOT.

[madville]

13. Seems like it would be cheaper to rent them an apartment or trailer

I was in the SF Bay Area from 2017-2019 on a work contract, I spent $30k a year on my one bedroom apartment and utilities. They could get 3 or 4 apartments for the cost of one of those hotel rooms. But that many extra apartments don't exist so I guess that's not a practical solution, the sudden extra demand would likely cause rent to increase, hurting working families already struggling to pay high rent.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

14. 8,200 people in a state of almost 40M?

That's really not that much extra demand.

That's why I'm saying the math here makes no sense.

You can't just spend $100K each on 5% of the homeless population.

I really think, at minimum, it should read 8,200 families. Or maybe 82,000 people instead of 8,200.

[madville]

15. Like the article says, they are almost quadrupling funding

so it's more like 30,000 now, it was 800 million last year for the 8200, and increased to 2.9 billion this year so that should theoretically cover 30,000 folks this year at the same rate.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

16. If the right wingers can go on TV with ads saying Newsom 'gave' $100K/year to the homeless

for their lodging alone, handing out $275/night hotels like Santa Claus ... he's fucking toast in this recall.

Perhaps my point here has been obscured, but that's what I'm getting at.