Posted on 06/25/2024 3:30:33 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to let voters decide on a potential sales tax hike to fund affordable housing and homeless services.
According to the Affordable Housing, Homelessness Solutions & Prevention Now initiative put forward by the Our Future Los Angeles Coalition, the proposed tax increase would fund a “comprehensive homelessness response program” and invest in new strategies to address encampments and create affordable housing.
Supporters of the initiative, who submitted more than 400,000 signatures to the county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk last month, held a rally Tuesday before the Board’s vote.
“We can no longer turn a blind eye to what we see on the streets,” one demonstrator told KTLA 5’s Kimberly Cheng. “[The initiative] will…make housing more affordable and it will create a pathway out of poverty for those who are unhoused.”
Officials who brought the plan forward cited low housing production as the main reason the homeless problem has gotten so bad across the county, so it is one of the program’s main target areas, according to the plan outlined by the Our Future L.A. County Coalition.
“We do not have a dedicated countywide revenue stream for affordable housing production and preservation or technical assistance to small cities to update their land use and housing policies,” the coalition’s presentation stated. “Less housing is being built now than at any point in the last 80 years…and we are losing the affordable housing we have [as] between 2009 and 2019, Los Angeles lost nearly 200,000 units that rent for less than $1,000 a month in the L.A. metro area.”
Opponents of the measure say that there is “no real accountability and data” to show that spending billions on homeless prevention has worked.
If you provide more homeless services you get more homeless—every time.
They’d better secure their elections first.
There's the let's favorite platitude word. I guess when they can't finally work to achieve "comprehensive immigration reform" you're stuck with "comprehensive homelessness".
cgbg,
Oh! You’re so harsh. This is a great tax and spend plan. What could go wrong?
With insanely high real estate costs including crazy zoning and environmental regulations not to mention high construction costs and massive political corruption payoffs required any “plan” will be a super expensive joke.
Hard Pass.
Hard to find, but it DOUBLES the “homeless tax” from 1/4% to 1/2% on top of the existing 10% we have here in LA.
But also “...we spent over 24 billion taxpayer dollars on this crisis”, but apparently not enough. A year ago, “75,518 people were counted” as homeless. That’s over $320,000 already spent per homeless person, yet the situation gets worse and worse, and the only solution is always more money.
Yet the problem has only grown.
They could raise mine if they promised to use every nickel sending the 30 million back to their Third World cesspools.
If by chance the voters do reject this proposed increase two things can happen. One possible result would be that the county government will ignore the voting results and implement the increase anyway. The other could find a state judge or
judges overturning the results of the vote.
This has happened before. It’s California, the anything goes state.
Send more illegals and crazy homeless. The amount of money california spends should “cure” their homelessness.
Just another scam to take tax dollars and give them to the politically connected.
it would be 320K/person IF all the dollars could be accounted for...problem is, that’s the problem. So who’s to say new sales tax funding won’t go down the same pet NGOs’ and contractors’ rabbithole?
According to a CNN article, Calif will have laid out $20 billion in the years 2019-2024 - $2 billion in tax credits to developers to build 481 units, $2 billion on stalled projects, $4 billion to local govt’s for ‘initiatives’, $2 billion for ‘emergency assistance’ and $3.7 billion for local govts to buy 13,500 “units”. Against a projected need of 2.5 million units. The state alphabet agencies have yet to detail where the rest of the money went.
Until the State can be honest with the taxpayer as to where exactly the $20billion has gone -to the dime - yet another tax is beyond the pale.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/us/california-homeless-spending/index.html
Law of economics: What you subsidize, you get more of.
City of Los Angeles...Sales tax rate is 9.5%...That is lowest possible rate in Los Angeles County...Other cities have higher sale tax rate...Culver City...Sales tax rate is 10.25%...
In any case, I will be voting "no" on this homeless measure...However, it might still pass...LA County is not Orange County...
“The initiative] will…make housing more affordable and it will create a pathway out of poverty for those who are unhoused.”
Highly doubtful.
I think they also should be taxing the crap out of the homeless, too.
I voted in LA county for decades before recently moving. I can tell you that most tax hikes and propositions that cost LA county taxpayers money usually don’t pass. They go down in flames to be exact. That they’re getting this one on the presidential election ballot shows they know there will be a lot more voters turning out and lots of the casual and new voters won’t really be ‘educated voters’ and the tax hike is more likely to pass.
I would still put my money on DOA from the voters, though. Just an educated guess.
THE NEW high rise with 278 units for HOMELESS costs almost $600,000 a unit.
I bought 3 properties in past 58 years:
1. $25,250-—in Los Angeles—3/2 city lot
2. $105,000-—N Calif log house on 5 acres
3. $140,000-——Over 5 acres & NEW house
TOTAL== $270,250
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