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Santa Monica, California, is preparing to construct an apartment building for the homeless that would cost roughly $1 million per unit. The apartment building, which will be built in Santa Monica and will be home to “122 apartments” and two levels of underground parking, will cost more than $123 million, according to the website for the City of Santa Monica. A second design concept on the website found that the project could cost even more, totaling more than $200 million for 196 apartments.

The city and state are in the planning stages to combine Chicago’s legacy homeless shelter system with its system for migrants, according to government officials, and turn it into a unified shelter structure, an idea advocates for the homeless have long championed. The “One System Initiative” will shift a “permanent shelter management to the non-profit workforce,” Illinois Department of Human Services spokesperson Daisy Contreras said in a statement. Currently, the city contracts with Favorite Healthcare Staffing, whose sizable overtime has contributed to tens of millions of dollars in city payments to the firm staffing the city’s migrant shelters. The state’s...

Santa Monica city officials last week approved a multimillion-dollar apartment unit for the homeless just days after the release of an audit which found California could not account for the $24 billion it spent on the state’s burgeoning homeless crisis. The 122-unit building for the homeless will include a mix of studio, one, two and three-bedroom apartments, along with ground floor retail and residential and commercial parking spaces. A design concept available on the city's website shows that the multi-apartment unit will cost more than $123 million, for a cost of just over $1 million each for the 122 apartments....

WASHINGTON (AP) — The most significant case in decades on homelessness has reached the Supreme Court as record numbers of people in America are without a permanent place to live. The justices on Monday will consider a challenge to rulings from a California-based appeals court that found punishing people for sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. A political cross section of officials in the West and California, home to nearly one-third of the nation’s homeless population, argue those decisions have restricted them from “common sense” measures intended to keep homeless encampments from...

By the end of the year, homelessness was up exponentially, with Inside Safe, her signature program to combat homelessness, only moving 255 people to permanent housing so far out of the 46,000 in LA, despite $67 million already going into the program.

Los Angeles voters were asked to back a “mansion tax” to raise money for homeless housing after passing a $1.2 billion bond measure to build the same. Now Mayor Karen Bass wants rich residents and businesses to pitch in more money. During her State of the City address, the mayor called on business leaders, charities and wealthy residents to donate money to get homeless Angelenos off the streets, the Los Angeles Times reported. Bass urged those with the means to help buy or lease buildings that can be converted into housing for L.A.’s 46,000 homeless residents. “We have brought the...

City urged to work harder to assess cost, impactOver the past three years, San Jose has failed to consistently track the more than $300 million spent to fight homelessness and cannot adequately ensure that the money is helping to alleviate the crisis, according to a much-anticipated state audit. The financial audit, released this week by the California State Auditor, also found that San Jose lacks clear goals for its homelessness programs and has no cohesive plan for building the affordable housing needed for its estimated 6,340 homeless residents. “The biggest conclusion that the auditors came back with is that there’s...

Police believe killer Joel Cauchi was 'targeting women' after fatally stabbing six people in a horror rampage at Westfield Bondi Junction. … The 40-year-old's motives have yet to be confirmed, but a police source claims investigators believe Cauchi was 'definitely targeting women'. The source explained police had viewed extensive footage of Cauchi's movements throughout the shopping centre and observed him selecting his victims. 'I don't think there's any other way to look at it,' the source told the Daily Telegraph. 'You can see on the footage he walks past other people. He just keeps moving past them and then attacks...

California lacks information on the costs or efficacy of its homelessness programs, despite allocating billions of dollars to them, a report released by the state auditor’s office on Tuesday found. California Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) is responsible for coordinating and evaluating the efforts of California’s state agency in reducing homelessness. ICH, however, “has not consistently tracked and evaluated” the state’s efforts to prevent and end homelessness and, as a result, California “lacks current information on the ongoing costs and outcomes of its homelessness programs,” according to a report from the California State Auditor. The homeless population in California has...

California spent $24 billion to tackle homelessness over the past five years but didn’t consistently track whether the huge outlay of public money actually improved the situation, according to state audit released Tuesday. With makeshift tents lining the streets and disrupting businesses in cities and towns throughout California, homelessness has become one of the most frustrating and seemingly intractable issues in the country’s most populous state. An estimated 171,000 people are homeless in California, which amounts to roughly 30% of all of the homeless people in the U.S. Despite the roughly $24 billion spent on homeless and housing programs during...

Downtown Los Angeles has been described as 'third world' after shocking footage revealed a homeless encampment with open fires in the street and trash-covered sidewalks. The startling video, posted to X by Fox News reporter Bill Melugin, shows dozens of homeless people sitting and standing on filthy sidewalks on the corner of San Pedro Street and 6th Street in the Skid Row neighborhood of LA. Some are seen standing around an open fire in the street, just moments away from the Midnight Mission, a $17 million center for the homeless.

What used to be her spot to catch some fresh air has become anything but for Bee Bletsian in the building she’s called home for 13 years. Just south of downtown Minneapolis, behind an old brick building on the corner of 5th Avenue South and East 24th street, on a city-owned lot, it’s easy to see why.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has had a busy month, signing 38 bills into law in March. Ranging from giant wine bottles to homeless encampment bans to ending squatting in Florida, all the signed laws represent a multitude of issues residents have been bringing to light.

RENO, Nev. (KOLO) - In an effort to discourage homeless camps, Washoe County Commissioners voted on a controversial camping ban. Community members came forward Tuesday morning to speak on the ordinance that would make it a misdemeanor to sleep in a car or tent, or park an RV on county owned property. “Its unconstitutional to arrest someone who has no access to alternative shelter,” said one resident. ... The Supreme Court will also have a hearing to weigh in on whether cities can legally ban or limit unhoused people camping in public spaces. If they vote against this, the current...

Embattled Los Angeles developer Shangri-La Industries, which has left a trail of unpaid debts, unfinished projects and foreclosure threats since it took $114 million from the state to convert motels into housing for the homeless, is now accusing its former chief financial officer of embezzling millions of dollars to fund an extravagant lifestyle. Shangri-La, which is being sued by state housing authorities for breaching the terms of its agreement under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature Project Homekey program, alleges in a lawsuit that former CFO Cody Holmes, 29, engaged in bank fraud and check kiting in 2022 and 2023 with Shangri-La’s...

Focus Ireland is hoping to help thousands of homeless people to register to vote ahead of the local and European elections in June. Focus Ireland’s director of advocacy, Mike Allen, said that there are around 9,500 homeless adults in Ireland and many of them would not be registered to vote. The charity is now hoping to change that as voting registration was simplified after the Electoral Reform Act was passed in 2022. More than 50,000 Irish people have spent at least one night of their lives homeless, according to figures published by Focus Ireland. …

CHICAGO -- Chicago voters have rejected a one-time real estate tax on properties over $1 million to pay for services for homeless people. It’s a loss for first-term Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who championed the so-called “mansion tax.” The proposal would have incrementally raised the city’s real estate transfer tax on properties valued at more than $1 million. Supporters estimated it would have generated $100 million annually for homeless services, including for mental health care. There are roughly 68,000 homeless people in Chicago on any given night. The measure also pitched lowering the transfer tax on properties under $1 million,...

On Wednesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) signed a bill into law that bans homeless encampments in the state of Florida.

California voters have narrowly approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide ballot measure, Proposition 1, which authorizes $6.4 billion in bonds to fund treatment and housing for homeless people with a mental illness or substance-use disorder. Preliminary election results from the California Secretary of State’s website on Thursday showed that 50.2% of voters chose to approve the measure, while 49.8% voted to reject it. That represents a difference of about 29,000 votes in a race where more than 7 million people turned in a ballot. The razor thin results defied predictions made before the state’s March 5 primary election that the measure...

The homeless man who fatally shot three relatives and carjacked two vehicles in a crime spree in New Jersey and Pennsylvania Saturday has been hit with a slew of charges in both states. Andre Gordon Jr., 26, was charged with murder and other crimes in the Keystone State and he was charged with carjacking and weapons offenses in the Garden State after his violent rampage Saturday. Gordon shot and killed his stepmother Karen Gordon, 52, sister Kera Gordon, 13, and the mother of his two kids, Taylor Daniel, officials said.