Rise & shine #LosAngeles,

It’s rent day.

May the rent lottery odds be ever in your favor. If not, we’ll... do you remember the HHH measure to build shelters?

Well—we were up late reading the receipts. And boy @MayorOfLA: those still unbuilt housings sure look dirty. Let’s dig.

But first: you’ll often see rent presented thus.

Y’all: we don’t make type of cash.

Every Angelino knows you split places, and pay by the room. So: what’s that?

Toss in every open property, bound your search, eliminate duplicates. Yadda yadda.

The cost you get is more reflective of the real payments people can manage.

Generally, this’ll get you 900 square feet of looming eviction to call your own.

And yes, it includes fancy buildings.

But maybe you’re sitting high. Maybe you want to buy.

Well, here you are: the average price to PURCHASE homes, in the city, and the room cost. Now you own it.

But @MayorOfLA of LA has a much crazier idea for you:

Let’s build 502 square foot closets for the homeless. For double

Here’s where the math gets thick.

It’s too early for math, though. *yawn*

So just remember two numbers:

$297,000–average to buy a room.
$1,135–same to rent a room a month.

These beloved #LosAngeles are the prices per room for an HHH unit.

Each. 8,844 rooms in total.

They average just over HALF the size of the sexiest Ktown studios in the data set.

You may recognize that as a few years of rent. How many? Shh.

First ask: why so expensive, mayor?

Here’s one fun clue. Of the projects awarded, 49% are developed by direct donors to the mayor and the council.

That’s not exhaustive—certainly. Just what you can find through the simplest searches on the ethics site.

And you’d never guess... the costs to build keep rising!

Why?

One place to look is the “soft costs.” Administration. Executive salary. Developer’s fees. Y’know. Rich people stuff.

And according to the controller, our HHH units have a surprisingly high rate of them.

But there are some offenders who are worse than others.

Meet PATH. In Eric’s first campaign, they were early supporters.

While their CEO gets a yearly 7% raise on a 6 figure salary, their development projects keep dragging up the HHH prices.

And look there. 30% higher “soft fees” than your average development?

But they’re chumps compared to Safran.

This guy’s soft is almost 50% above market norms.

And boy howdy. $54k to the campaigns?

Well. He did throw bernie 1k once. I’m sure he’s not pilfering at all, to be able to write those checks.

Pull it back out and ask:

What could we get for this type of money?

Well. Rent isn’t enough. So let’s toss in a social worker, and see how long it would take to provide that, and rent, before you hit the price of an HHH unit.

That’s a lot of help NOW.

Take it across the project as a whole and it’s worse. 31.8 years of rent for 8,844 rooms, to equal the development costs they’ve bumped up every year.

Rooms that exist now. That could house people today. If they could get the help.

Now, mayor: a brief adendum.

Why would we spend all of this to build bad homes, poorly, at a cost that’s eye popping?

Let’s posit this: what if the way they see shelter isn’t actually about housing the unhoused?

What if it were an empty parade, to line the pockets of friends? @RoomkeyTracker might agree.

Actually: it comes to mind @AlpertReyes, that this is your beat, and your coverage has been good on it.

Anyone who wants a few more tidbits on the subject should search HHH and her name.

You’ll be entirely unsurprised that there’s a redline-like aspect to their placements too.