Almost 20 months after L.A. Mayor Karen Bass launched the Inside Protected homelessness program, a report from Human Rights Watch slammed the hassle as “unsustainably expensive” and insufficient. It additionally accuses Bass of backtracking on her guarantees to not criminalize homelessness — pushing unhoused folks out of public view as a substitute of serving to them, writes CalMatters homelessness reporter Marisa Kendall.
Inside Protected deploys outreach employees who provide resort rooms to unhoused residents residing in encampments. Although the objective is to maneuver people into long-term housing, the report discovered that since its launch in December 2022 via March 2024, Inside Protected put 2,482 folks into inns, however solely 440 of them moved into everlasting housing. The report additionally discovered that this system value town greater than $300 million in its first yr, together with greater than $3,500 monthly for every resort room.
L.A. has been cracking down on encampments too, in line with the report, typically citing homeless folks or arresting them. Regardless of Bass publicly condemning the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s current ruling to grant cities extra authority to comb encampments, Inside Protected has cleared 42 encampments.
Learn extra concerning the report on Inside Protected in Marisa’s story.
Talking of reasonably priced housing: A $20 billion bond that may assist allow 9 Bay Space counties to construct extra reasonably priced housing is the largest in state historical past. And development unions need to guarantee they’ll get an enormous chunk of the work if it passesexplains CalMatters housing reporter Ben Christopher.
An umbrella trades group of electricians, roofers and different unionized development employees are pushing for SB 735which might require builders who need to use the bond cash to signal labor contracts that result in hiring unionized employees.
Critics of the invoice argue that it’s unfair to freeze out non-union employees, and that hiring solely union members prices extra. A examine launched this week by the RAND Institutefor instance, discovered {that a} related labor requirement on a $1.2 billion L.A. housing bond raised improvement prices by 21%. However invoice supporters level to proof that reveals the upper prices for these tasks could possibly be as a consequence of random probability, not due to the labor necessities.
Be taught extra concerning the housing bond and invoice in Ben’s story.
