The triune god of Los Angeles is the trinity of rising taxes as one in essence but three distinct elements: an endless need for new taxes, homelessness, and vanishing (stolen) funds.
How is that for a post-Easter analogy?
The following from frontpagemag.com.
Sales taxes in the area have shot up from 9.75% to as high as 11.25% to fund still more services for the ‘homeless.’ The permanent sales tax increase is supposed to raise $1 billion a year to replace the stolen billions spent by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
Families will pay even more for food so LA’s politicians and nonprofits can steal even more.
In 2016 and 2017, LA voters approved $4.6 billion in homeless tax hikes on themselves that included a sales tax increase and Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond measure to build 10,000 housing units for the homeless, that taken together were supposed to end homelessness.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas promised at a ‘victory party’ for the massive spending package:
We need to seize this opportunity to make good things happen.
Further:
It is very, very important that we do this work in a way the voters of the city feel they have done something good and going forward they will be rewarded by our results.
Ridley-Thomas, who led LA’s homeless policies, and championed HHH, was charged with bribery and corruption. After his arrest, Ridley-Thomas vowed he would continue “addressing the homeless and housing crisis.” The charges against this close ally of Mayor Karen Bass involved a scheme in the same USC social work school that also gave Bass a free “unsolicited $95,000 tuition award.” Ridley-Thomas was sentenced to 42 months in prison, but continues appearing at public events with Mayor Bass while appealing his conviction.
The LA Times wondered, quoting Va Lecia Adams Kellum, the future head of the LA Homeless Services Authority who has now been forced to resign after $2.5 billion in unaccounted spending:
Ridley-Thomas was at the center of L.A.’s fight against homelessness. What happens now?
Councilman Jose Huizar promised:
Within the next three to six months, with all the work we’ve done, we will see an improvement.
Further:
And in two years … we’ll see a significant reduction in people living in the streets.
Huizar, one of the “architects” of Measure HHH and had co-authored the Comprehensive Strategic Plan to Combat Homelessness, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for soliciting $1.5 million in bribes from developers including trips and prostitutes. The money included a $600,000 bribe from a fugitive Chinese real estate developer to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Need I continue along that line?
The number of homeless not only did not go down, but shot up, and despite billions of dollars, the annual shortfall was being estimated at $270 million. Homeless housing was being approved at a cost of $479,000 an apartment and total development cost for Measure HHH hit $869 million.
By 2020, the average cost of apartments for the homeless was at $531,000 and by 2022, a city audit found one project was running to $837,000 for each unit. An audit blamed “a lot of consultants.” But after 4 years of this, only 228 apartments for the homeless had been built.
Los Angeles then launched a pilot program to build 8’×8′ aluminum sheds for the homeless for only $130,000 each and then tent encampments for the homeless for $2,600 per tent each month. The homeless services complex had managed to take something the homeless were already doing for themselves and charge as much for it as a decent apartment rental.
The 2018-2019 city budget included $430 million in homeless spending (more than $300 million on road maintenance) and the 2024-2025 budget is up to $961 million in homeless spending.
The Los Angeles homeless count for 2019 was 35,550. The 2024 count found 45,252 homeless in the city. LA County’s homeless population had risen from 58,936 to 75,312 during that same period. The county’s 2024 Homeless Initiative was at nearly $600 million in spending.
After billions raised and spent to end homelessness, the crisis was worse than ever. More money was being spent and more homeless were popping up everywhere in a vicious cycle.
But what no one could determine was where all the homeless billions were going.
The triune god of Los Angeles: homelessness keeps rising, homeless taxes keep rising, and the money continues to disappear.
Mayor Bass is promising to address the problem of LA homelessness with even more homeless spending.
A spokesperson for Bass stated:
We know the cost of doing nothing is far greater.
