Solve homelessness
1. House person/family
2. Don’t evict*
3. Repeat
*important
In under five years, the City of Los Angeles has gotten fantastic at getting unhoused people to move into motel shelters quickly*.
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(I don’t think anyone has ever made the claim that moving unhoused people into prepaid motel rooms would be particularly difficult).
Unfortunately, the City has become even better at kicking people out of motels and interim housing without getting their hands dirty by withholding payments to motel owners, landlords and service providers.
Owners eventually grow tired of waiting for promised payments and begin to remove formerly homeless occupants in one way or another, usually with the help of the service provider (until they stop getting paid, too)—activating a series of lockouts, botched “transfers”, and allegations of behavioral violations designed to make people abandon or abscond from their doomed accommodations.
The chaotic cycle of interim shelter stays punctuated by inevitable terminations is a chronic state of displacement that many unhoused people have been stuck in for several years.
The ones who have remained in motel accommodations through multiple program transfers consider themselves the “lucky” ones to still be indoors. We don’t hear too much from the “unlucky” ones, who also consider themselves “lucky” not to be living under the trauma-triggering threat of “termination” any longer…but are now facing exposure to the elements again.
Back-to-back one-time grants propel a shelter placement-displacement cycle.
Emergency money always runs out eventually because interim shelter is so much more expensive than permanent homes, but permanent housing requires the commitment of secure, ongoing funding—not bursts of emergency aid.
Chronic homelessness isn’t like a closed highway or a wildfire. Chronic homelessness is an ongoing economic circumstance that manifests as visible encampments of unsheltered people who find creative ways to live within the same parameters that apply to all of us under capitalism.
Living outdoors long-term is a logical solution for people who can’t afford rent.
If the economy were better, there would be fewer people who find themselves in that situation, but not necessarily fewer homeless people than there are today. Many chronically homeless people (like me) have jobs and incomes that provide more than enough money to sustain our needs outside, but without a federal housing voucher, we won’t be able to afford to market rents for more than a few months in a row.
One-time grants without ongoing economic investment in keeping individuals out of homelessness is just throwing money on a fire to keep warm.
The government provides ongoing federal funding for permanently subsidized housing in the form of grants and vouchers for use on the private rental market. This is ongoing economic investment into getting and keeping individuals off the streets. But L.A. returns those grants and allows valuable housing vouchers to expire, unused. Meanwhile, a person perishes outdoors in L.A. every few hours.
After returning all those resources, our Mayor has the nerve to ask for more federal funding (more money to not spend) and our Councilpeople apply for one-time State ERF grants to implement more temporary shelter programs. Infuriatingly, those grants start with displacement of an “encampment” and terminate within months, usually just 30 days, long before permanent housing can be secured for anyone. Each State grant funds a full 360-degree revolution in the displacement cycle for everyone impacted. We saw this play out multiple times in 2021 in Venice with people cycling from Penmar to motel to Ocean Front Walk to motel and back outside. There were at least two ERF grants involved in those operations.
Let’s have a look at how some of this motel spending “checks out”. We know motels tend to be more expensive per night than renting, but they can be the only option for people who don’t have the qualifications to submit a winning rental application.
Shelter programs
All hotel/motel interim shelter programs operate in basically the same way. The main costs are for the shelter and the services provided by nonprofit service providers, who are sometimes aided by City and County agencies.
Variables:
• Rooms
• Nights
• Room rate
Budget:
Motel nights multiplied by program rate
• Motel nights:
Rooms multiplied by nights
• Shelter cost:
Motel nights multiplied by room rate
or
Budget minus services
• Program rate:
Budget divided by motel nights
or
Room rate plus services per diem
• Services:
Budget minus shelter cost
• Services per diem:
Program rate minus room rate
By analyzing the proportion between shelter cost and services, we can see where the bulk of the money is going whenever one of these “solutions” is initiated.
Encampment to Home (CD4 ERF grant)
Current budget (obtained from CAO via CPRA) 👇
Budget = $1,750,000
• Rooms = 60
• Nights = 90
• Room rate = $120/night NOT including food
✍️ Determine the number of motel nights.
Motel nights = Rooms * nights
60 rooms * 90 nights = 5,400 motel nights
✍️ What is the shelter cost?
Shelter cost = Motel nights * room rate
5,400 * $120 = $648,000
✍️ Calculate the program rate.
Program rate = Budget / motel nights
$1,750,000 / 5,400 = $324
✍️ What portion of the budget is for services?
Services = Program rate - room rate
$324 - $120 = $204
$204 / $324 = 63%
💰The nonprofit operator of the E2H motel shelter program gets $204/day per room for providing “services”, or 63% of the program cost, while the motel gets 37% for providing the temporary shelter.
Inside Safe
Spending report #2 5/16/23
Budget* = $43,684,303.16
(*projected spending through end of FY23)
Note: Calculations assume the rate the City paid private motels is the same as the L.A. Grand rate ($154)
L.A. Grand Hotel + Private Motels
• Rooms = 481 + private motel rooms
• Nights = 150 (February 1st to June 30th)
• Room Rate = $154*/night including food
(*Room rate for L.A. Grand applied to private motels but could vary)
✍️ Determine the number of motel nights.
Motel nights = Rooms * nights
481 * 150 = 72,150 motel nights for L.A. Grand
22,437 (2/1 – 4/28) + 22,142 (4/29 – 6/30) = 44,579 in private motels
Total motel nights = 116,729
✍️ What is the shelter cost?
Shelter Cost = Motel nights * room rate
72,150 * $154 = $11,111,100 for L.A. Grand
44,579 * $154 = $6,865,166 for private motels
Total shelter cost = $17,976,266
✍️ Calculate the program rate.
Program rate = Budget / motel nights
$43,684,303.16 / 116,729 = $374
✍️ What portion of the budget is for services?
Services = Program rate - room rate
$374 - $154 = $220
$220 / 374 = 59%
💰At $374/room/night, with 59% going to the nonprofit and 41% going to food and shelter, Inside Safe at the LA Grand seems to pay slightly more for shelter ($154) than Encampment to Home ($120). However, this Inside Safe rate includes three meals/day, whereas E2H included $150/week for gift cards in the “services” rate. Participants at E2H reported only getting $50 food cards some weeks and not others, and towards the end of the program, they were told the nonprofit “ran out”.
How many rooms are in use right now?
So far, at least 1,590 people have entered Inside Safe. 1,043 people, or 66% were currently in motel rooms and participating in the shelter program, as of a September CAO report obtained via CPRA.
It’s unclear at this point whether the number of rooms is the same as the number of participants because there are probably couples in some rooms with one bed and there may also be families or friends sharing rooms with two beds. For simplicity, I am figuring 1 participant = 1 room.
The L.A. Grand Hotel has 487 rooms but six are reserved. There is a total of 671 beds in the Hotel. The rest of the Inside Safe rooms are being rented from private motels all around the City.
If you’re curious to know which motels, you can view the CAO’s Homeless Emergency Account in the City’s open checkbook. I made a Google Map of 25 motel shelter locations using the names on the paid invoices in the checkbook, but it’s possible it is not 100% accurate if there were missing invoices and/or multiple hotels in L.A. with similar names.
What is the average duration of stay in Inside Safe?
Since most people haven’t checked out yet, we can only calculate the average length of time people have been staying there so far. The average duration of Inside Safe participants’ stays so far is currently over 200* nights as of November. There hasn’t been a status report since September so unfortunately I can’t give more updated information.
206 nights = average duration of motel stay so far for nearly 1,000 Inside Safe participants who remain in motel rooms, including 35 L.A. Grand hotel legacy guests beginning 2/1/23; as calculated on 11/6/23. 99 participants that came from Winter Shelter Programs or outreach referrals were excluded from estimation because their specific check-in dates were unknown.
Please feel free to check my work!
Services
Services in both the State-funded E2H motel shelter program and the City-funded Inside Safe cost around $200/day, and they tend to be roughly twice as costly per diem as the motel room rate (but they don’t have to be).
ERF grants do not allow for any spending by municipal departments because the State won’t fund City services and execution of the operation should not require City employees to do additional work outside of the normal scope of their jobs. Since the City can add things like “extra work” by LASan, LAPD, and LADOT to their operations, because they are the ones paying for it, they usually do.
Unhoused Whistleblowers
I started a hotline on Google Voice at (818) 600-1846
If someone has an Inside Safe or interim hotel/motel shelter concern or grievance, they can tell me by texting or leaving a message.
I am NOT mobile and I AM POWERLESS TO HELP THEM.
My phone is not always charged and I have no influence with the City or nonprofits.
But I will try to advocate for them not to be evicted to congregate shelter or the streets.
The City should be doing this (and allowing phone-in comments on Homelessness and Housing Committee meetings) and hopefully the City Controller will take over it soon.
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