<story><title>Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person</title><url>https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-to-house-a-single-homeless-person/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sfe22</author><text>So CA is too democratic in your opinion? It should slide more towards tyranny?</text></item><item><author>jvanderbot</author><text>Precisely this. In LA there are constant referendums about homelessness, in CA massive budget increases, and yet, nobody will allow a shelter or multi-family unit to be constructed in their neighborhood, lest their soaring land value peak.&lt;p&gt;In CA, it&amp;#x27;s my firm belief that people have a tad too much power over the minutae of government operations. What did we even elect people for if we are going to try to solve everything with referendums and protests?</text></item><item><author>long_time_gone</author><text>More like, we&amp;#x27;d be better off if voters didn&amp;#x27;t demand short-term actions with negative long-term effects.</text></item><item><author>mwint</author><text>Basically, we’d be better off if the government had done nothing. Seems like that happens a lot.</text></item><item><author>legitster</author><text>In the last 50 years, cities across the country closed down over 1 million SROs (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Single_room_occupancy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Single_room_occupancy&lt;/a&gt;) in an effort to remove slums or just neglect at increasing property value. There are now over half of a million homeless. It&amp;#x27;s honestly impressive the number is not more.&lt;p&gt;For the 1.2 billion dollars they are spending, if all of the apartments were built to the spec of a roadside motel room (~350 sq ft - or more than double the average SRO), they should realistically be able to build over 10,000 units for that kind of money (that&amp;#x27;s including California&amp;#x27;s exorbitant cost per square foot).&lt;p&gt;It would be like if the government banned motorcycles, and then said &amp;quot;okay, instead we&amp;#x27;ll make you a nice, compact crossover&amp;quot;, and then handed over design and construction of the crossovers to a company that builds snowplows.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s frustrating is that SROs used to be provided by the private market, largely free to taxpayers! How much better a use of government money it would have been to just improve the situation in SROs than to quietly let them shutter and hope the poverty they represented just disappeared with them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>setr</author><text>Sounds more like too much direct democracy, and needs to slide further towards representative.</text></comment>
<story><title>Los Angeles is spending up to $837k to house a single homeless person</title><url>https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-to-house-a-single-homeless-person/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sfe22</author><text>So CA is too democratic in your opinion? It should slide more towards tyranny?</text></item><item><author>jvanderbot</author><text>Precisely this. In LA there are constant referendums about homelessness, in CA massive budget increases, and yet, nobody will allow a shelter or multi-family unit to be constructed in their neighborhood, lest their soaring land value peak.&lt;p&gt;In CA, it&amp;#x27;s my firm belief that people have a tad too much power over the minutae of government operations. What did we even elect people for if we are going to try to solve everything with referendums and protests?</text></item><item><author>long_time_gone</author><text>More like, we&amp;#x27;d be better off if voters didn&amp;#x27;t demand short-term actions with negative long-term effects.</text></item><item><author>mwint</author><text>Basically, we’d be better off if the government had done nothing. Seems like that happens a lot.</text></item><item><author>legitster</author><text>In the last 50 years, cities across the country closed down over 1 million SROs (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Single_room_occupancy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Single_room_occupancy&lt;/a&gt;) in an effort to remove slums or just neglect at increasing property value. There are now over half of a million homeless. It&amp;#x27;s honestly impressive the number is not more.&lt;p&gt;For the 1.2 billion dollars they are spending, if all of the apartments were built to the spec of a roadside motel room (~350 sq ft - or more than double the average SRO), they should realistically be able to build over 10,000 units for that kind of money (that&amp;#x27;s including California&amp;#x27;s exorbitant cost per square foot).&lt;p&gt;It would be like if the government banned motorcycles, and then said &amp;quot;okay, instead we&amp;#x27;ll make you a nice, compact crossover&amp;quot;, and then handed over design and construction of the crossovers to a company that builds snowplows.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s frustrating is that SROs used to be provided by the private market, largely free to taxpayers! How much better a use of government money it would have been to just improve the situation in SROs than to quietly let them shutter and hope the poverty they represented just disappeared with them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jvanderbot</author><text>Absolutely not. Democracy can be fair and open elections, not crowdsourced legislation.</text></comment>