Los Angeles is under mounting scrutiny for spending $20 million—$625,000 per unit—on 32 homeless housing units that sat empty for four years after the city shut down a functioning building to renovate it. The debacle has city officials admitting to "major flaws in the process," while nobody can account for the residents who were displaced when the original hotel closed. Meanwhile, LA mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is pushing a platform that pairs rent freezes with pro-construction policy—a combination developers and housing economists say is financially self-defeating, guaranteeing the kind of locked-up, deteriorating housing stock already plaguing New York City.
Los Angeles emptied a building that was already housing people. Four years and $625,000 per unit later, it still houses nobody.
NYC and LA progressives promise rent freezes plus new construction. Every city that's tried gets ghost apartments instead.