Los Angeles is under mounting scrutiny for spending $20 million on 32 homeless housing units that sat empty for four years after the city shut down a functioning building to convert it — costing $625,000 per unit with no one housed. The debacle has exposed systemic failures in how LA manages Homekey projects, with city officials now admitting they should never have closed the site before securing full funding. Meanwhile, LA mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is pushing a platform that pairs rent freezes with pro-construction policy — a combination housing developers and economists say is financially self-defeating.
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.