Los Angeles is under mounting scrutiny over its homelessness spending after a former hotel purchased for $10 million in 2020 sat empty for four years and ballooned to $20 million in costs — producing zero occupied units. The scandal is fueling a broader debate about LA's housing strategy, with mayoral candidate Nithya Raman pushing a rent-freeze-plus-construction platform that developers and economists say is mathematically incoherent. Both stories point to the same problem: the city keeps spending more and housing fewer people.
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.