Mark Ryavec Argues That Decades of Mismanagement and Costly Missteps Leave L.A. Ill-Equipped to Address Its Growing Homeless Crisis
By Mark Ryavec
For a couple decades I have watched the City of Los Angeles pursue ineffective programs to address the interconnected crises of homelessness, drug addiction and untreated mental illness. Missing from their assessment have been an historical perspective on the city’s housing stock for the very poor, and an understanding of the order-of-magnitude of the problem; i.e., how many units are needed compared to both the number of homeless and the resources available to provide for them.
I can offer that perspective, having served in 1976 as the lead city staff to Mayor Tom Bradley’s Citizens Advisory Committee on the Redevelopment of the Central Business District (CBD). In the midst of a controversy over the cost of redevelopment of the CBD (now often referred to as DTLA), the mayor and city council set up the 19-member citizens committee to examine the cost of redevelopment, and the costs of doing nothing, allowing the CBD, which contains Skid Row, to continue to deteriorate.
The chair of that committee, Harold Katz, a Century City CPA, was intent on not only answering the questions of cost to taxpayers, but also addressing the unhoused in Skid Row. Mr. Katz invited testimony from numerous homeless/housing experts, which revealed that at that time there were approximately 16,000 Single Room Occupancy (SRO) units in the CBD. Most of these were tiny units with shared bathrooms, in very old hotels. (They are the brick-and-mortar version of the now popular prefab “tiny homes.”) While this issue was not part of the committee’s mission, Mr. Katz admonished city leaders to preserve those 16,000 units or face a horrific increase in its homeless population.
However, from 1976 onward, over 9,000 SRO units were demolished to make room for development, most of it office buildings, not housing. In 1984, the SRO Housing Corporation was founded, with the mission of acquiring and rehabilitating the remaining 7,000 units. However, the sheer toll of age and delayed maintenance, and lack of oversight and funding by the city, led to the bankruptcy and ultimately receivership of that organization in 2023.
In hindsight, the city should have followed Mr. Katz’s advice and established the SRO non-profit, with proper funding for repairs, in 1976, and avoided the loss of the 9,000 units, and forestalled the remainder deteriorating to the extent that some experts now believe the only course is to demolish them. This would put another 7,000 people on L.A.’s streets in addition to the current 43,000 homeless.
Six years ago, I wrote in the Argonaut that while Proposition HHH, which passed in 2016, purported to fund 10,000 units, that was 15,000 units short of the number then on the street, 25,000. So, from the date of its passage, there was no plan to house the majority of our homeless population. I urged the city to do some simple math; simply multiply the number of street homeless by the average unit construction cost, to arrive at the order of magnitude of the funds needed to house everyone. Today, at an average cost of $600,000 for the larger type of units the city prefers to build, the calculation is $26 billion, twice the city’s annual budget. A recent city staff estimate to house L.A.’s homeless population is $22 billion over 10 years, with only one-third of that amount currently available. This means that most of the city’s homeless would remain on the street for many years to come.
With the city and the State bankrupt, and congress and the White House in control of Republicans who are hostile to subsidizing affordable housing, little new funding will be available, so the city will never be able to afford to build enough of the one-bedroom and studio units it prefers. In 2018, I recommended returning to funding SRO units on a massive scale, building at least enough units to replace the 9,000 lost. They are about a third the average cost of the apartments now being funded, so roughly three times as many can be built at the same cost. I would also suggest that the city will not be able to afford to replace the remaining 7,000 dilapidated SRO units with larger studios or one-bedrooms, and will have to return to the SRO model.
To meet the goal of housing our entire homeless population, the city will also have to accept other successful housing models, such as those offered by organizations such SHARE Collaborative Housing. SHARE, and others using their model, lease, purchase or build three-bedroom houses or 10-unit, two-bedroom apartment buildings, trick them out with appliances and amenities, and then carefully match houseless roommates. Sharing bedrooms cuts rents in half, and many homeless individuals can pay the $500 a month rent from a combination of Supplemental Social Security and county General Relief. The only funding needed from government is the cost for peer bridgers, “den mothers” who match roommates, keep the utilities on, and resolve any bickering (or transfer tenants to other buildings). SHARE, which operates in every L.A. city council district, has high tenant retention rates and high matriculation rates; i.e., they go on to school and/or jobs, and eventually find their own apartments.
Unfortunately, some homeless advocates and housing providers disparage the SHARE model, saying it is not “dignified” to have to share a room, so cities and Los Angeles County have been slow to offer any funding. Apparently, the advocates think it is more dignified to sleep in a tent or a vehicle on the street than share a room.
From my perch, the city of Los Angeles is long overdue in making the switch from funding the housing models they like, to funding the models the city can afford.
Mark Ryavec is the president of Venice Stakeholders Association, a non-profit focused on public safety and civic improvement. He served as a legislative analyst for the Los Angeles City Council from 1975 to 1978.
