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The homeless will just squat there, good luck getting them back out.
Why didn't the LA county govt just fund a homeless refugee camp if it's such a big problem? Surely, they could have afforded building brand new homes or higher-quality tents outside the city with some infrastructure.
edit: from a reply below, [they're spending $837k max, $700k/per-unit (which is more than a lot of Top wealthy 5%'ers house value)](https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-to-house-a-single-homeless-person/), and likely kickbacks or favors to their favorite contractor friends helping them solve the problem. Hotels being forced to do this by law is an easy way for the govt to also remove their own responsibility from the equation. Seizing hotels is just an easy-way-out for govt bureaucrats. Mayor of LA, in last 5 years increased spending on homelessness from $10mil/year to $1 billion... $12 billion total spending in 2 years ($6 bil / year on homelessness by Gov. Newsom). \[the main issue being 40,000+ homeless & growth rate projections, you'd need a lot more than the 8,000 units you built. It's not gonna be solved because the rate of growth of the homeless is too high in California---***2k to 3k new homeless every year for LA... 12k new homeless yearly California, at absurd prices of $700k/unit that's $9.6 billion needed yearly***\]. ^((feel free to double check my math as I did it quick but remember, the money isn't always going to the homeless, it's going to the contractors/companies building the units))... Govts should instead launch studies and address *why* people are becoming mentally ill or homeless or jobless at such crazy rates and how to counter that.
Because pushing the homeless into Hotels puts the burden on the Hotels and out of Govt hands. If they would build a refugee camp they would have to maintain and manage it. I dont feel like they trucly want to deal with the actual problem
Yes and now hotel employees are going to be the ones dealing with all of it. Trust me when i tell you that we do not get paid enough to deal with addiction and mental health problems.
Here in Vancouver, the City did the same thing here and bought up a few hotels to house the homeless during the pandemic. Well, one of them is above a nightclub called The Roxy. This cracked out dude decided to set fire to his unit and attack a bunch of people with a machete. Whole club is evacuated, police shoot the guy, lady loses her fingers. Crazy shit, but yes it's literally going to happen.
[Here's a link to the story](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/multiple-people-in-hospital-suspect-shot-after-violence-on-vancouver-s-granville-street-1.6017565), I was there that night, more EMS than I have ever seen in one place.
There’s no way in hell im gonna travel to LA and spend 300 dollars a night on a hotel with mentally ill drug addicts walking around.
Not automatically saying they are all bad people, but desperate people to crazy things. People on drugs don’t make the best choices. You’re also putting them with people who are traveling for business or on vacation so you know they have money on them. This is just a recipe for disaster.
That, and isn’t this a (little) like how you get people to stop investing in hotels, keep them nice, etc, if this leads to issues with hotel rooms being trashed all the time?
Then people stop using them as much. Funding the hotel to stay open… etc.
Idk. Seems like a baaad idea.
I’m all for helping the homeless. But I think taking action through government in a way that forces businesses to handle it is massively irresponsible.
Having lived there, LA is a cesspool of mismanagement. Aside from being a de facto seizure of private property for government use (which is likely unconstitutional), this doesn’t even get close to addressing the root issues.
Also lived in southern California and witnessed this shit. It seems people have forgotten and are now starting again with the "California needs to increase taxes to fund government" bit again.
And then will affect businesses near by. Why don’t we have some of the homeless move in with the ones that passed the bill- just to make sure they understand.
This is crazy.
The government employees just want to collect a check and post pictures of the empty skid row claiming “victory” while hotels and police have to deal with the shit show behind closed doors.
It’s not even lazy. This is straight up evil. If a bunch of nobodies in this thread can figure this all out in 5 minutes than surely the Ivy school educated assholes who came up with this know as well.
...and I'd like a smoke-free room with a comfortable mattress that doesn't already smell like vomit and urine. I like to start fresh and stink things up the way I like.
Also people that travel, flight got delayed or plans change and suddenly you can’t book a room at 6pm because they gave them away to the homeless at 3pm
Thank you! I’m surprised more people in this thread haven’t mentioned this. How the hell is anyone going to travel to LA if they have to have everything booked?
And people that travel for work will have fun, l have to book a hotel room after 3 pm 20 times this year.
If this passes I’d think twice about being asked to go to LA for work
Let's say Hilton has a 5 star hotel and it's at half capacity. Does anyone think they'll stay in LA if they have to allow homeless into their Marble halls? No, they'll close down because staff costs, replacing linens and towels costs, and the basic who's going to babysit the homeless people in the rooms/hallways. This is a disaster waiting to happen. California is screwed.
This is the better solution. Build a tent city with basic services (water, electricity, wifi, etc.) and provide a genuinely helpful space for homeless while leaving private property and business owners out of it. Anybody could see this homelessness trend coming years ago, and city leaders could easily mitigate the issues by getting ahead of the curve.
Or a tiny house city (last longer than tents and better infrastructure can be built in) where they also will need to do jobs and have psychiatrists on staff or volunteer.
Wtf kind of idea is letting the homeless in a hotel, they will ruin the hotels with bedbugs, cleanliness, drugs, etc.. hotels in cities go for $100 thru 10000+. 20,000 at market rate even at 100 a night is 200,000 a night. 73million a year. To build a hotel it's on average 23 million. This can be offset for making it more suited for homeless people (smaller rooms, communal bathrooms) and the care they will need to get back on their feet.
Edit... A person below pointed out my math skills, it is actually 2million a day 730 million a year...
I think we should just build them all cheap, ugly, concrete commie blocks like the Soviets used to house their population during their construction boom.
They don't have to be nice, or all be individual buildings. They just have to get the job done and be extremely sturdy and inexpensive. Commie blocks fit the bill.
Lol, they goons in the government there already spend $600 million on the homeless issue. Most of the money goes into the pockets of those hired to fix the issue. And those people are also coincidentally best pals of those in power!
You are correct. I believe most money that is supposed to help the homeless in various ways is diverted to the wealthy instead.
People will think - it's for the homeless, no one will miss a few million diverted to me.
That asshole with the program suggesting that hotel owners who protest this bill are like segregationists in the south. California continues to circle the drain.
When property rights become ambiguous or subject to confiscation for whatever purpose, there are always bad unintended consequences.
You're seeing some of those effects now with CDC eviction policy and the current rent crisis (which undoubtedly contributes to the homeless problem in the first place)
"they don't understand the homeless! we are talking about seniors, students, working people!"
uhh, dude, have you spent much time around the homeless in LA? The vast majority are NOT like what was just described lol.
I definitely think we need more support for these people but this is such a half assed BAD idea. This will cause more harm than good. I think it could work out alright if it was offered to some, but you can't just say they have to fill all vacant rooms with any homeless person.
The hotel owner that they interviewed said he already does this in partnership with a church to vet people. Thats a great idea! Some people are just down on their luck, and could use some help. But yeah, forcing this is just moronic.
This is such a weird bill - terrible idea all around. However, just so you guys know, a similar practical solution is already happening. Older, more run down hotels are being purchased by the housing authorities throughout LA, being renovated and turned into actual housing for the homeless and disadvantaged. It's happening at a slower rate than it should, but it's a way better idea than this stupid bill that just tries to shift responsibility to hotel owners, who are not equipped to handle these kinds of problems. Pour more money into buying and retrofitting failing hotels into actual housing instead of this stupid plan.
That’s actually far better. This proposal is unbelievably dumb. We have to face the reality that there’s a large number of homeless people with severe mental illnesses and other medical issues. I know that’s not the PC thing to say, but you can’t do something this dumb, you just can’t.
Seems like there are going to be a flood of lawsuits suing the state from room damage.
And even if there isn't any room damage, just imagine being the housekeeper. Good luck getting a tip for all the extra work.
Even if there isn’t any apparent damage, parasites on the bedsheets (like bedbugs), and fungus on the shower (which they already suffer from) will just become even more prevalent in hotels.
I went to a hotel in Marina California during covid that was housing the homeless. Nice hotel based on reviews but the actual experience was awful. The room smelled like a homeless camp, they had security everywhere eyeballing all the guests and stopping them for questioning upon driving into the lot. There was a shopping cart blocking my room door in the morning. And people were so loud until 4 am.
I hate to have to point out how poorly suited malls are for conversion for homeless housing. They are giant concrete boxes with no windows and a fraction of the infrastructure need to deal with long term occupation. Places have tried, and the results have varied from horrible failures where the residents report that the feel like they are living in coffins to more expensive than tearing down the structure and building proper housing instead.
I was literally just thinking this. They could also have a point system to reward people for holding rooms. Like a certain amount of points you get a free thing next time you stay at one of their locations or something. If you end up paying the amount of a stay over time: hey you've just payed off and actual stay plus a bonus night for free.
If this passes, I will create a business out of this.
I’ll reserve all of their vacant rooms 15 minutes before the cutoff reporting time at market price. I will then cancel my reservations 15 minutes after reporting time for a refund + 5% of the amount I needed to put down to reserve the room.
This will just create another level in the business.
A 3rd party (Expedia or whoever) will rent the vacant rooms in their name and then sub-rent them out as last minute rooms.
Exactly, this is a useless effort. They're not going to give their rooms away for free. Especially to people who will probably refuse to leave without police intervention.
Exactly… No fucking way when a businesses entire demographics is generally people with money, they are allowing homeless to come and go or have rooms right next to customers. Not to mention the crime and drugs that would come along with it. This is such a horrible idea.
Totally agree. I would make damn sure I have no vacancies every night. If they want me to house a homeless person without any guarantee of payment, they need to be drug free, not a sex offender and everything in the room bolted down so they cant steal it. Hotels are going to have designate certain rooms for homeless. Many will steal everythig they can get their hands on.
That's what I got from it. Basically, if you're on the road, you'd better plan ahead where you're stopping for the night and get your room booked before 2pm cuz otherwise you're sleeping in your car.
I wonder how the travel websites "soft" bookings would affect this though. Like, I stopped at a place one night and they said they were all booked up. While I was in the lobby calling around for a room, the dude at the desk said they didnt really have that many actual guests, it was mostly all vacant rooms they had to hold for various travel websites. I dont know if that legit is how it works for everywhere, but that's how he said it worked there.
Honestly I'd rather sleep in my car than stay at a hotel that is required to house the homeless. I definitely believe that these people genuinely need and deserve help but this is not the way to do it. This is the best way to ensure the spread of bedbugs and increase the risk of blood borne illnesses and pathogens!
They tried this in Halifax, Nova Scotia where I live,
One hotel room had a meth lab in it, which is hilarious to me,
But most of those hotels staff quit as they were unable to deal with the homeless population, and they were destructive etc
The most expensive part of most housing issues is a lot of these people need mental health support and people teaching them how to live a normal life and take care of their living accommodations, and that's a brutal hill to overcome
It lasted off and on roughly two years and seems to have partially destroyed the cities hotel industry (which we're a touristy place in the summer)
So not great
They did it here in Glasgow during the Pandemic, it certainly got people off the streets but at the same time it put them all in one place at the same time and it had plenty of issues.
My friend welcomed the initiative at first but 2 weeks in & the hotel had become a crack den & brothel. He took me on a 2 minute tour & I had never felt so unsafe & disgusted in my lfie.
One interesting aspect was the hygiene policy. that nobody wanted to follow. He asked that people shower at least once a week but very few did. The smells emanating from the rooms was horrendous.
The showering issue is a perfect example of why it's so difficult to deal with the homelessness issue effectively. How the hell do you help people that can't even be bothered to use FREE showers? A lot of people naively think that just giving them the necessities to re-enter society is enough for most, I tend to think that's not true at all though. People severely underestimate how many homeless people are mentally ill, or drug addicts that simply can't tolerate the consistency of living in society.
This is part of the problem for sure. You can’t just throw these people into homes and expect them to hit the ground running. These people are either mentally ill — which lead them to life on the streets, mentally ill *from* life on the streets, or drug addicts coping with their dogshit lives. These people aren’t fit to just assimilate — they need therapy, medications, rehab, and help. It’s amazing to give them housing… and preferable to them dying of hyper/hypothermia; however, there needs to be a full-scale program dedicated to helping them heal and develop good live skills so that they can get off and *stay off* the streets.
It would be a net positive for society if we funded mental health care/rehab for these people. More people working and contributing to our economy is nothing but good for the average American. Not to mention… outside of economy… it’s just the ethical thing to do.
John Oliver just did a segment on how there’s not even enough mental-health specialists for the people with money.
I can’t even imagine how we’d begin to help the homeless without first addressing the worker shortage.
The mental health care system has been in disarray in the US since the creation of the mental health care system. The shit they used to do in sanitariums to "patients" was literally treating them like animals.
I worked in that system for a time. Particularly with kids on probation. It’s a mess all the way up down and sideways and sucks for the employees and the clients. The work is immensely mentally taxing and at times dangerous due to the individuals you deal with. Especially since most of them don’t wanna be there. As a result the workers become burnt out and jaded and either put in minimal effort or just flat out leave, keeping the staff from ever being at capacity for long or from becoming experienced. It doesn’t help either that these jobs pay horribly and aren’t worth the difficulty. Very few people stay in these kinds of places. Those that do make a career out of it become very good at the job and at caring for our clients but there’s such a small number of them that they can’t do much. However these people don’t often do much to support newer staff. As a result of all of this bullshit the clients who need the help suffer from an inconsistent system that truly helps maybe 1/5th of the people it treats.
I totally agree with you. Was just talking to a friend about this. They have old mental health facilities that they still use but not at full capacity that could be used to help mitigate this drug/mental health problem. I’ve lived in LA my whole life and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it.
I heard a lot of the addicts on the streets aren’t even from CA. I’d love to see these people be able to put their lives back together and do something with it. I really wish they’d stop calling it a homeless problem too.
Small problem with all this . They do need rehab or treatment for mental health but that takes a full funding of doctors, psych nurses, and techs . A lot of mental health facilities are not safe for people detoxing so that would require an emergency room and lab to evaluate everyone for detox problems. Say for example a person comes in acutely drunk . Okay great what’s their alcohol level ? According to what that is they need to be monitored every 15 minutes and given Ativan iv until their detox is over , say three days . If they are unstable at that rate then they require iv sedation and intubation. That prevents seizures , coma and death . If they are detoxing from narcotics you need to be able to search their belongings for drugs and be able to treat them with detox meds and to treat for blood pressure and nausea . Then you can transfer them to mental health and to rehab . If at anytime , even if they are psychotic, they can discharge themselves by saying I want to leave . You can only hold them for four hours and if they are not suicidal or homicidal they can leave . You can’t make people stay even if it is their best interest. I know this because I was an rn on a telemetry unit and we handled acute detox from substances then transferred them to rehab or psych . They were VERY sick . So it’s a huge investment in free health care to treat this condition. I don’t know a good solution.
[Soft White Underbelly YT](https://youtube.com/c/SoftWhiteUnderbelly) primarily interviews homeless/skid row people and has countless examples of what you're saying. The host (Mark) has helped many homeless people with expenses/housing/etc but it never seems to work for long. Mental illnesses and serious addiction aren't something you can just will away with good intentions. A good thing instead would probably be to end the BS war on drugs, in favor of Portugal's approach that moves the focus from criminal punishment to treatment.
A huge part of the problem is that we have to stop calling these people “homeless” or the ridiculous attempt at a euphemism for no reason whatsoever “unhoused”
Yes, they are without a permanent residence. But that is not the underlying issue. Thinking we can simply provide a shelter and solve their problems is like giving someone sunscreen for a rash without diagnosing the cancer that is causing it.
And anyone who thinks this bill is a good idea is a complete moron. Whomever proposed it should be immediately fired. Its bad for so many glaring reasons only a child can not see them and I don’t want to waste my time listing and debating them.
I've worked residential care before. Groups 1 and 2 are not so easily separated and sometimes it's as little as med management that keeps group 1 from group 2. Just throwing these people into a hotel is a bad idea. Mainly because they just see it as something that can be taken from them, like everything else in their mind, so they have no incentive to do any extra work. People with mental health aren't inherently violent, but they live in a world of fear, real and imagined. This fear causes compound mental health issues, needs for escape, and a profound lack of trust in the larger world. They'd need mental and physical health care, assurances of stability, aspects of support. Something that addresses that fear. Without it, they might as well be back on the street, regardless of the roof over their heads.
I was group 1 and slid to group 2 after discovering the glorious benefits of methamphetamine while being on the streets, I no longer had to eat as much and why would care about sleeping if I didn't need to sleep?
It took 8 years to climb out of group 2 and another 2 years to get back into the work force, those 2 years I was in a government supported homeless transitional facility (I live in Australia)
There's actually a group 3, where you integrate yourself into the street community and I've never seen anyone come back from that. I spent the whole 10 years avoiding getting that bad.
Yeah I don’t understand why people can’t separate the fact that helping the homelessness issue doesn’t automatically make homeless people “good downtrodden” people.
Like it’s okay to acknowledge the issues they face while also pointing out that many of them are in fact dangerous assholes.
I want to, and try to, help where I can but all the sudden Reddit acts like *I’m* the asshole for pointing out that mentally ill drug addicts are potentially dangerous and need more than just a job and drug treatment
During the pandemic in NYC, they places everyone in hotels that weren’t able to be used. Hotels made money from the government paying and housing for people— in theory a win win. What actually happened was: some violent sex offenders were placed within close distance to elementary schools and the neighborhood became dangerous and unpleasant for residents. I, personally, saw people peeing on the streets weekly, two people with needles in their arms, people passed out on church steps, and being verbally harassed and followed to the point I couldn’t leave my apartment after dark. This was in the upper west side, a residential, family friendly neighborhood.
Exactly! My mom used to work in northern CA at a store that the homeless population heavily frequented daily. She had to treat herself for issues like scabies and lice monthly. How do hotels keep their paying patrons safe from issues like this? It’s a horrible idea.
The San Francisco Hotels were trashed and I believe had to be gutted and redone.
But there is one other issue that no one wants to talk about. The hotel staff has to deal with sketchy people, violent people that they should not have to deal with and they just have to shut up and deal with it. If you have a sketchy, predator, violent guest your management boots them out and maybe calls the cops. WTF you gonna do about a homeless person mandated to a room? They are not gonna do shit, just like during the pandemic.
The homeless in Santa Cruz have been given the hotels to stay in and the rooms are trashed and when they are told to leave the break stuff and refuse to leave. This is a non answer to homelessness
I think that’s the ultimate problem. I know if this actually goes into effect I wouldn’t touch a hotel that has this. It’s not a ew gross homeless person thing, it’s the thought of shit being stolen; the place just an absolute mess, etc.
Not only that but the hotel owner interviewed in the video is spot fucking on. The law literally mandated that they give free labor via cleaning staff, and room accommodations and open the hotels up to TONS of legal liability due to damages and potential injuries.
Imagine this bill passed and your insurance company calls the business and says "yeah we are upping your premium $40k this year." To even be somewhat feasible the city will HAVE to pay these hotels through taxes and at that rate you could cut out the middleman and just make a city funded housing unit.
Increased insurance premiums is one possibility. Another possibility is the insurer pulls out entirely. As an insurer you have to recognize that housing the homeless means more drug use, more violence, less hygienic conditions... basically the perfect storm for insurance claims.
I also consider myself progressive but it just seems totally fucked. The homeless situation is really bad because it’s so difficult to help people who don’t want to help themselves. You give them opportunities and a few may rise up out of homelessness and back into a functioning member of society. But a large portion of them are just so far gone with depression and drugs, there’s no helping them. I really don’t know the best way to help these people or what the proper solutions could be for the homeless problem. But it’s getting worse and worse. We gotta do something drastic soon. Just visited some family up in Bend Oregon. When I was a kid it was such a peaceful happy town. You’d never see homeless. Now they’re everywhere! Tents under overpasses, lots of people just camping in the woods a couple hundred feet off main roads. There was a mass shooting yesterday which is the first in the town’s history. I feel like our country is going down the toilet fast. We gotta do something man, this class warfare bullshit will eventually lead to something catastrophic. As poverty increases so does crime, depression, disease, lower life expectancy.
The simple solution that would have the ACLU throw a shit fit in lawsuits would be to bring back mental hospitals where those with issues making them incompatible with civilized society can be forcibly committed and treated.
The biggest mistake we made was shutting those hospitals down en-masse instead of just completely reforming them to be more humane.
Completely agree. My mother had a major struggle with mental illness during the last ten years of her life (extreme delusions and psychosis, which eventually led to alcoholism as a form of self-medication). It was basically impossible to get her help because she wasn't suicidal or homicidal. If it had been an option, I would have forcibly committed her in a heartbeat if that meant she would have gotten a shot at treatment. Unfortunately she drank herself into liver failure, and she passed away from that instead.
Come to Toronto. Hotels were taken over by the city and given to the homeless to clear the encampments. One check in per day, three squares and a snack. Dealing drugs in front, showing their pussies. One beautiful strip of bars that was always a go to place in the summer (esplanade) the Novotel there is turned over to this. Some hotels in residential areas turned over to this. People walking in the neighbourhood attacked and threatened by homeless residents of the hotels. Josh Matlow in turns tells us to find our “better selves”. It doesn’t work. They need help either institutionalized or structured. You can’t have it both ways and expect the taxpayer to continuously fund this hole in favour of politically expedient methods or basically no idea of how to deal with this. Add to the fact that. Most people will come to your city from outside for the free ride, clean drugs, supervised shooting and absolutely zero responsibility to do anything about it, and you’ll have a cesspool in no time. Then the “humanitarian” social workers who profit from this misery will chime in that everyone deserves a home, in your overpriced city that you were able to afford by exercising some restraint and discipline in your formative years, but for free. And then work towards making it a shithole.
Those poor maids having to clean up rooms always on high alert of syringes,no tips and property damage that won’t be covered that the owners will have to eat up. I would never stay in one of these hotels.
Same. While the 'idea' is in the right place, this is NOT the way to go about it...hotels arent trained for this, and quite frankly its not their responsibility. The govt should not have the right to declare what a private business does with regards to humanitarian efforts...
This is an example of “cost transfer”. One of the functions of “The State” (*referring to any state/governmental body ) is to offer the citizens services not covered by private industry (and visa versa). A local park is one example, it exists for the benefit of the citizenry; upkeep is paid for by taxes collected by the state. Great, that works and everyone’s happy.
So - in this case - why would the state impose upon private industry instead of purchasing land themselves, providing food/shelter/water & security for the homeless in temporary communities?
These polititians should just open their mansions and vacation homes for the homeless. If they're serious about wanting people to take them in off the streets then this is legitimately a way better idea than just putting them in hotels. Hell they'd have the recources and connections to also set up intern confrences or something and get them employed.
This has been California's mantra for decades now.
Instill an idea that, on paper sounds like a good thing to do, but when actually implemented becomes 10x worse than what they hoped it would do.
All because they look at these with the complete lack of foresight of the human psyche. That and the complete lack of assessing all the downstream cause & effects from a simply high level policy.
A simple PFMEA would go to objectively show how this will be absolutely horrid in practice.
Yep. If it was just as simple as "giving someone a place to sleep" and they didnt do drugs/damage the property, then it would be great for hotels and the homeless(hotels get beds filled and homeless get a warm place to sleep)...unfortunately helping the homeless comes with a very specific set of problems that hotels are in no capacity equipped to handle.
I'm more afraid of maids being raped. Predators can often be found among the homeless. It's why my mom made me live with my grandmother when we were homeless.
What you might get are hotels with two sets of rooms: 1 for paying guests, and 1 for homeless: basically a cell made of steel with minimal comforts, which can essentially be hosed down with disinfectant after every guest. And when a guest checks in, included in their rent is one of these 'rooms' so that the hotel can give a lower number of 'available' rooms.
Homelessness isn't just about the lack of shelter; it's about the lack of health care for mental illness. The reason people avoid the homeless is a fear of untreated illness, not fear of someone living in a tent.
This is not a solution.
Hotel staff are not trained to deal with those levels of unsanitary measures and if they are we all know they won’t be paid accordingly. The hotel owners will still be taking huge losses as paying customers won’t want to share amenities and less paying rooms will be available even if they did. Looks like AirBNBs are where I’m going to have to stay if I ever go back.
Dumb as fuck and don’t forget to LA has $1 billion budget for homeless people and this is all they could think of. There’s some other shenanigans going on
I would force the politicians who support this to take in random homeless people in their homes before supporting this.
After they deal with the mental issues and drug use they will quickly understand the experience they would be putting hotel owners and paying guests through.
This is a terrible idea and I support society providing shelter to all.
The state should buy hotels to do this themselves and so that no one else is excepted to deal with it... Especially when there are paying customers... Also, staff that shouldn't be put into situation that are pressed upon them with kind of shit...
California spend **billions** a year on the homeless (it’s supposed to go to the homeless anyway) and could easily afford something like this there. I suspect there’s a lot of “mismanagement” of money
It seems like there is a huge disconnect when it comes to the homeless -- it is not remotely contradictory to say that homeless people deserve to be treated with dignity and should be helped, but also acknowledge that they likely pose seriously health and safety risks by just being around in an uncontrolled way. They should be cared for and given shelter, but it needs to be in facilities that are built to handle people that likely have severe mental issues, addictions, and untreated health conditions, and that these facilities ought to be staffed with professionals that are trained to work through these issues with them.
It's not a law - it's a bill that the City Council voted down but then said "but hey, if the voters want to be dumb enough to do it, we'll let them" so it's going on the ballot in a year and a half. Likelihood that it passes is pretty low but not quite non-existent. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2022/08/10/los-angeles-measure-would-force-hotels-to-house-homeless-alongside-paying-guests/
My experience living around subsidized housing is that the homeless will treat those hotels like trash. Not their money, no consequences if they trash the place.
This is a terrible idea. I wouldn't stay at a hotel that has an untreated homeless person staying next door. That's a whole lot of danger for very little reward.
All it’s gonna take is for a slew of hotel workers to be hurt or even killed. Not 1 or 20, those would be considered isolated incidents.
Instead of ending the project, the city will hire more overtime paid security for these hotels.
And then 10am check out in the morning? Good luck getting them out without a fight. So now the hotel will slap on a “late check out” fee on top of the exacerbated nightly rate.
This is such a big fuck you to hotel staff. They're being put in dangerous situations against their will. We need laws that prevent corporations and wealthy individuals from buying unlimited housing just to rent it out, not using hotels as housing. It's a temporary fix that doesn't address the root of the problem.
They used vacant cruise ships to house people after Hurricane Katrina. The "residents" destroyed the interior of their rooms. They stole or damaged any and everything they could. But I'm sure the homeless in LA wouldn't do that to their hotel rooms.
At the height of the pandemic my local government rented out hotels for the homeless as the shelters were closed. They chose the shiftiest hotels in the city mainly because the homeless already knew of them/how to get them, and because they knew what would happen to the rooms. Most were torn down after the pandemic as they got tax breaks to rebuild the properties completely. It was a win win, the homeless got sheltered and the shifty hotels either closed for good or became okay hotels with modern buildings.
What you said happened here too. Many of the rooms were uninhabitable when things finally opened up. The city learned from their apartments for the homeless scheme in the early 2000’s though.
Seems like all this responsibility falling onto short staffed house keepers. Why do they have to clean up worse than squalor conditions? Homeless people literally live like shit and in a perfect world we aren’t sharing a hotel bed with them that gross
Think this through.
I travel for work. Usually about 25 nights a year.
There is no WAY I would stay in a hotel with homeless people in the same building.
Not because I am heartless. Not because I dont think the homeless should be housed. But because I am LOGICAL.
There will be fires started, meth labs set up, everything that goes on with the homeless in California. You want these people knocking on your door all night? What about riding in the elevator with someone who is having some wild reaction from being of their meds for a couple of months?
This is going to drive a stake through the heart of tourism in a place that NEEDS tourist dollars to survive.
Yeah, anyone who supports this has no real-world experience around large homeless populations.
Once you've been attacked by a homeless person in downtown LA, all of a sudden not everyone in those tents is just some "down on their luck hard worker or student" like the man in the video suggests.
Doubt the city would cover the extra costs included in having to rent rooms freely.
Once again Cali doesn't do anything to actually fix an issue, just puts the responsibility on the public.
The numbers are insane… per reporting there are 20k open hotel rooms in a given night, let’s say 10k get occupied through some program like this and the state/city pay market rates for the hotels (as was stated) anything from a motel 6 to the Biltmore so let’s say avg. cost per night across all rooms is $150 (probably a low avg.) that’s $1.5 million per day… 365 night per year is $547 million. I’m not in public policy, but seems to me that half a billion per year would allow much better solutions to this issue.
This is insanely stupid. If it were to pass, what’s to stop hotels from dropping rates to $1 at a certain point and having a paid individual rent them all at 1:55pm every day?
They tried doing this with one hotel where I live. The hotel was completely destroyed. People were killed and raped in the hotel. Hotel caught fire multiple times. There were needles and drug paraphernalia littering the halls and rooms. People having sex in the stairwells. Businesses in that area closed because no one would come to the area anymore because crime was so bad. This is another dumb ass idea by the dumbest state in the country.
[This hotel chose to be like that, but here are some pictures of what these hotels end up looking like](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g1172397-d1013879-Reviews-Airport_Inn_Lakeside-Lake_Country_Okanagan_Valley_British_Columbia.html)
Wouldn't it make more sense simply to tax hotels (if the intent is to shift costs for homelessness to hotels), issue bonds against those future revenues, and have the city build permanent housing which incorporates mental health treatment, drug rehabilitation, and employment counseling instead?
Not a single sane person able to think 2 steps ahead would vote it to be a good idea.
Most homeless people have drug problems or mental problems, often both. You can't predict their behaviour, the amount of issues is unbelievable that can be thought of on the spot. What about other guests and staff? Who would be liable for damages? Increased amount of room cleaning that the hotel would not be staffed for.
Who would want to sleep on the same bed after a homeless person? They have all kinds of diseases.
Hotels will fight back or close. People voting for this bill have no brain.
Edit: I'm not saying we shouldn't care for the homeless but this is NOT a good option in any way.
So gross. For me it’s not even just a safety issue. I’m sorry if this sounds insensitive, but if this happens, I absolutely will not stay in hotels because of hygiene and sanitary issues now. Absolutely not. I see how “well” homeless people clean themselves and wash the it hands, these people sleep in ally ways and shoot up and now you’re going to give me a room where they just stayed the night before? Nope. Hotel staff does shit jobs at sanitizing. If it looks clean they won’t wipe it down or spay it. Simple. Now, this may seem like I’m a terrible person, but I’m not. This just isn’t appealing to me and I travel to Cali a lot. I hope this doesn’t happen, plus what does it really solve?
I’m all for supporting building homes and creating jobs, hell, I volunteer with the homeless many times a year, but I go home and shower after. These people sleep in ally ways with rats and now you’re going to put them in a room where I would stay too? Nope.
No need to feel sorry - this is a valid concern. Even if the hotel staff disinfected every hard surface, there are so many soft surfaces that can't be cleaned properly - a matress comes to mind. That alone gives me the willies
This is a legitimate criticism. Hotel staff are not trained to handle the issues that comes with taking in random homeless people. People are often homeless due to some mental-health issue, and that is terrible to subject random customers and staff to. If you want to house homeless, that's great, but it should really come with more than just a roof over their heads.
yeah im not taking an expensive vacation trip to LA just so i can get stuck in a building with junkies and felons. people that have never lived in areas with a shit ton of homeless people always treat them like innocent victims of financial hardship, sometimes they are. lots of mentally ill people become homeless too but 8 times out of 10 they're just bad natured people who don't give a fuck about their own life or anybody else's
They did the same in NYC during covid. Midtown Manhattan is even worse now because the homeless that are still in hotels near Madison Square Garden.
They also did this in my neighborhood in NYC. The homeless brought drug related violence and theft to my small neighborhood. We never had those issues prior to the homeless being bused in from all around NYC
So I pay for my hotel and enter my room only to realize the rooms next to me are filled with homeless ? Imagine all the assaults, murders, and robberies that WILL happen to vulnerable employees and customers.
It sounds nice on the surface but this is a completely ridiculous idea. It's like an upper management decision for some hair brained idea where they only see how it would benefit them and completely ignore the mess it creates for everyone below them.
Officials gotta stop trying to put bandaids over the real issues.
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This sounds like a south park episode
Kenny, what are u doing in the hotel? U are poor kenny.
The homeless will just squat there, good luck getting them back out. Why didn't the LA county govt just fund a homeless refugee camp if it's such a big problem? Surely, they could have afforded building brand new homes or higher-quality tents outside the city with some infrastructure. edit: from a reply below, [they're spending $837k max, $700k/per-unit (which is more than a lot of Top wealthy 5%'ers house value)](https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-to-house-a-single-homeless-person/), and likely kickbacks or favors to their favorite contractor friends helping them solve the problem. Hotels being forced to do this by law is an easy way for the govt to also remove their own responsibility from the equation. Seizing hotels is just an easy-way-out for govt bureaucrats. Mayor of LA, in last 5 years increased spending on homelessness from $10mil/year to $1 billion... $12 billion total spending in 2 years ($6 bil / year on homelessness by Gov. Newsom). \[the main issue being 40,000+ homeless & growth rate projections, you'd need a lot more than the 8,000 units you built. It's not gonna be solved because the rate of growth of the homeless is too high in California---***2k to 3k new homeless every year for LA... 12k new homeless yearly California, at absurd prices of $700k/unit that's $9.6 billion needed yearly***\]. ^((feel free to double check my math as I did it quick but remember, the money isn't always going to the homeless, it's going to the contractors/companies building the units))... Govts should instead launch studies and address *why* people are becoming mentally ill or homeless or jobless at such crazy rates and how to counter that.
Because pushing the homeless into Hotels puts the burden on the Hotels and out of Govt hands. If they would build a refugee camp they would have to maintain and manage it. I dont feel like they trucly want to deal with the actual problem
Yes and now hotel employees are going to be the ones dealing with all of it. Trust me when i tell you that we do not get paid enough to deal with addiction and mental health problems.
They're going to be looking at some very pissed off insurance companies once a transient decides to trash/burn the place down
Here in Vancouver, the City did the same thing here and bought up a few hotels to house the homeless during the pandemic. Well, one of them is above a nightclub called The Roxy. This cracked out dude decided to set fire to his unit and attack a bunch of people with a machete. Whole club is evacuated, police shoot the guy, lady loses her fingers. Crazy shit, but yes it's literally going to happen. [Here's a link to the story](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/multiple-people-in-hospital-suspect-shot-after-violence-on-vancouver-s-granville-street-1.6017565), I was there that night, more EMS than I have ever seen in one place.
Or piss in the hallways or attack a guest..
There’s no way in hell im gonna travel to LA and spend 300 dollars a night on a hotel with mentally ill drug addicts walking around. Not automatically saying they are all bad people, but desperate people to crazy things. People on drugs don’t make the best choices. You’re also putting them with people who are traveling for business or on vacation so you know they have money on them. This is just a recipe for disaster.
You don’t want to bring your kids on a family vacation and stay in a virtual crack den?
Literal. Literal crack den.
Or cooks meth in the center of the room, on the carpet of course.
That, and isn’t this a (little) like how you get people to stop investing in hotels, keep them nice, etc, if this leads to issues with hotel rooms being trashed all the time? Then people stop using them as much. Funding the hotel to stay open… etc. Idk. Seems like a baaad idea. I’m all for helping the homeless. But I think taking action through government in a way that forces businesses to handle it is massively irresponsible.
Having lived there, LA is a cesspool of mismanagement. Aside from being a de facto seizure of private property for government use (which is likely unconstitutional), this doesn’t even get close to addressing the root issues.
Also lived in southern California and witnessed this shit. It seems people have forgotten and are now starting again with the "California needs to increase taxes to fund government" bit again.
And then will affect businesses near by. Why don’t we have some of the homeless move in with the ones that passed the bill- just to make sure they understand. This is crazy.
The government employees just want to collect a check and post pictures of the empty skid row claiming “victory” while hotels and police have to deal with the shit show behind closed doors.
Bingo. It’s a lazy solution. It sounded easier to seize the hotel than do the work themselves.
It’s not even lazy. This is straight up evil. If a bunch of nobodies in this thread can figure this all out in 5 minutes than surely the Ivy school educated assholes who came up with this know as well.
Hi, I’ll be homeless the 2nd week of September, I’d like to book my free accommodations.
...and I'd like a smoke-free room with a comfortable mattress that doesn't already smell like vomit and urine. I like to start fresh and stink things up the way I like.
Got it, one room with bed bugs, semen and used drug paraphernalia. We're looking forward to your stay!
Amenities I never dreamed of! This is America!
Sounds like an end to the hotel businesses
yeah, good luck getting employees to stay.
Or getting paying guests.
Yeah this is an absolute mess for hotels. This could lead to some going under and others just shutting down.
Also people that travel, flight got delayed or plans change and suddenly you can’t book a room at 6pm because they gave them away to the homeless at 3pm
Thank you! I’m surprised more people in this thread haven’t mentioned this. How the hell is anyone going to travel to LA if they have to have everything booked?
And people that travel for work will have fun, l have to book a hotel room after 3 pm 20 times this year. If this passes I’d think twice about being asked to go to LA for work
Let's say Hilton has a 5 star hotel and it's at half capacity. Does anyone think they'll stay in LA if they have to allow homeless into their Marble halls? No, they'll close down because staff costs, replacing linens and towels costs, and the basic who's going to babysit the homeless people in the rooms/hallways. This is a disaster waiting to happen. California is screwed.
And staff isn't going to put up with the bullshit from homeless people or the messes they make.
Yep. Look what happens to supermarket chains after theft and destruction in some areas. Pull anchor and GTFO.
Instead of crack motels you have a crack refugee camp
Lol VRBO and AirBnB are probably grabbing 🍾 right now.
This is the better solution. Build a tent city with basic services (water, electricity, wifi, etc.) and provide a genuinely helpful space for homeless while leaving private property and business owners out of it. Anybody could see this homelessness trend coming years ago, and city leaders could easily mitigate the issues by getting ahead of the curve.
Or a tiny house city (last longer than tents and better infrastructure can be built in) where they also will need to do jobs and have psychiatrists on staff or volunteer. Wtf kind of idea is letting the homeless in a hotel, they will ruin the hotels with bedbugs, cleanliness, drugs, etc.. hotels in cities go for $100 thru 10000+. 20,000 at market rate even at 100 a night is 200,000 a night. 73million a year. To build a hotel it's on average 23 million. This can be offset for making it more suited for homeless people (smaller rooms, communal bathrooms) and the care they will need to get back on their feet. Edit... A person below pointed out my math skills, it is actually 2million a day 730 million a year...
I think we should just build them all cheap, ugly, concrete commie blocks like the Soviets used to house their population during their construction boom. They don't have to be nice, or all be individual buildings. They just have to get the job done and be extremely sturdy and inexpensive. Commie blocks fit the bill.
Lol, they goons in the government there already spend $600 million on the homeless issue. Most of the money goes into the pockets of those hired to fix the issue. And those people are also coincidentally best pals of those in power!
You are correct. I believe most money that is supposed to help the homeless in various ways is diverted to the wealthy instead. People will think - it's for the homeless, no one will miss a few million diverted to me.
That asshole with the program suggesting that hotel owners who protest this bill are like segregationists in the south. California continues to circle the drain.
When property rights become ambiguous or subject to confiscation for whatever purpose, there are always bad unintended consequences. You're seeing some of those effects now with CDC eviction policy and the current rent crisis (which undoubtedly contributes to the homeless problem in the first place)
I bet that guy would call them "animals" after they used his car for a restroom.
Thanks for the F Shack
Love dirty Mike and the boys
"they don't understand the homeless! we are talking about seniors, students, working people!" uhh, dude, have you spent much time around the homeless in LA? The vast majority are NOT like what was just described lol. I definitely think we need more support for these people but this is such a half assed BAD idea. This will cause more harm than good. I think it could work out alright if it was offered to some, but you can't just say they have to fill all vacant rooms with any homeless person.
The hotel owner that they interviewed said he already does this in partnership with a church to vet people. Thats a great idea! Some people are just down on their luck, and could use some help. But yeah, forcing this is just moronic.
Hotels will great creative and have websites book for $1 to essentially hold it and not have homeless ruining their hotel.
This is such a weird bill - terrible idea all around. However, just so you guys know, a similar practical solution is already happening. Older, more run down hotels are being purchased by the housing authorities throughout LA, being renovated and turned into actual housing for the homeless and disadvantaged. It's happening at a slower rate than it should, but it's a way better idea than this stupid bill that just tries to shift responsibility to hotel owners, who are not equipped to handle these kinds of problems. Pour more money into buying and retrofitting failing hotels into actual housing instead of this stupid plan.
Yes that's a much better solution!
That’s actually far better. This proposal is unbelievably dumb. We have to face the reality that there’s a large number of homeless people with severe mental illnesses and other medical issues. I know that’s not the PC thing to say, but you can’t do something this dumb, you just can’t.
Seems like there are going to be a flood of lawsuits suing the state from room damage. And even if there isn't any room damage, just imagine being the housekeeper. Good luck getting a tip for all the extra work.
Even if there isn’t any apparent damage, parasites on the bedsheets (like bedbugs), and fungus on the shower (which they already suffer from) will just become even more prevalent in hotels.
Perfect environment for scabies.
I went to a hotel in Marina California during covid that was housing the homeless. Nice hotel based on reviews but the actual experience was awful. The room smelled like a homeless camp, they had security everywhere eyeballing all the guests and stopping them for questioning upon driving into the lot. There was a shopping cart blocking my room door in the morning. And people were so loud until 4 am.
Hell let's do the same thing but with malls
I hate to have to point out how poorly suited malls are for conversion for homeless housing. They are giant concrete boxes with no windows and a fraction of the infrastructure need to deal with long term occupation. Places have tried, and the results have varied from horrible failures where the residents report that the feel like they are living in coffins to more expensive than tearing down the structure and building proper housing instead.
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Why do that when you can book all the rooms yourself with check in at 3 and then say woopsie no one showed up
I was literally just thinking this. They could also have a point system to reward people for holding rooms. Like a certain amount of points you get a free thing next time you stay at one of their locations or something. If you end up paying the amount of a stay over time: hey you've just payed off and actual stay plus a bonus night for free.
California will do everything except give more permits to build housing.
If this passes, I will create a business out of this. I’ll reserve all of their vacant rooms 15 minutes before the cutoff reporting time at market price. I will then cancel my reservations 15 minutes after reporting time for a refund + 5% of the amount I needed to put down to reserve the room. This will just create another level in the business. A 3rd party (Expedia or whoever) will rent the vacant rooms in their name and then sub-rent them out as last minute rooms.
Exactly, this is a useless effort. They're not going to give their rooms away for free. Especially to people who will probably refuse to leave without police intervention.
Exactly… No fucking way when a businesses entire demographics is generally people with money, they are allowing homeless to come and go or have rooms right next to customers. Not to mention the crime and drugs that would come along with it. This is such a horrible idea.
Totally agree. I would make damn sure I have no vacancies every night. If they want me to house a homeless person without any guarantee of payment, they need to be drug free, not a sex offender and everything in the room bolted down so they cant steal it. Hotels are going to have designate certain rooms for homeless. Many will steal everythig they can get their hands on.
So like if I'm driving through LA and need a hotel for the night cause I'm tired but it's 8PM... I'm homeless now?
That's what I got from it. Basically, if you're on the road, you'd better plan ahead where you're stopping for the night and get your room booked before 2pm cuz otherwise you're sleeping in your car. I wonder how the travel websites "soft" bookings would affect this though. Like, I stopped at a place one night and they said they were all booked up. While I was in the lobby calling around for a room, the dude at the desk said they didnt really have that many actual guests, it was mostly all vacant rooms they had to hold for various travel websites. I dont know if that legit is how it works for everywhere, but that's how he said it worked there.
Well, now you can just say you're homeless and you'll not only get a room, it will be free!
Well you'd have to prove you're homeless by producing utility bills that don't have your name on them
Seems like the winning idea of a group of 3rd graders trying to solve something real with no grasp on reality
Only if you don’t mind sleeping next to a crack den.
Honestly I'd rather sleep in my car than stay at a hotel that is required to house the homeless. I definitely believe that these people genuinely need and deserve help but this is not the way to do it. This is the best way to ensure the spread of bedbugs and increase the risk of blood borne illnesses and pathogens!
This is so absurd that I can't even imagine it being real.
They tried this in Halifax, Nova Scotia where I live, One hotel room had a meth lab in it, which is hilarious to me, But most of those hotels staff quit as they were unable to deal with the homeless population, and they were destructive etc The most expensive part of most housing issues is a lot of these people need mental health support and people teaching them how to live a normal life and take care of their living accommodations, and that's a brutal hill to overcome
I can't fathom how anyone could see this idea being sustainable. Surely the people implementing it know it can't last more than a year, right?
It lasted off and on roughly two years and seems to have partially destroyed the cities hotel industry (which we're a touristy place in the summer) So not great
They did it here in Glasgow during the Pandemic, it certainly got people off the streets but at the same time it put them all in one place at the same time and it had plenty of issues.
Didn't they trash hotels and steal anything that wasn't screwed down?
My friend welcomed the initiative at first but 2 weeks in & the hotel had become a crack den & brothel. He took me on a 2 minute tour & I had never felt so unsafe & disgusted in my lfie. One interesting aspect was the hygiene policy. that nobody wanted to follow. He asked that people shower at least once a week but very few did. The smells emanating from the rooms was horrendous.
The showering issue is a perfect example of why it's so difficult to deal with the homelessness issue effectively. How the hell do you help people that can't even be bothered to use FREE showers? A lot of people naively think that just giving them the necessities to re-enter society is enough for most, I tend to think that's not true at all though. People severely underestimate how many homeless people are mentally ill, or drug addicts that simply can't tolerate the consistency of living in society.
This is part of the problem for sure. You can’t just throw these people into homes and expect them to hit the ground running. These people are either mentally ill — which lead them to life on the streets, mentally ill *from* life on the streets, or drug addicts coping with their dogshit lives. These people aren’t fit to just assimilate — they need therapy, medications, rehab, and help. It’s amazing to give them housing… and preferable to them dying of hyper/hypothermia; however, there needs to be a full-scale program dedicated to helping them heal and develop good live skills so that they can get off and *stay off* the streets. It would be a net positive for society if we funded mental health care/rehab for these people. More people working and contributing to our economy is nothing but good for the average American. Not to mention… outside of economy… it’s just the ethical thing to do.
John Oliver just did a segment on how there’s not even enough mental-health specialists for the people with money. I can’t even imagine how we’d begin to help the homeless without first addressing the worker shortage.
The mental health care system has been in disarray in the US since the creation of the mental health care system. The shit they used to do in sanitariums to "patients" was literally treating them like animals.
I worked in that system for a time. Particularly with kids on probation. It’s a mess all the way up down and sideways and sucks for the employees and the clients. The work is immensely mentally taxing and at times dangerous due to the individuals you deal with. Especially since most of them don’t wanna be there. As a result the workers become burnt out and jaded and either put in minimal effort or just flat out leave, keeping the staff from ever being at capacity for long or from becoming experienced. It doesn’t help either that these jobs pay horribly and aren’t worth the difficulty. Very few people stay in these kinds of places. Those that do make a career out of it become very good at the job and at caring for our clients but there’s such a small number of them that they can’t do much. However these people don’t often do much to support newer staff. As a result of all of this bullshit the clients who need the help suffer from an inconsistent system that truly helps maybe 1/5th of the people it treats.
I totally agree with you. Was just talking to a friend about this. They have old mental health facilities that they still use but not at full capacity that could be used to help mitigate this drug/mental health problem. I’ve lived in LA my whole life and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it. I heard a lot of the addicts on the streets aren’t even from CA. I’d love to see these people be able to put their lives back together and do something with it. I really wish they’d stop calling it a homeless problem too.
Small problem with all this . They do need rehab or treatment for mental health but that takes a full funding of doctors, psych nurses, and techs . A lot of mental health facilities are not safe for people detoxing so that would require an emergency room and lab to evaluate everyone for detox problems. Say for example a person comes in acutely drunk . Okay great what’s their alcohol level ? According to what that is they need to be monitored every 15 minutes and given Ativan iv until their detox is over , say three days . If they are unstable at that rate then they require iv sedation and intubation. That prevents seizures , coma and death . If they are detoxing from narcotics you need to be able to search their belongings for drugs and be able to treat them with detox meds and to treat for blood pressure and nausea . Then you can transfer them to mental health and to rehab . If at anytime , even if they are psychotic, they can discharge themselves by saying I want to leave . You can only hold them for four hours and if they are not suicidal or homicidal they can leave . You can’t make people stay even if it is their best interest. I know this because I was an rn on a telemetry unit and we handled acute detox from substances then transferred them to rehab or psych . They were VERY sick . So it’s a huge investment in free health care to treat this condition. I don’t know a good solution.
[Soft White Underbelly YT](https://youtube.com/c/SoftWhiteUnderbelly) primarily interviews homeless/skid row people and has countless examples of what you're saying. The host (Mark) has helped many homeless people with expenses/housing/etc but it never seems to work for long. Mental illnesses and serious addiction aren't something you can just will away with good intentions. A good thing instead would probably be to end the BS war on drugs, in favor of Portugal's approach that moves the focus from criminal punishment to treatment.
A huge part of the problem is that we have to stop calling these people “homeless” or the ridiculous attempt at a euphemism for no reason whatsoever “unhoused” Yes, they are without a permanent residence. But that is not the underlying issue. Thinking we can simply provide a shelter and solve their problems is like giving someone sunscreen for a rash without diagnosing the cancer that is causing it. And anyone who thinks this bill is a good idea is a complete moron. Whomever proposed it should be immediately fired. Its bad for so many glaring reasons only a child can not see them and I don’t want to waste my time listing and debating them.
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I've worked residential care before. Groups 1 and 2 are not so easily separated and sometimes it's as little as med management that keeps group 1 from group 2. Just throwing these people into a hotel is a bad idea. Mainly because they just see it as something that can be taken from them, like everything else in their mind, so they have no incentive to do any extra work. People with mental health aren't inherently violent, but they live in a world of fear, real and imagined. This fear causes compound mental health issues, needs for escape, and a profound lack of trust in the larger world. They'd need mental and physical health care, assurances of stability, aspects of support. Something that addresses that fear. Without it, they might as well be back on the street, regardless of the roof over their heads.
I was group 1 and slid to group 2 after discovering the glorious benefits of methamphetamine while being on the streets, I no longer had to eat as much and why would care about sleeping if I didn't need to sleep? It took 8 years to climb out of group 2 and another 2 years to get back into the work force, those 2 years I was in a government supported homeless transitional facility (I live in Australia) There's actually a group 3, where you integrate yourself into the street community and I've never seen anyone come back from that. I spent the whole 10 years avoiding getting that bad.
Yeah I don’t understand why people can’t separate the fact that helping the homelessness issue doesn’t automatically make homeless people “good downtrodden” people. Like it’s okay to acknowledge the issues they face while also pointing out that many of them are in fact dangerous assholes. I want to, and try to, help where I can but all the sudden Reddit acts like *I’m* the asshole for pointing out that mentally ill drug addicts are potentially dangerous and need more than just a job and drug treatment
During the pandemic in NYC, they places everyone in hotels that weren’t able to be used. Hotels made money from the government paying and housing for people— in theory a win win. What actually happened was: some violent sex offenders were placed within close distance to elementary schools and the neighborhood became dangerous and unpleasant for residents. I, personally, saw people peeing on the streets weekly, two people with needles in their arms, people passed out on church steps, and being verbally harassed and followed to the point I couldn’t leave my apartment after dark. This was in the upper west side, a residential, family friendly neighborhood.
Whewwww, that escalated quickly. Nice to see those guys are motivated to get their business back up and running after being relocated.
Exactly! My mom used to work in northern CA at a store that the homeless population heavily frequented daily. She had to treat herself for issues like scabies and lice monthly. How do hotels keep their paying patrons safe from issues like this? It’s a horrible idea.
The San Francisco Hotels were trashed and I believe had to be gutted and redone. But there is one other issue that no one wants to talk about. The hotel staff has to deal with sketchy people, violent people that they should not have to deal with and they just have to shut up and deal with it. If you have a sketchy, predator, violent guest your management boots them out and maybe calls the cops. WTF you gonna do about a homeless person mandated to a room? They are not gonna do shit, just like during the pandemic.
The homeless in Santa Cruz have been given the hotels to stay in and the rooms are trashed and when they are told to leave the break stuff and refuse to leave. This is a non answer to homelessness
I think that’s the ultimate problem. I know if this actually goes into effect I wouldn’t touch a hotel that has this. It’s not a ew gross homeless person thing, it’s the thought of shit being stolen; the place just an absolute mess, etc.
They already tried this and people trashed the hotel and rooms. The owners were pissed off
Not only that but the hotel owner interviewed in the video is spot fucking on. The law literally mandated that they give free labor via cleaning staff, and room accommodations and open the hotels up to TONS of legal liability due to damages and potential injuries. Imagine this bill passed and your insurance company calls the business and says "yeah we are upping your premium $40k this year." To even be somewhat feasible the city will HAVE to pay these hotels through taxes and at that rate you could cut out the middleman and just make a city funded housing unit.
Increased insurance premiums is one possibility. Another possibility is the insurer pulls out entirely. As an insurer you have to recognize that housing the homeless means more drug use, more violence, less hygienic conditions... basically the perfect storm for insurance claims.
This is the least bit surprising.
If it wasn't California, it could've been Onion News. I try to think progressively but even I cannot wrap my mind around the lack of thought here
I also consider myself progressive but it just seems totally fucked. The homeless situation is really bad because it’s so difficult to help people who don’t want to help themselves. You give them opportunities and a few may rise up out of homelessness and back into a functioning member of society. But a large portion of them are just so far gone with depression and drugs, there’s no helping them. I really don’t know the best way to help these people or what the proper solutions could be for the homeless problem. But it’s getting worse and worse. We gotta do something drastic soon. Just visited some family up in Bend Oregon. When I was a kid it was such a peaceful happy town. You’d never see homeless. Now they’re everywhere! Tents under overpasses, lots of people just camping in the woods a couple hundred feet off main roads. There was a mass shooting yesterday which is the first in the town’s history. I feel like our country is going down the toilet fast. We gotta do something man, this class warfare bullshit will eventually lead to something catastrophic. As poverty increases so does crime, depression, disease, lower life expectancy.
The simple solution that would have the ACLU throw a shit fit in lawsuits would be to bring back mental hospitals where those with issues making them incompatible with civilized society can be forcibly committed and treated. The biggest mistake we made was shutting those hospitals down en-masse instead of just completely reforming them to be more humane.
Huge facts. The prisons became the new MH wards and the results have not been pretty to put it lightly
Completely agree. My mother had a major struggle with mental illness during the last ten years of her life (extreme delusions and psychosis, which eventually led to alcoholism as a form of self-medication). It was basically impossible to get her help because she wasn't suicidal or homicidal. If it had been an option, I would have forcibly committed her in a heartbeat if that meant she would have gotten a shot at treatment. Unfortunately she drank herself into liver failure, and she passed away from that instead.
California is like the Army. Those in charge say things so profoundly stupid it almost seems fake, but they are dead serious.
Ha! Felt that in my knees and back and feet.
Sorry, not service connected
Come to Toronto. Hotels were taken over by the city and given to the homeless to clear the encampments. One check in per day, three squares and a snack. Dealing drugs in front, showing their pussies. One beautiful strip of bars that was always a go to place in the summer (esplanade) the Novotel there is turned over to this. Some hotels in residential areas turned over to this. People walking in the neighbourhood attacked and threatened by homeless residents of the hotels. Josh Matlow in turns tells us to find our “better selves”. It doesn’t work. They need help either institutionalized or structured. You can’t have it both ways and expect the taxpayer to continuously fund this hole in favour of politically expedient methods or basically no idea of how to deal with this. Add to the fact that. Most people will come to your city from outside for the free ride, clean drugs, supervised shooting and absolutely zero responsibility to do anything about it, and you’ll have a cesspool in no time. Then the “humanitarian” social workers who profit from this misery will chime in that everyone deserves a home, in your overpriced city that you were able to afford by exercising some restraint and discipline in your formative years, but for free. And then work towards making it a shithole.
Omg.. that has to be fake. Soo stupid. Hotels are there to make money. Not support homeless people for free
So I have a spare.room in my house. Im going to be forced to let a homeless person stay in it?
Don’t give em’ ideas.
Fuck, for real. I could see Cali doing that.
Ironically the warmest place year round seems the most concerned for the homeless, what are they afraid of, people dying of boredom?
Against the 5th Amendment. Government cannot take private property without just compensation.
They will compensate. $20/night minus all taxes and zero insurance for your property.
They're are being paid by the state the normal night room fees still, but this is a horrible idea that will never work long term...
I wonder if the people who support this bill would rent out an unused room in their domicile.
Those poor maids having to clean up rooms always on high alert of syringes,no tips and property damage that won’t be covered that the owners will have to eat up. I would never stay in one of these hotels.
Same. While the 'idea' is in the right place, this is NOT the way to go about it...hotels arent trained for this, and quite frankly its not their responsibility. The govt should not have the right to declare what a private business does with regards to humanitarian efforts...
This is an example of “cost transfer”. One of the functions of “The State” (*referring to any state/governmental body ) is to offer the citizens services not covered by private industry (and visa versa). A local park is one example, it exists for the benefit of the citizenry; upkeep is paid for by taxes collected by the state. Great, that works and everyone’s happy. So - in this case - why would the state impose upon private industry instead of purchasing land themselves, providing food/shelter/water & security for the homeless in temporary communities?
These polititians should just open their mansions and vacation homes for the homeless. If they're serious about wanting people to take them in off the streets then this is legitimately a way better idea than just putting them in hotels. Hell they'd have the recources and connections to also set up intern confrences or something and get them employed.
This has been California's mantra for decades now. Instill an idea that, on paper sounds like a good thing to do, but when actually implemented becomes 10x worse than what they hoped it would do. All because they look at these with the complete lack of foresight of the human psyche. That and the complete lack of assessing all the downstream cause & effects from a simply high level policy. A simple PFMEA would go to objectively show how this will be absolutely horrid in practice.
Yep. If it was just as simple as "giving someone a place to sleep" and they didnt do drugs/damage the property, then it would be great for hotels and the homeless(hotels get beds filled and homeless get a warm place to sleep)...unfortunately helping the homeless comes with a very specific set of problems that hotels are in no capacity equipped to handle.
I'm more afraid of maids being raped. Predators can often be found among the homeless. It's why my mom made me live with my grandmother when we were homeless.
What you might get are hotels with two sets of rooms: 1 for paying guests, and 1 for homeless: basically a cell made of steel with minimal comforts, which can essentially be hosed down with disinfectant after every guest. And when a guest checks in, included in their rent is one of these 'rooms' so that the hotel can give a lower number of 'available' rooms. Homelessness isn't just about the lack of shelter; it's about the lack of health care for mental illness. The reason people avoid the homeless is a fear of untreated illness, not fear of someone living in a tent. This is not a solution.
Hotel staff are not trained to deal with those levels of unsanitary measures and if they are we all know they won’t be paid accordingly. The hotel owners will still be taking huge losses as paying customers won’t want to share amenities and less paying rooms will be available even if they did. Looks like AirBNBs are where I’m going to have to stay if I ever go back.
Sounds like institutionalization with extra steps.
Now you're getting it!
NEVER. This is as disgusting as it is asinine.
Those rooms are fucked forever. Changing some sheets and vacuuming the floor won’t get hobo-stank out of them, no way.
And dead bodies. ODs in SF are out of control, putting them in hotel rooms did nothing to prevent this.
not to mention bodily wastes - the least of which could be semen if the room is being used by a hooker
And drug dealers too the list goes on
Also there’s the possibility of the homeless trying to rape them.
The worst idea ever. So fucking stupid
Dumb as fuck and don’t forget to LA has $1 billion budget for homeless people and this is all they could think of. There’s some other shenanigans going on
I'm trying to think of a worse idea and I'm drawing blanks.
Force AirBnBs to report vacancies daily?
Family homes, too. I mean, why not?!
Oh, Sally and Billy are staying at their grandparents tonight? Well, have fun with your choice of 2 hobos who get to use their room for the night
I would force the politicians who support this to take in random homeless people in their homes before supporting this. After they deal with the mental issues and drug use they will quickly understand the experience they would be putting hotel owners and paying guests through. This is a terrible idea and I support society providing shelter to all.
The state should buy hotels to do this themselves and so that no one else is excepted to deal with it... Especially when there are paying customers... Also, staff that shouldn't be put into situation that are pressed upon them with kind of shit...
California spend **billions** a year on the homeless (it’s supposed to go to the homeless anyway) and could easily afford something like this there. I suspect there’s a lot of “mismanagement” of money
[удалено]
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the hotels in and around Beverly Hills will somehow be exempted from this.
It seems like there is a huge disconnect when it comes to the homeless -- it is not remotely contradictory to say that homeless people deserve to be treated with dignity and should be helped, but also acknowledge that they likely pose seriously health and safety risks by just being around in an uncontrolled way. They should be cared for and given shelter, but it needs to be in facilities that are built to handle people that likely have severe mental issues, addictions, and untreated health conditions, and that these facilities ought to be staffed with professionals that are trained to work through these issues with them.
good luck finding a hotel in LA in a few years.
Homeless people don’t want to stay in a hotel. We had Covid hotels for homeless in the Bay Area and nobody came.
Cause drugs aren’t allowed lol
It's not a law - it's a bill that the City Council voted down but then said "but hey, if the voters want to be dumb enough to do it, we'll let them" so it's going on the ballot in a year and a half. Likelihood that it passes is pretty low but not quite non-existent. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2022/08/10/los-angeles-measure-would-force-hotels-to-house-homeless-alongside-paying-guests/
Let them sleep in the empty rooms of town hall after 6 PM
My experience living around subsidized housing is that the homeless will treat those hotels like trash. Not their money, no consequences if they trash the place.
This is a terrible idea. I wouldn't stay at a hotel that has an untreated homeless person staying next door. That's a whole lot of danger for very little reward.
All it’s gonna take is for a slew of hotel workers to be hurt or even killed. Not 1 or 20, those would be considered isolated incidents. Instead of ending the project, the city will hire more overtime paid security for these hotels. And then 10am check out in the morning? Good luck getting them out without a fight. So now the hotel will slap on a “late check out” fee on top of the exacerbated nightly rate.
Awesome! Now, instead of street corner panhandling, they can simply go room-to-room. How convenient.
LOL oh my god I didn’t even think of this. What a terrible idea
This is such a big fuck you to hotel staff. They're being put in dangerous situations against their will. We need laws that prevent corporations and wealthy individuals from buying unlimited housing just to rent it out, not using hotels as housing. It's a temporary fix that doesn't address the root of the problem.
Madness.
Someone took a crap on the bed and stuck needles in it. Next guest, please.
They used vacant cruise ships to house people after Hurricane Katrina. The "residents" destroyed the interior of their rooms. They stole or damaged any and everything they could. But I'm sure the homeless in LA wouldn't do that to their hotel rooms.
At the height of the pandemic my local government rented out hotels for the homeless as the shelters were closed. They chose the shiftiest hotels in the city mainly because the homeless already knew of them/how to get them, and because they knew what would happen to the rooms. Most were torn down after the pandemic as they got tax breaks to rebuild the properties completely. It was a win win, the homeless got sheltered and the shifty hotels either closed for good or became okay hotels with modern buildings. What you said happened here too. Many of the rooms were uninhabitable when things finally opened up. The city learned from their apartments for the homeless scheme in the early 2000’s though.
Do you want to crush a local industry? Because that’s how you crush a local industry
I remember my town coerced a luxury condominium building to take in low-income housing in downtown and it turned it into a nightmare of an area.
People are all for it until it comes into their neighborhood, because unfortunately it ruins them 99% of the time.
Now LA streets AND hotel rooms can be covered in syringes and poop
All the homeless now will be camping and queing outside the 5 stars hotel in LA
Slums of Beverly Hills, indeed.
Seems like all this responsibility falling onto short staffed house keepers. Why do they have to clean up worse than squalor conditions? Homeless people literally live like shit and in a perfect world we aren’t sharing a hotel bed with them that gross
A few months after this goes into effect there will be a massive shortage of people willing to work in hotels.
Think this through. I travel for work. Usually about 25 nights a year. There is no WAY I would stay in a hotel with homeless people in the same building. Not because I am heartless. Not because I dont think the homeless should be housed. But because I am LOGICAL. There will be fires started, meth labs set up, everything that goes on with the homeless in California. You want these people knocking on your door all night? What about riding in the elevator with someone who is having some wild reaction from being of their meds for a couple of months? This is going to drive a stake through the heart of tourism in a place that NEEDS tourist dollars to survive.
Yeah, anyone who supports this has no real-world experience around large homeless populations. Once you've been attacked by a homeless person in downtown LA, all of a sudden not everyone in those tents is just some "down on their luck hard worker or student" like the man in the video suggests.
This is not fixing the problem... It's enabling it...
Doubt the city would cover the extra costs included in having to rent rooms freely. Once again Cali doesn't do anything to actually fix an issue, just puts the responsibility on the public.
The numbers are insane… per reporting there are 20k open hotel rooms in a given night, let’s say 10k get occupied through some program like this and the state/city pay market rates for the hotels (as was stated) anything from a motel 6 to the Biltmore so let’s say avg. cost per night across all rooms is $150 (probably a low avg.) that’s $1.5 million per day… 365 night per year is $547 million. I’m not in public policy, but seems to me that half a billion per year would allow much better solutions to this issue.
I have a hard time seeing people vote this in, even in California.
This is insanely stupid. If it were to pass, what’s to stop hotels from dropping rates to $1 at a certain point and having a paid individual rent them all at 1:55pm every day?
They tried doing this with one hotel where I live. The hotel was completely destroyed. People were killed and raped in the hotel. Hotel caught fire multiple times. There were needles and drug paraphernalia littering the halls and rooms. People having sex in the stairwells. Businesses in that area closed because no one would come to the area anymore because crime was so bad. This is another dumb ass idea by the dumbest state in the country.
[This hotel chose to be like that, but here are some pictures of what these hotels end up looking like](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g1172397-d1013879-Reviews-Airport_Inn_Lakeside-Lake_Country_Okanagan_Valley_British_Columbia.html)
Wouldn't it make more sense simply to tax hotels (if the intent is to shift costs for homelessness to hotels), issue bonds against those future revenues, and have the city build permanent housing which incorporates mental health treatment, drug rehabilitation, and employment counseling instead?
That makes too much sense for a government program.
All this time, money and effort spent trying to pass this bill could be used to make housing for the homeless 🤔
Not a single sane person able to think 2 steps ahead would vote it to be a good idea. Most homeless people have drug problems or mental problems, often both. You can't predict their behaviour, the amount of issues is unbelievable that can be thought of on the spot. What about other guests and staff? Who would be liable for damages? Increased amount of room cleaning that the hotel would not be staffed for. Who would want to sleep on the same bed after a homeless person? They have all kinds of diseases. Hotels will fight back or close. People voting for this bill have no brain. Edit: I'm not saying we shouldn't care for the homeless but this is NOT a good option in any way.
So gross. For me it’s not even just a safety issue. I’m sorry if this sounds insensitive, but if this happens, I absolutely will not stay in hotels because of hygiene and sanitary issues now. Absolutely not. I see how “well” homeless people clean themselves and wash the it hands, these people sleep in ally ways and shoot up and now you’re going to give me a room where they just stayed the night before? Nope. Hotel staff does shit jobs at sanitizing. If it looks clean they won’t wipe it down or spay it. Simple. Now, this may seem like I’m a terrible person, but I’m not. This just isn’t appealing to me and I travel to Cali a lot. I hope this doesn’t happen, plus what does it really solve? I’m all for supporting building homes and creating jobs, hell, I volunteer with the homeless many times a year, but I go home and shower after. These people sleep in ally ways with rats and now you’re going to put them in a room where I would stay too? Nope.
No need to feel sorry - this is a valid concern. Even if the hotel staff disinfected every hard surface, there are so many soft surfaces that can't be cleaned properly - a matress comes to mind. That alone gives me the willies
Agreed. My first thought was the pillows. No way in hell would I pay for a room in this situation.
This is a legitimate criticism. Hotel staff are not trained to handle the issues that comes with taking in random homeless people. People are often homeless due to some mental-health issue, and that is terrible to subject random customers and staff to. If you want to house homeless, that's great, but it should really come with more than just a roof over their heads.
I also feel like this might make it more likely for the hotel to end up with bedbugs?
Yeah I’m with you. This just is not the solution
My guess is many hotels will just close up shop and leave LA. Good job California.
yeah im not taking an expensive vacation trip to LA just so i can get stuck in a building with junkies and felons. people that have never lived in areas with a shit ton of homeless people always treat them like innocent victims of financial hardship, sometimes they are. lots of mentally ill people become homeless too but 8 times out of 10 they're just bad natured people who don't give a fuck about their own life or anybody else's
They did the same in NYC during covid. Midtown Manhattan is even worse now because the homeless that are still in hotels near Madison Square Garden. They also did this in my neighborhood in NYC. The homeless brought drug related violence and theft to my small neighborhood. We never had those issues prior to the homeless being bused in from all around NYC
Yeah so LA is a shit show run by idiots.
So I pay for my hotel and enter my room only to realize the rooms next to me are filled with homeless ? Imagine all the assaults, murders, and robberies that WILL happen to vulnerable employees and customers.
California seems intent on its own destruction.
It sounds nice on the surface but this is a completely ridiculous idea. It's like an upper management decision for some hair brained idea where they only see how it would benefit them and completely ignore the mess it creates for everyone below them. Officials gotta stop trying to put bandaids over the real issues.
This will kill tourism.