In 2024, Los Angeles Will Vote On Forcing Hotels To House The Homeless

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

I fail to see how this can possibly be legal but few governments give a damn about legalities these days…

Tackling homelessness in L.A. Image from video below

60,000 Homeless, 20,000 Hotel Vacancies 

Activists estimate there are about 60,000 homeless in LA with about 20,000 nightly vacant rooms.

On July 21, L.A. city attorney Michael Feuer reported that union activists from Unite Here Local 11 collected enough signatures to demand the City take some action on homelessness. 

The LA City council rejected direct action on August 5th by an 11-1 margin with one economically illiterate woke council member voting in favor. 

Voters now get to decide on March 5, 2024.

Here is a link where you can download the two-pronged Proposed Ordinance on utilizing vacant hotel rooms and on replacing space taken by new hotels.

The following points are direct quotes from the proposed ordinance.

Mandate on Housing the Homeless 

• Each Hotel shall communicate to the Department or its designee, in a form that the Department prescribes, by 2:00 p.m. each day the number of available rooms at the Hotel for that night.

• The Department shall develop a program for paying a Fair Market Rate, or such other rate as the Department may negotiate with a Hotel, for vacant hotel Guest Rooms on behalf of Unhoused Individuals or Families. 

• It shall be unlawful to refuse to provide lodging to an individual or family seeking accommodations using the program.

• Civil penalties of $500 for each day that each individual or family was unlawfully denied lodging

In addition to accepting homeless the ordinance blames hotels for causing homelessness and mandates replacement housing.

Attempt to Stop More Hotel Building

• The City of Los Angeles has seen a massive increase in new hotel development in recent years at the same time as the number of people experiencing homelessness has skyrocketed and the City’s affordable-housing crisis has grown. Hotels are frequently proposed for land that is equally suitable for housing development and thus crowd out sites that could be used to help alleviate the City’s need for affordable housing.

• The purpose of this Section is to enhance the public welfare by establishing policies which require hotel development projects to replace demolished or converted housing with housing affordable to households of Extremely Low, Very Low, Low, and Moderate Incomes, help meet the City’s regional share of housing needs.

• A proposed Hotel Development Project shall be required to include the replacement, on a one-for-one basis, in the form of new construction of Residential Dwelling Units or acquisition and rehabilitation of existing market-rate Residential Dwelling Units, of each Residential Dwelling Unit on the Hotel Development Project parcel or parcels that is or will be Converted or Demolished as a result of the Hotel Development Project and each such Residential Dwelling Unit that was Converted or 9 Demolished during the five-year period immediately preceding the Applicant’s application for First Approval.

L.A. City Council Rejects Proposal Forcing Hotels to House the Homeless

LAMag reports L.A. City Council Rejects Proposal Forcing Hotels to House the Homeless

Councilman Joe Buscaino told KTLA in a report that aired Thursday night ahead of the vote that he thought the plan was “the dumbest measure” he’s seen in his decade on the City Council. He described the idea as “the worst of all options” in L.A.’s struggle to solve the homeless crisis, only exacerbated by the pandemic.

“It baffles me that Unite Here, which claims to protect its members, is leading this measure that would very likely jeopardize worker safety,” Heather Rozman, president and CEO of the Hotel Association of Los Angeles, in a statement Friday morning. “We’re relieved that the council saw this for the political stunt that it is and call on them to instead pursue long-term solutions to homelessness that actually work.”

Should Vacant Hotels in Los Angeles House the Homeless?

CNN asks Should Vacant Hotels in Los Angeles House the Homeless?

That’s the wrong question. Even the title is wrong. CNN left out the word “forced” or “forcing”. 

Here are the right questions.

Questions

• Would you want your 12-year-old daughter riding an elevator with a smelly, emotionally-deranged drug addict? 

• If you were a hotel owner, would you be fearful of losing business due to hoards of smelly, emotionally-deranged drug addicts running about?

• If you were a hotel owner, would you be fearful of property destruction by someone mentally unstable?

Those are good questions, but here is a better one: How the hell can this ordinance possibly be legal?

The key question is likely moot because I believe the ordinance will not pass. Then again, we are talking California where woke madness is the norm. 

So, we cannot be certain until March 5, 2024.

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