Brickbat: No Vacancy

Los Angeles hotel owners are speaking out against a ballot measure that would force them to house homeless people in vacant rooms. The Los Angeles City Council last week voted to place the measure on the March 2024 ballot. The city would pay the hotels the "fair market rate" for rooms occupied by the homeless. But officials haven't identified a funding source for the program. The measure would also require developers who demolish any housing units to build a new hotel to replace them with an equal number of "affordable" units. The proposal is backed by hospitality union Unite Here Local 11, which gathered enough signatures to push it to voters.