Brickbat: Let's Stay Awhile

The Los Angeles City Council has agreed to pay $60 million to buy the Mayfair Hotel in Westlake. That's on top of the $11.5 million the city previously paid the hotel's owners to resolve claims for damage caused by homeless people when the hotel was used as a shelter during the COVID-19 pandemic. Emails uncovered by the Los Angeles Times showed that staff, security guards, and social service workers during that period repeatedly complained about overdoses, vandalism, and aggressive and violent behavior by the homeless people who were being housed there. The city plans to use the hotel as a homeless shelter.

Comments

[Olivahunter]

I'm making $90 an hour working from home. I never imagined that it was honest to goodness yet my closest companion is earning 16,000 US dollars a month by working on the connection, that was truly astounding for me, she prescribed for me to attempt it simply.
Everybody must try this job now by just using this website... http://www.Payathome7.com

[William]

"Homeless shelter" with a million-dollar view. Some day, if things work out, I hope to be "homeless," too,

[Stuck in California]

heh, it's in Westlake. Basically, just across the freeway from downtown. View is just other buildings, and LA's downtown skyline isn't really special.

Still, it's better than the other side of town where the shelter and skid row are so full of people shitting in the streets they have medieval diseases to contend with.

[A Cynical Asshole]

Still, it’s better than the other side of town where the shelter and skid row are so full of people shitting in the streets they have medieval diseases to contend with.

So now the homeless people will have a new part of town to shit in the streets and spread medieval diseases. I see yet another future episode of Great Moments in Unintended Consequences.

"Sounds like a great idea! With the best of intentions! What could possibly go wrong!"

[B G]

Anyone living at the Mayfair would be the least damaging of the L.A. homeless population. They're at least getting basic sanitation infrastructure instead to having their waste run down the storm drains and into the ocean and their trash piling up on the streets feeding the rat colonies that are spreading typhus (L.A. City Hall was closed for a while in early 2019 because the rats off the street got inside and infected a number of city workers) for now, and the black plague at some point in the future.

With 290 rooms in the hotel, that $60 million (plus ongoing operating costs) will make a 0.5% temporary reduction in the county's homeless population if they double up the occupancy.

[markm23]

The question is, how many of them are shitting and tossing their trash in the street because they don't have other options, and how many are mentally ill or sociopathic and will ignore any facilities provided and keep on doing that? I'm guessing it will be a 25-75 split at best - because most of them have been provided with chances to get their lives together before and refused to try.

[Carey Allison]

The country is so fouled up, and so many people have their hands out for "their 10%" that I offer the following multiple choice thought problem "for your consideration":

The county paid $60 million for the Mayfair Hotel. This price was:

(a) a fair price offered to induce a voluntary exchange of desired goods for cash in a transaction between a willing seller and a willing buyer

(b) somewhere between half again and twice what the Mayfair Hotel was actually worth, but the ill-gotten gain to the seller was assured by his friendship with or relationship to the powerful

(c) somewhere between 60% and 70% of what the Mayfair Hotel was worth, but the seller decided to sell because he was promised that if he forced the city/county to go to imminent domain, he would get only 40% and 45% of it's real worth

(d) impossible to classify because the right people got their 10% and aren't talking, and the ones who know but didn't get to wet their beaks have read about Vince Foster, Seth Rich, and Jeffery Epstein and they "know nuhthink!"

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

D, obviously.

[Adans smith]

Sounds like a plan, a bad plan, but a plan.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...on top of the $11.5 million the city previously paid the hotel's owners to resolve claims for damage caused by homeless people when the hotel was used as a shelter during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The grift that keeps on griving.

[Longtobefree]

But as soon as they get a space in the shelter, they are no longer homeless - - - - -

[Intechengineers]

Intech Engineers was established in 1996 by Mr. S.K. Tyagi with the sole aim of providing excellent material handling solutions to different industries. We have made significant progress in all these years and, our dedication has led us to the forefront of leading Industrial Air Washer and Dust Collector Manufacturers.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Trillions pissed away on covid and counting.

[Jerry B.]

The Mayfair has 72 rooms, so that's about a million bucks for each room.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

That's six times better than LA's last effort...

[B G]

It's 290 rooms, but since they're 150 sq ft and have no cooking facilities in-room, the $280k per unit that the purchase plus damage bill comes out to is still not a great deal for "affordable" housing except by California standards.

The building is 15 stories and covers about 1/4 to 1/3 of the block it's on. If it were 100% luxury condos it might have 72 units at that size but not when it's hotel rooms with a floor plan designed in 1926

[Brandybuck]

How long until the neighbors sue the city for lowering property values?

All kidding aside, the homeless problem in California has jumped the shark. Went to see my mom in my childhood home town. Tiny town, agricultural, as mayberry as you can get in the state. And there were people panhandling on the main intersection, and a homeless dude sleeping on a bench less than one block from my mom's house.

Okay, sure, it's not nearly so bad as I see in San Francisco, San Jose, or even Googlerich Mountain View. But this is literally the first time I've seen a homeless person in my hometown ever. Sure back in the great depression you had hobos, but hobos aren't the same thing. Has the town just gotten big enough that it now gets them? Is that panhandling that great in such a poor town? Dunno. I know the next city over always had one or two, but they were always people with mental issues.

Why the explosion in homeless?

Some say it's Biden, but this explosion started when Trump took office. So did Blue Counties/Cities cause it to make Trump look bad? That was my working assumption back then, because the timing was so coincidental. But really it was a long list of policy changes dating back to the 70s. Both federal and state. And the latest uptick dating to 2016 was new state policy.

Back in the 70s we basically outlawed mental institutions and emptied them out. Granted, a helluva lot of people were being forcibly incarcerated just for being different, but some people really do need mental help, and don't have the mental capability to manage the process of getting help. So that was the start. But so much stuff after that just feeds into the homelessness crisis.

The problem IS NOT CAPITALISM! Partly it's government incompetence. Arresting people for tryin to feed the homeless, spending ridiculous amounts of money per bed, outlawing tiny housing, etc. And a lot of the Affluent Class Who Worships Government. They have these conflicting ideas that they can hide the homelessness away (doesn't work), while advocating spending other people's money to pretend that they are doing something, and then lobbying that homeless shelters be luxury condos.

My home town, the same one, used to have barrios for the migrant workers. Tiny shitty little shacks. Because back then I was a kid being poor meant that you were actually poor. I'm sort of glad we don't have them (we actually still do, they're just hidden). But the point is that you can indeed have cheap small housing for people, you don't need fancy downtown hotels.

There are ways to house the homeless and get them help for a fraction of what we are paying our taxes for today. But we're not allowed to because anything less than Santa Monica beachcliff mansion is dehumanizing. Rubbish. At least let the private charity sector help without arresting them for letting them stay in churches and for making them a peanut butter sandwich.

Big government is making it worse. The "liberal hand-wringing" is making it worse. It's time for wake up and realize that what we have been doing is only making it worse.

[Tyval Dayall]

What could go wrong?

BTW, what's the address for this hotel? Asking for a friend who like to shoot smack and do meth.

[B G]

If that's all they need, there's a 200 square block area containing the hotel where there's plenty of company for them. Unless they prefer the beach, in which case Venice and Santa Monica are "sanctuary" areas for more than just undocumented immigrants.

[Guy]

If we are not going to embrace the promise of free markets to ease homelessness, we need more shelters of all kinds. Who is going to hire a drug addict at $16.78 per hour at a reputable business? When you restrict the kinds of housing and jobs people can have by cutting out the floor, we're going to have more homeless. Take out intensive treatment for drugs and mental health to protect "rights" and you get a recipe for disaster. I just want them off the street, so shelter away. Of course the NIMBY restrict that too and then complain about the homeless on the street.

[Brandybuck]

Government is too busy arresting pastors who feed the homeless to have any time to actually feed the homeless. I mean, duh!

[B G]

Nobody seems to have figured out that the trick to feeding the homeless in L.A. is to charge them some nominal amount $0.01 would do. At that point, you're a "street vendor" and exempt from virtually all regulations within city limits, it's only handing out food for free that's subject to "safety regulation" and requires the use of a certified commercial kitchen.

[Dillinger]

>>The Los Angeles City Council has agreed to pay $60 million

from their own graft?

[Brandybuck]

From funds acquired through the hotel tax, of course!

[TJJ2000]

Socialist Utopia!!!! Quick Democrat voters from all over the US; It is past time for you all stop crying and move ur *sses to CA for everything that armed-theft heart desires.

Wait, wait; stop leaving CA already; you're getting EXACTLY what you wanted! Oh yeah; it's not about getting good and hard your ideology - it's all about conquering and consuming what others have made (i.e. stealing).

[Longtobefree]

I have it on good authority, from a close friend, that pok is a retired Nigerian prince.

[Dillinger]

I do like the smallcaps