Homeless ‘Tiny’ Apartments balloon to $425,000 Per Unit in Sacramento

Increasingly, homeless advocates and public policy experts suggest that shelters and triage services are most appropriate for many of our unfortunate homeless neighbors. But cities, many in Silicon Valley, keep throwing huge sums at overpriced, new housing. Katy Grimes at California Globe explores a Sacramento case study.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg has been pushing for permanent housing for the city’s homeless. While that may sound reasonable and even decent, the latest project to provide tiny apartments in a renovated old downtown hotel will cost more than $445,000 per unit for about 250 square feet of living space.

Still in its old state, the Capitol Park Hotel is currently home to some homeless, but it wasn’t always this way. The Capitol Park Hotel was used for decades as housing for low-income disabled adults, as California Globe reported in 2019. The city kicked them out in June of last year, and announced the hotel would be renovated at a cost of $23 million. Steinberg even said at the time the hotel would have 180 beds for homeless by August 2019.

Rev. Andy Bales, head of L.A.’s Union Rescue Mission,  has a great deal of experience in helping the homeless. He has advised the City of Los Angeles many times — how they could provide clean and comfortable temporary barracks-style shelter, with plumbing and kitchens, security, etc. — for $10,000 a bed. Bales and many of the state’s real homeless advocates say temporary shelter is actually the best answer for the category of homeless who will accept shelter and services, and who only need a respite before getting back to taking care of themselves.

Bales addresses this notion of permanent housing: “The city’s current strategy — focusing almost exclusively on permanent supportive housing — takes too long, is too expensive, and addresses the needs of only 20%-25% of Los Angeles’ homeless population,” Bales said in an op ed last year in LA Downtown News.

Read the whole thing here.

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