Opinion | California Post editorial: Karen Bass's $72 million Motel 6 'victory lap' is a monument to failure

In an editorial published Friday, the California Post editorial board argues that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass's ribbon-cutting this week on a $72 million homeless housing project is "really a monument to her failure."

The project is a converted Motel 6, not a new building, the board notes, and with 111 units the cost comes to about $650,000 per unit. Assuming a typical motel room of about 300 square feet, it says, that is more than $2,000 per square foot.

The board writes that Bass, like former Mayor Eric Garcetti and Gov. Gavin Newsom, has embraced the "Housing First" idea that "the only things homeless people lack are a roof and four walls," a policy it says has cost billions while "barely making a dent in the problem." The money, it argues, feeds a "homeless-industrial complex" of nonprofits that depend on government grants, and generous services give homeless people from elsewhere another reason to come to California and stay.

Its prescription: enforce existing laws against camping on the street, require sobriety programs as a condition of living in city shelters or rooms, identify people who are mentally ill and offer treatment, and signal that California is not a place other cities and states can send their homeless. The board adds that Nithya Raman, who has vowed to cut homelessness in half by the Olympics, is offering "simply more ambitious versions of Karen Bass's failed approach."