San Diego Moves To Purchase Hotels for Homeless at Cost of $400K Per Room

San Diego Leaders Request State Funds to Buy Hotels for Homeless

San Diego, a wealthy city where homelessness has surged to record highs, is requesting state funds to purchase three hotels for the city’s homeless at a cost of $383,000 per room, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The city will apply for the funds from California governor Gavin Newsom’s latest $736 million round of funding from his homelessness grant program. Despite the high cost of the plan, city officials are unfazed, with commissioner Ryan Clumpner calling it “a fantastic value proposition.”

San Diego’s Homelessness Crisis

San Diego is eyeing the hotel purchases despite the recent failure of a similar initiative. In 2020, city commissioners approved the purchase of two hotels to house homeless people at $278,000 to $353,000 per room. A newly opened affordable housing apartment project cost $51.1 million in total, or $583,000 per room. Still, downtown San Diego’s homeless population reached a new record high earlier this year of nearly 2,000 people.

“They’re nuts,” said San Diego businessman Bob Rauch, whose company owns and operates hotels, of the city’s leaders. “They overpaid last time during a pandemic, and they’d be overpaying again.”

California’s Homelessness Crisis

Meanwhile, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass’s latest budget proposal includes $1.3 billion for the city’s nearly 41,000 homeless, which equates to $32,000 per person. The per capita Los Angeles income is $39,380.

A similar trend has played out on the state level. California Democrats have spent some $20 billion over the past five years to address a growing homelessness crisis. Last month, Newsom proposed a ballot initiative to approve a minimum of $1 billion each year to house homeless people who are mentally ill.

According to the federal government’s latest count, California holds nearly a third of the nation’s homeless—multitudes more than any other state.

Earlier this month, a legislative committee approved a bipartisan request for an audit of where local, state and federal funds to address homelessness are going and what the dollars are accomplishing.

Conclusion

San Diego’s leaders are taking bold steps to address the city’s homelessness crisis, despite criticism from some quarters. With California’s homelessness crisis continuing to grow, it remains to be seen whether these initiatives will be successful in the long run.

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