(The Center Square) – New data released by the City of Los Angeles suggests Mayor Karen Bass’s signature “Inside Safe” homelessness reduction policy, which pays for hotel rooms for homeless individuals as they search for longer term housing, costs $17,009 per individual per month.
Inside Safe, which received a $250 million boost in the fiscal year 2023-2024 budget, has social workers offer homeless individuals living on the streets free stays at hotels as they transition them into longer-term housing.
Having spent $32,619,694 through June 30, 2023 on 57,533 nights of rooms in hotels, the cost per homeless individual served comes out to $567 per night, or $17,009 per month. Notably, these costs include Los Angeles Police Department security for “encampment cleanup support,” Los Angeles Department of Transportation for moving participants, Los Angeles County Homeless Services Authority assistance for homeless outreach and the offering of housing, and services for program participants such as 24/7 monitoring and food.
At the program’s current retention rates, roughly one in six individuals who enter the program exit, choosing to return to the streets. Despite tens of millions spent, only 1,463 individuals have been served, 1,105 of whom are in the program’s short-term housing, 108 of whom have entered permanent housing, and 250 of whom have either left the program entirely or are “served from the streets” and maintain some form of contact with a social worker but are no longer housed.
Of the $250 million Los Angeles expects to spend on Inside Safe for fiscal year 2023-2024, $92 million is for hotel rentals, $18 million is for damage to hotels from program participants, $6 million for staff bringing people in, $16 million for case management in hotels and helping people find housing, $16 million for overhead, $10 million for resident monitors at each hotel, $13 million (or $21 per individual per day) for food, $1 million for participant belonging storage, $13 million for move-in subsidies to longer term housing, $18 million in rental assistance (two years per participant at $1833 per month), and $47 million ($31 million of which is from state funding) for purchasing and operating hotels as Inside Safe projects.
