(The Center Square) — A quarter of the homeless shelter beds in the City of Los Angeles are empty each night, causing a loss of $218 million from 2019 to 2023, according to a new report from the city controller.
The report also notes the city has tripled its homeless shelter capacity since 2019, which led to a reduction in the city’s unsheltered homeless population at the start of 2024.
The report also said the number of individuals placed into “permanent” housing, including permanently “free” supportive housing paid for by taxpayers that the report supports, has only increased by 21% since 2019.
“Until a person is permanently housed, that person’s homelessness is not successfully ended,” said City Controller Kenneth Mejia in the first line of the report. “That is the guiding principle for the City and nation’s homelessness strategy.”
The report says city-funded shelter capacity stands at 6,929 beds, which make up 53% of the area’s total 13,000 beds.
At an average 25% occupancy, that means 3,250 beds are empty each night, enough to house more than one in ten of the city’s 29,275 unsheltered homeless individuals.
Occupancy rates — and thus losses — vary significantly by type of homeless shelter.
Congregate shelters, in which individuals are housed in large rooms together, are 70% of city-funded interim shelter beds and had a 65% occupancy rate with an annual cost of $29,000 per bed.
Tiny-homes, which are typically single-occupancy but can be double-occupancy, and hotel-based interim shelters, which are only single occupancy, are 30% of city beds and had a 86% occupancy rate with an annual cost of $57,000 per bed.
These costs include many of the social services included at shelters, such as case management and food.
Once accounting for the cost of vacancies, the cost per congregate bed rises $15,615 per individual, to $44,615 per bed, while the cost per private bed rises to $66,300, reducing the difference in cost between the two shelters by about $6,300.
Mejia says vacancies arise from city councilmembers reserving shelter beds “based on geographic zones (“catchments”) and prior to encampment cleanups or 41.18 enforcement operations.”
Now that Los Angeles has a larger shelter capacity, empty beds cost the city about $68 million per year. Mejia has previously said the city is “broke” and must borrow $80 million to make court-ordered liability payments, spending on vacant shelters could have paid for most of the shortfall.
Over the summer Mejia also reported the city’s hotel homeless shelter program has spent $341 million, serving 2,728 individuals since December 2022. Other city reports have found 45% of the city’s homeless individuals are “service resistant,” or unwilling to make use of offered city services.
Between July and December of 2023, the city attempted contacting 22,019 verified separate homeless individuals, 12,043 of whom engaged with city personnel and enrolled in city programs. Of those 12,043, 2,962 took offers of city shelter, 428 exited to permanent housing, which for that report included the city’s hotel program), and 328 exited to “temporary destinations.”
The city says it funds 29,554 vouchers for permanent supportive housing for homeless individuals and families paid for by taxpayers; vouchers for one-bedroom apartments are $2,407 per month.
