Concern Grows Over lack of Progress With L.A.'s $1.2 Billion Homeless Housing Bond

Jason McGahan audits Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond measure approved by city of Los Angeles voters in 2017.

"Ultimately more than 77 percent of voters in Los Angeles, a city that in 2016 had more than 21,000 people sleeping at night on its streets, voted to tax themselves to build supportive housing for the chronically homeless, affordable housing for extremely low-income tenants, and provide temporary shelter and services to the destitute," according to McGahan.

Two years later, progress has been slow, despite the promises of the city's elected officials. McGahan reveals details: "A Los Angeles magazine analysis found that the first 25 projects funded by HHH have been delayed by an average of 203 days past their estimated start date: the shortest holdup was 28 days; the longest, 424."

Those delays put Measure HHH's goals to deliver 10,000 units of homeless housing in "serious jeopardy," according to McGahan. "Not a single HHH unit was completed by the end of 2018" and "no more than 239 of the affordable units are expected to be completed by the end of this year."