Proposed Ballot Measure to Tax Property Owners in Order to Help the Homeless

Los Angeles Area groups have proposed a new ballot measure to attempt to address the City’s abhorrent homeless situation.   A coalition of community groups comprised of affordable housing nonprofit groups and unions have filed paperwork for a ballot initiative in yet another attempt to combat homelessness in Los Angeles.  The groups will begin the process of gathering signatures in hopes putting the measure to a vote in November 2022.

Organizers of the initiative hope to raise $800 million per year to create 26,000 new affordable housing units, which will be funded via a new 4% fee on real estate sales of properties worth over $5 million, rising to 5.5% on properties sold for $10 million or more.  Dan Yukelson, Executive Director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles stated: “This is another scheme to tax property owners in an effort to construct $550,000 to $650,000 ‘in-effect’ condominiums to house homeless people without addressing the true root causes of why people are living on our streets today, which are addiction, mental illness and physical and mental abuse.”

The initiative would also pay for a new rental-assistance program, a “right-to-counsel” law, guaranteeing legal representation to tenants facing eviction, as well as an oversight commission and inspector general to oversee the fund.  “Meanwhile,” according to Yukelson, “the nearly $1.2 billion in measure HHH funds taxpayers generously provided to address homelessness have mostly been wasted or under deployed.”  Measure HHH was passed by voters in 2016.