The welfare state isn’t really about those on welfare. They’re collateral damage. Likewise the billions blown on housing for the homeless isn’t about them. It’s about every government official, agency, and contractor wetting its beak in that glorious river of money that flows when a city becomes a disaster area.

Proposition HHH was going to solve the homeless crisis by hiking property taxes to raise $1.2 billion. The money would be used to build housing for the homeless. $1.2 billion could house all the homeless.

Couldn’t it? If it couldn’t, it was part of a $4.6 billion package of homeless tax hikes. There was Proposition H which added to the already hefty sales tax. Los Angeles voters backed that one too.

Earlier this year, the cost of apartments for the homeless hit a new peak at $746,000 per unit. 

The audit says the average cost of apartments currently under construction is $531,000 per unit and is expected to get as high as $746,000 per unit on the Lorena Plaza Apartments to be built for the homeless on East 1st Street. That price tag is higher than some of LA’s luxury condos that come complete with swimming pools, gyms and round the clock doormen.

But there are cheaper options. Like the 8 x 8 shed for only $130,000.

The cabins the city purchased are about the size of a jail cell, or of a medium-sized backyard shed that can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. Constructed of an aluminum frame with composite sheets for walls, they measure 8 feet, 6 inches by 7 feet, 6 inches — technically 63.75 square feet — and will have two retractable bunks each. Food will be brought in and handed out at an eating area. Showers and restrooms will be in separate trailers piped to the sewer.

At the city’s first tiny home village, scheduled to open in January, each of the 39 closet-sized homes is costing $130,000, about 10 times what some other cities are spending. Five more villages are planned to open later.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper to get a whole bunch of mobile homes? Obviously. But the “right” people wouldn’t be cashing in.

The city also shortened the development time by purchasing the structures without competitive bidding from a Washington state company called Pallet, which has supplied several other California cities.

This is what happens when you don’t have competitive bidding.