After three years of blown deadlines, L.A. opens its first homeless housing project

About this story

This project was reported and produced by Sandhya Kambhampati, Swetha Kannan, Iris Lee and Andrea Roberson. Doug Smith contributed reporting.

The figures were illustrated by Lorena Iñiguez Elebee and Jon Schleuss.

The Times compiled data from the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department, which oversees Proposition HHH projects. Homeless population estimates are from the Los Angeles Housing Services Authority’s 2019 count.

The projects' total costs are much more than $1.2 billion. The HHH fund covers about 30% of the building costs. Developers must raise the rest of the construction costs elsewhere.

According to HHH rules, the majority of the funds should be used to build permanent supportive housing units for homeless people. No more than 20% can be used to build affordable housing for low-income families and individuals. A small portion is set aside for shelters and other facilities for homeless people.

This analysis does not include projects funded by the mayor's innovation challenge, which involves $120 million set aside from the $1.2 billion HHH funds. That program was approved to seek faster and less costly building methods. The $120 million will go toward six projects totaling roughly 1,000 apartment units. The locations of those projects have not been determined.