L.A. voters to decide whether hotels must rent vacant rooms to homeless people

L.A. voters to decide whether hotels must rent vacant rooms to homeless people

"Under the proposal, hotels would be required to regularly report the number of vacant rooms they have to the city’s housing department. A program run through the department would then make referrals and pay “fair market rate” for the lodging using prepaid vouchers. Hotels would be prohibited from discriminating against homeless Angelenos “for their participation in this program, or the fact or perception, that they are unhoused."

Would you bring your family to a hotel knowing that you will be next to addicts and mentally disturbed people?

Will there even be a hotel industry if this passes?

Would anyone here vote YES and why?

<<Mod Edit - Moved link from post 3 to this post>>
https://www.latimes.com/california/...-a-hotels-to-provide-rooms-to-homeless-people

 

I would definitely not vote yes. You would be out of your mind. Hotel rates would inevitably go up because housekeeping demand would be higher and more riskier of used needles and other forms of potential health contamination. Tourism would also likely go down because people wouldn’t feel as secure in their stay. This would be a horrible idea.

 

Define Angeleno. Can anyone just plop their ass in LA and get a free hotel room?

I didn't read the entire proposal, but does it say that anyone getting a free hotel room needs to be sober and drug free and must look for a job?

 

Libs can go on a ballot harvesting crusade and get all the homeless people to vote on this, right?

 

I forgot to post the link. (D'oh!)

It does not impose any restrictions on those asking for vouchers.

https://www.latimes.com/california/...-a-hotels-to-provide-rooms-to-homeless-people

 

NYC is putting up illegals in nice hotel rooms (complete with room and laundry service and maids), why shouldn't our own homeless citizens get the same? (I think both are a bad idea but IMO CITIZENS FIRST!)

 

This is a gross violation of private property rights.

The motel owners should sue the city and say that when the city starts paying their property taxes, then they can have a damn thing to say about what they're doing with their private property

 

Of course not because that would be discrimination

 

What could possibly go wrong?

 

I think it's a great idea! They should expand it to everyone. If you have a spare bedroom, or 10, you should have to rent it to a homeless person.

 

Look at this from the perspective of the hotel owners.
I know most people don't think about this, but imagine what that part of the population is going to do to the condition and cleanliness of those rooms.
Having a bad guest can cause damage and uncleanliness to a room, and a bad guest is not worth the money they are paying. One single bad guest can cancel out 4 or 5 good guests. Carpet may have to be replaced, a stench that gets embedded in the room and is difficult to get rid off. Sheets and sometimes mattress might have to be completely replaced. Think about it. If the hotel is only making a net profit of only around $30 per night per room, but then they have to pay an extra $500 in damages and special cleaning because they got a bad guest.

What this is going to do is cause all the lower end motels to close. Either that or the lower end motels will just go totally trashy and not bother keeping everything nice because they know some bad homeless guest will just come along and ruin it. The motels rooms will turn into dumps.

 

No problem, as long as hotel owners get their rent.

 

Would you pay to stay in a hotel with drug addicts and alcoholics?

 

I usually don't know anything about roommates in hotels and what they do in their free time.

 

Progressives on the Left never seem to care or think about what their policies will do to businesses, or consumers.

Maybe if you tried operating a small motel (or Airbnb) yourself you'd understand.
If you get even a few bad guests out of hundreds, it may not be worth operating the business.

People don't understand, motel rooms are not just concrete shells. If someone ruins a room it can easily cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, and lots of headache and time, to put things back in order to be presentable to the next guest. Think about all the furniture, all the things in that room, the carpet, the walls, even fixtures in the bathroom.

The homeless should be housed, but a bare concrete cell unit with a prison-style metal toilet may be more appropriate. (Unless they can verify that that specific homeless person will be likely to treat the room with respect)

I'm very sympathetic to the homeless, far more than most, but the reality is half the homeless live like wild animals and most people would never want them to stay for any length of time in their homes, they'd ruin everything in your home. It's just something that comes with this population.

Maybe they could send in the city council members to personally come in and clean up in a motel after homeless have stayed there, see first hand everything that needs to be replaced. Maybe then they'd understand.

 

As a normal hotel guest, I'm unable to inspect the privacy of my neighbors because I'm not an FBI agent.

 

The Left has never cared much about private property rights.

Look up the Eviction Moratorium.

There were even reports about some landlords going homeless and having to live in their cars while renters stayed in their house they owned rent-free, even though the landlord was still responsible for paying the mortgage on the property.

old thread: Federal government extends eviction moratorium two more months

 

You don't understand. The rent is not worth it. Even if someone offered to pay double the normal price for these homeless persons, it still wouldn't be worth it.

You have no idea how much damage and filth they can do to the property.

The rare motels that do cater to transient persons host and cater to almost exclusively transient guests. If you've ever seen inside such a motel, it is a dump. The rooms are designed to have nothing in it that can be destroyed. No fabric furniture, no carpets. Even the drapes are made of vinyl rather than fabric to allow easy cleaning. Many things are not maintained and falling apart. It doesn't make sense to have nice things when those things will likely end up destroyed.
And even then the price is not as low as you might think for such a dump place. Because having those types of guests creates a lot of additional expense, emergency cleaning situations, broken things that need to be repaired, things that frequently need to be replaced because of damage or filth.

 

It would appear that you are using your experience going to hotels not riddled with crime and drugs to defend this move. How would you like to stay here:

https://lbpost.com/investigations/h...-are-riddled-with-crime-infested-with-vermin/

 

It is. It's the hotel owner's income.

If his business is to rent rooms to arbitrary persons, then he has to accept anyone as guest. Otherwise he'll soon get broke.

 

You've never been a small motel owner.

There are many things you don't think about.

When a customer gives you money, only a fraction of that of that is profit. There are also expenses when you choose to have a customer.

How many normal guests do you have to have to pay for and make one very bad guest worth it? It's probably in the area of around three, four, or five. Maybe more like ten for a very bad guest who totally ruins the place.

What you don't understand is that in many cases a business may simply not be viable if they are not allowed to discriminate. That business might simply close down. Or have to drastically raise their prices and scale back the number of customers.

A lot of the reason motels offering cheaper rates don't exist is because it would attract too much of the riff-raff.

Same thing with apartment rentals. These days in many regions apartment leasing offices are extremely picky and selective about who they will let rent there. If you have the tiniest bad thing in your rental history record or even credit report, they will not allow you to live there, will have to look somewhere else. Then there ends up being special apartments that cater to undesirable tenants, but they are often dumps, more expensive, and/or located in less desirable noisier areas.

 

Vermin & Crime? Too much populism.
Who can confirm to me that LBPost is a reputable source?

 

No he does not, the owner can't be mandated by government how he uses his property unless there's a code violation.

Have you pondered how the left says many of the homeless people are mentally ill? These people have no money, clothes, or decent hygiene habits and they'll be on the sidewalk in front of the hotels, in the lobbies and in the hallways begging for money and some of them are quite intimidating if you're an old woman returning to your room at midnight. Also, since these people are nuts, do you want a lone maid to go in their rooms to clean it? The maids will probably insist on some sort of security or cleaning the rooms in groups of 3 or 4. On top of all that, it's not unheard of for homeless people to be on hard drugs.

So now add up the cost of the potential damage to the rooms, the cost of security, the possibility the staff might revolt along with the bad publicity the hotel would get. Would you want to own a hotel in that environment?

In NYC the mayor offered anyone who would take in illegals $125 per day for each one they took in and no one accepted the offer. That's how unpopular taking in unknown people who don't give a **** about anything is.

 

How many homeless people are you taking in and putting in your spare rooms?

 

This is a truism. Now don't be ridiculous.