$6 Million for 12 Beds: LB’s Homeless Crisis Is a Profit Center, Not a Solution

I owe Ian Patton, executive director and co-founder of the Long Beach Reform Coalition (LBRC), credit for sparking this piece. His recent Facebook post broke down a staggering truth in plain numbers: Long Beach just spent $6 million for 12 beds in a decrepit, dangerous industrial zone. That’s half a million dollars per bed. And yet our city officials stood smiling at the ribbon-cutting.

Patton’s post reminded me that this isn’t an isolated blunder – it’s part of a long and costly pattern. Year after year, we see gold-plated homelessness projects announced with fanfare, only to discover later that they were overpriced, underperforming, and, in too many cases, abandoned. All the while, our unhoused neighbors die at the rate of two a week.

Take the tiny home catastrophe. In February 2025, the City Council voted to return a $5.6 million state grant meant to fund a 33-unit modular tiny-home campus. Why? They couldn’t find a viable site – after already spending nearly $2.9 million on buying units, site investigations, salaries and planning. The units now sit unused, up for sale, while the funding goes back to the state.

Or consider the “Luxury Inn” debacle. In 2022, the city spent $16.5 million – part of a $30.5 million state grant – buying a nuisance motel to convert into temporary housing. Years later, occupancy is uncertain, and operating costs remain a mystery.

This is not just incompetence – it’s a pattern of profiteering. Hundreds of millions in county, state and federal homelessness funds have flowed into Long Beach over the last decade. Those dollars could have purchased RVs, converted shipping containers, or bought actual homes in neighborhoods – proven, cost-effective ways to put roofs over heads. Instead, we get press releases, ribbon-cuttings and contracts that benefit someone – but not the people sleeping on our streets.

And let’s be clear: the criminalization of homelessness is no substitute for housing. Ticketing people for sleeping in public, after offering no viable shelter, is cruel, ineffective and morally bankrupt.

So here’s what must happen now:

1. Audit every homelessness contract and grant from the last decade. Follow the money.

2. Name names – who is profiting while our unhoused die?

3. Demand transparency on spending, outcomes and timelines.

4. Shift to immediate, scalable solutions – RVs, tiny homes, converted buildings – that can be deployed now, not in three years.

Patton’s math was simple and brutal: For $6 million, we could have bought 200–300 RVs, built a tiny home village, or housed people in actual bedrooms. Instead, we got the most expensive cots in town.

The city’s leadership needs to stop treating homelessness as a PR opportunity and start treating it as the emergency it is. Until that happens, Long Beach will keep producing overpriced failures – and our homeless death toll will keep rising.

Stephen Downing is a resident of Long Beach and a retired LAPD deputy chief. He writes on policing, civil liberties and the rule of law in Exposing the Con, Defending Democracy. You can follow his work at stephendowning.substack.com.