I'm going to split this post in two so we can all walk away feeling good for a change

Because this is a feel good story.

This is a feel-good story on an individual level. If your heart does not go out to Olga, if you don't feel sad for what the woman went through and if you can't share in her happiness at finally getting some measure of security, comfort, and dignity, then there is something wrong with you.

From KCRW's Anna Scott:

 

The bathroom in Olga Rosario’s new studio apartment in Sylmar has an entire shelf dedicated to her seashell collection. “I love the beach,” Rosario, 62, says while showing off the place. In the kitchen area, she gestures across the room. “The sink by the window,” she says, “that’s what I’ve always wanted.”

Rosario used to walk by the building where she now lives when it was still under construction.

“Before it was finished, I would always come down San Fernando Road, and I would say, ‘Oh God, just put me over here,’” she says. “And look, I got placed where I was actually wanting to be placed.”

Rosario lives in a brand new, 56-unit apartment building called Silva Crossing, which offers formerly homeless, disabled tenants deeply subsidized rents and supportive services such as on-site counseling. It’s one of 56 buildings funded by Proposition HHH that opened or scheduled to open between the last quarter of 2022 and the end of 2023.

 

 The view out of Olga's window might look something like this.

 

 

It is also a feel-good story on a social/policy level. The County of LA addressed a humanitarian crisis by passing a large tax increase. This initiative is working as planned and is on track to exceed its target of providing ten thousand units for the around fifteen thousand of the LA homeless with mental or physical disabilities, using this money to prime the pump and open up other sources of funding.

The units are specifically for chronically homeless people with mental or physical disabilities – which is a lot of people. Of the nearly 42,000 people experiencing homelessness inside LA city limits by last count, more than a third fit those criteria.

 Despite the urgent need for this housing, Prop HHH was always going to take a long time to come to fruition. The goal from the outset was to help the city create 10,000 new units over 10 years. 

...

By 2026, housing officials say, the city is on track to open 10,519 new permanent supportive housing units with the help of Prop HHH, a number that also includes 1,635 apartments that didn’t use HHH money.

“It’s hard to defend yourself by saying, ‘It's coming soon, it's coming soon,’ says Sewill of the Housing Department, talking about the criticism of Prop HHH. “I think now we're in a position where we can say, ‘Not only is it happening, it’s more than what we said was going to happen.’”

The reality of HHH is almost entirely good news; the perception... not so much.

From earlier in the article:

More than six years after LA voters passed that $1.2 billion homeless housing bond, LA is finally seeing the fruits of Prop HHH, with more than a dozen buildings scheduled to open every remaining quarter of this year. They also say the measure is on track to not only meet but exceed its goals. 

So why do many people think of Prop HHH as a failure?

We'll get into the details of how self-interested politicians and hack journalists screwed this story up (longtime readers may guess who the worst example is going to be), but that's going to be an angry post and for now I just want to be happy for Olga and her sea shell collection and her window by the sink.

___________________________________________

 Update: a couple of hours after we posted this, Slate ran this highly relevant (and very good) article. We'll be coming back to this.