It is not just you, and I've worked for many LA nonprofit and public agencies, including some involved in homelessness and mental health services. It's not surprising to me that the city can't keep enough homelessness services, for reasons I write about in "L.A. digs a hole more slowly than economics fills it back in: The Proposition HHH Facilities Program RFP" http://seliger.com/2017/08/30/l-digs-hole-slowly-economics-f... .
Oddly, one of the better descriptions I've read about why LA costs so much comes from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_ar...
Boyle Heights is not a wealthy/expensive neighborhood and there is a large amount of housing stock that could be rehabbed/rebuilt for this project for far less. Even multifamily buildings.
http://cityobservatory.org/the-high-high-price-of-affordable...
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/12321-Fairhill-Rd-Clevela...
It is important to remember that the rust belt was the silicon valley of its day. No longer. Economic success is often ephemeral. At least there is still enough money in Cleveland to maintain these monuments to distant wealth.
This project would be better off buying up some delapidated properties and making them habitable again.
LA housing: a 100 year old 900 sq foot place surrounded by chain link fences for the low price of $450k.
49 units at $23 million or $469k/unit. Is it me or is this an insanely high number? Remember, it's not even a house.