This is a particularly egregious example of editorialization-by-headline:

> Most of the units are studios or one-bedroom apartments. The audit found 14% of the units build exceeded $700,000 each, and one project in pre-development is estimated to cost almost $837,000 per unit.

So it's one unit that doesn't exist that might cost $837,000, not the average unit. Indeed, the average unit is nowhere near that.

Edit: For comparison, it costs $100k per year to support each prisoner in California's system[1]. Even if the average unit costs $400k (which still seems high), it pays for itself after less than half a decade.

[1]: https://lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost

The $100k per year for incarceration includes food, medical care, counseling, maintenance, facilities, etc. The cost just for housing is dramatically lower than $100k/year. You are comparing just the cost of housing with the cost of taking care of all a person's needs.

Those $700k units that LA built will also require constant repairs, and the inhabitants will still need food, medical care, counseling, etc.

> The $100k per year for incarceration includes food, medical care, counseling, maintenance, facilities, etc. The cost just for housing is dramatically lower than $100k/year. You are comparing just the cost of housing with the cost of taking care of all a person's needs.

I wouldn't start by saying that the US prison system takes care of any inmate's needs, even if they spend a fabulously large amount of money seemingly earmarked for that task.

Long term, permanent housing is always going to beat incarceration, when we're talking about the same population. It might cost more at first, but those costs are overwhelmingly fixed and then much smaller future variables. The variables that aren't covered (food, medical care, etc., as you've correctly observed) can often be transferred from carceral programs. Fewer people in prisons also means less money spent on maintaining the physical and human plant; some 20% of the individual costs listed above.

Comparing a fixed property purchase price to a yearly estimated recurring cost isn't a direct comparison

Assuming a $700k unit has an estimated lifespan of 50 years. That's $14k/year, we could say $20k/year with a generous maintenance allowance over the life of the home.

So in this example that's $80k/yr remaining for food, utilities, care, etc.

It's probably not accurate to say that jails are adequately taking care of all a person's needs, and certainly not to match any sort of expectation that they'd have outside of the walls of the jail. Being in jail means you've given up a lots of rights that would be required outside of those walls (such as privacy).

You left out that the one development may not be one-bedroom apartments and that one-bedroom apartments can easily hold 2-4 people. I also think expecting an ROI in 4 years is very aggressive. The housing can easily last decades, and the upkeep costs combined with the depreciated costs should be quite affordable compared to incarceration.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm not an LA resident, and it was frankly difficult to find the actual local law that's funding the construction efforts (Prop. HHH).

5 years is indeed aggressive, and probably unrealistic. My goal was to show that even with contrived (and conservative) numbers these programs look great; with longer outlooks, they look fantastic.

Putting them in jail is more expensive and less effective.