Summary
Transcript
And you’d be thinking to yourself, you know what, that’s crazy. Or they would never do anything like that. But they actually did it. And they’re giving you a walkthrough inside of the new Skid Row high rise development for homeless people. It’s impossible. This is impossible. No way in the world and in no country on earth in no time sphere that I ever expect for me to actually be doing a review video on the homeless Skid Row project luxury apartment buildings while our veterans is out here sleeping on the streets or sleeping on cots.
Make sure you hit a like for the algorithm. Subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications. I just, I’m just, I can’t believe it. Today on LA Skid Row, a grand opening for the city’s biggest ever housing project for the homeless, the Weingart Tower. It’s a 19 story high rise with more than 250 units. Eyewitness news reporter Ashley Mackey talked with some of the people who will soon call it home. And they parade in this in front of our face. You got mayor Karen Bass, who was also one of the advocates for being a sanctuary city for the migrant crisis.
And she was the one of the ones that had her signature on there with Brandon Johnson, Mike Johnston over in Denver, right? All of these mayors, Karen Bass is the one with the short hair that’s in the middle. And they over here doing a ribbon cutting for homeless, luxury apartments. This is where your tax dollars are going. Ellie’s largest permanent support housing project is officially open. Located in Skid Row, the 19 story building known as the Weingart Tower has 278 units that will house people experiencing homelessness in Skid Row and the downtown area.
Skid Row is a community. It’s not just throw away people. It is a community and to bring that community together and beautiful housing like this is what everybody deserves. The building comes with several amenities, including six common balconies, a cafe, a gym and art. Let me take some notes here. I got my notepad right here. Uh, and I want to make sure that I capture all of this. Okay. Give me a second. Because I might have to apply. They got, they got better amenities than we pay a ton of money. They got better amenities than we got.
Okay. So you got a cafe. Not sure what they’re going to get money to buy coffee, but okay. Cafe. I’m literally writing this down. Okay. Cafe, gym. Now y’all gotta understand when you look at this gym equipment, several amenities, including six common balconies, six common balconies. We got to go up to the rooftop. Okay. Six common balconies, a cafe, a gym and yo, look, look, look at this gym. Got to get your fitness on several amenities, including six common balconies, a cafe, a gym. So one of the things that I’ve learned in my building, they spent $300,000.
Was it 150 or was it $300,000? It may have been 150. Let’s go with the lower number. They said that they spent $150,000 for gym equipment. I mean, and this looks beautiful. They got a mirror. They can get their fitness on. So we got a gym. Okay. Let’s continue. Art and music room. Art and music. Wow. Okay. Art. Art. And I don’t know if I should separate this into two and music room. Wow. New keyboards. They got drums, guitars. You can do painting with a twist. Okay. Let’s continue. Just to name a few, the apartments are fully furnished and there will be case workers on site to help run and assist the residents with different programs.
Case workers. Okay. So they’re giving them a recommended program. Listen, I think that you deserve, you should go to the gym today and we’re going to sign you up for art class. Sounds good. Okay. Case workers. I just want to make sure I’m capturing all of this so we can get a final tally and a final cost. Monopoly. Wow. Chess and checkers. Okay. Weingart president and see wood floors in that be let the couches books that they ain’t never going to read. So Kevin Murray says the goal is to keep the tenants engaged as many things that we can put inside the building so that you don’t have the chaos that you sometimes see outside the building where people are moving to and fro.
So you can do just about anything you want with in this building and it’s a regular apartment. Future residents who were in attendance at the celebration got to see their new home for the first time. I already never had nothing really given to me besides no stuff and family. When I was homeless, I was looking at it like, maybe we are becoming a socialist country. Maybe we are eventually going to remove ourselves from capitalism. You know, you get it out the mud, you work hard, you want to become a productive citizen and you eat what you kill to where we’re so overtaxed and all of our dollars are basically going into giving it away in social services and going to the highest tech states and becoming tree huggers to where we’re all basically going to get a stipend and where we’re going to get amenities and it’s going to be no incentive for you to actually work hard and become a better version of yourself because you’re going to get free housing to go along with it.
There’s nobody out there. It was like a little dark hole. You know what I’m saying? Like, it was just me. I went from being in that hole just coming out the hole. It’s a lot of support and love out here. So I’m so speechless right now. I’m just like, you know what I’m saying? I’m happy. I want to see my unity. It’s like, you know what I’m saying? Especially with me being this young, I would hate to just be an eyesore. I want somebody to help me out. So I’m glad that they’re doing that around not just for my age, but for everybody else too.
All of the units have been matched with individuals experiencing homelessness and now that the certificate of eligibility has been signed, those residents get to move in as soon as tomorrow. Hello, I’m Mark. So I got the whole list right here, so we’re going to go over it. You get a gym, you got gym so you can make sure you get your workout on. Now listen, I’m actually out here grinding. Every day is grinding, grinding. You know what I keep in alignment. Is that how it goes? You see a brother out here shining, grinding.
So I’m out here going to get it. I mean, listen, we don’t miss. I encourage my people to really grind and go and get it and take care of business and be on top of things. We don’t miss. We don’t make excuses. We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We don’t believe in social services. We pay our taxes and make sure we take care of business. We put money into our community and we hire people. Okay. That’s what we do over here at the bag chasers. Make sure you tap into the Patreon. Link is in the description as well.
It’s been to the top of the chat. They have my regular people don’t even have this level of greatness before we put a price tag on it. A cafe, a gym, common balconies overlooking the view of what’s going on in LA. Art and music room. I don’t even have an art and music room in my own building. And then case workers and support services in order to continue to run the building and make sure that you can go and get whatever it is that you want and you can show your apartment up with food.
Big screen TVs, books, checkers, chests, all of that stuff. Okay. Okay. So let’s look at the price tag of this whole thing. Now at noon, a big grand opening in downtown LA Skid Row is the region’s largest homeless. Thank you for the super chest. I’ll be reading that sort shortly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Housing complex is officially inaugurated. They got solar panels on that joint. You know how much it costs to get solar. Solar too. Man. Thanks for joining us for the KTLA five news at noon. I’m Glenn Walker. And I’m Lou Parker.
The wine guard tower is 19 stories tall and will provide 278 units for unsheltered people in the area. We’re getting an inside look today. KTLA five’s Lauren Lister live in downtown Los Angeles with all the details. Lauren, this effect. Yeah, Glenn and Lou, we have some new reaction to this hour as well because officials have been holding a press conference downstairs. Meantime, we are on the 19th floor terrace. Take a look at the views from this building. This is in the look at that view. Do you see how sweet that view is? This is prime real estate, baby.
We’re going to turn this into the car. We turn in this into the shout out to New Jack City. No way in my 42 years on earth are we sitting here looking at new homeless housing, luxury homeless housing. We’re going to put a price tag on it. Don’t worry about it. This is an affordable housing building that will shelter people, provide permanent homes for people who have experienced homelessness in the past. Permanent supportive housing for people. People, as I mentioned, 278 apartments, permanent housing, meaning that once you get there, you ain’t never gonna leave because it’s too great.
Why would you? This is near sixth and San Pedro. They’re furnished with central heat and air, fully equipped kitchens, amenities like a gym with wraparound social services on site. This building replaces a parking lot that was here before. And just like somebody in the shed said, they building a second one right next door. A second one right next door in downtown LA. You can walk to crypto arena or who will live here. The developer says low income residents with section H about the section eight vouchers for federally subsidized housing and general tenants pay 30% of their income with those vouchers.
So you only have to pay 30% of your income. Well, what do you get for 30% of almost nothing? Well, I’ll show you. Project is a public private partnership. The developer tells me it’s $160 million. Uh, that’s the basic cost of the project and had a variety of funding sources, including $32 million from proposition H H H, which you may recall was approved by LA voters in 2016 providing funding for homeless housing. So LA, California, this is on you because the voters voted for it. So your $160 million, your initial 160 million, and it’s going to be expanded because they already build a new buildings, your $160 million, over $28 billion has been spent inside of California.
Your $160 million, let me put my clipboard down, is now going towards building luxury homes. And you’ve got to also understand that it’s not just the $160 million page tag that goes on it. There’s also an ongoing maintenance that that comes along with it. So you got to have people that work there. You got to have maintenance crews, uh, maintenance of the building, the paying for the electricity, the heat, the water, all of this stuff. This is an ongoing cost. This is going to be millions and millions of dollars. It’s not just a one-time thing.
This is a millage that is going to be basically levied against the people and y’all are going to pay for this. And so you wonder why, wow, they doing higher taxes, highest taxes inside of the state. People can’t afford a place to live. Well, eventually you all going to be living in the carter. You’re going to be living in the carter. And then they throw on additional taxes. They call it the rich tax on real estate that costs over this amount of money. If y’all property appreciate to a certain point, you got to give it all back to the federal government.
This is what, okay, we’re going to put a final tally on it and we got to, we got to move on to the next part of the show. Let’s continue. Also, county funding involved. It works out to just under $600,000 a unit. More on what the developer says about the cost. But first here is what one of our elected officials Maxine Waters had to say. Maxine Waters, 100,000 years old is still a person that is in Congress making decisions on behalf of the American people. Maxine Waters, Maxine Waters, a lifetime politician. Through this development, not only will hundreds of Los Angeles residents experiencing homelessness, somebody said, why are we going to get to it? Somebody said, why are they called luxury apartments? Well, I’ll tell you why.
I got a list right here for you. For those of you that just came in, it has a cafe, a gym, six common balconies that’s overlooking high rises in Los Angeles, has an art and music room, case workers, big screen TVs, common areas, libraries, books, games, also has stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors, and basically everything that you can possibly want or that comes along with what we would call a luxury high rise of building. That’s why it’s called a luxury apartment. You’re just the one that’s paying for it as a taxpayer. Now have a permanent place to call home, but they will also have access to supportive services tailored to their needs, including critical physical and mental health services.
The total cost of this building was $595,000 per unit. And if you look at this compared to what you’re all hearing in the news at a million dollars a unit and even more for not nearly the amenities. They sitting here talking in our face, this man just sat here and said that the total cost per unit, not the building, the total cost per unit. So for every unit that somebody gets to live in there for 30% of their section eight income is $595,000. And he’s sitting there talking like, y’all crazy for the amount of luxury amenities that these people are getting.
It’s only $600,000 per unit. Let me tell you, the biggest coop and some of the people that’s getting all of the money, because I don’t believe for one second that this is just a good idea. And at anybody inside of the office was like, yo, the best thing that we can do is build luxury apartment buildings for people on Skid Row. Not even a little bit. Let me tell you something, bro. If you don’t think that the developer inflated costs and made a whole lot of money in my theory, this is my theory.
This my hypothetical hypothesis educated guess. If you don’t think that it’s some palms being greased, that the political campaigns and the contributions and the people that’s making sure that all of these people continue to stay fully funded in order to continue to stay in office and relatives and all that, man, if you think that everything is on the up and up, I got a bridge to sell you. I will sell you the San Francisco bridge, bro. It’s only six hundred thousand dollars per unit. That’s it. Listen, we’re not even trying to put them in a position to eventually get themselves off of public housing and social services and be able to stand on their own two feet.
We’re giving them a permanent place to stay. We’re not trying to get them jobs. We’re not trying to get them education. We’re not trying to help them get off of drugs. We just want them to be able to come in, work out, enjoy life, live like hippies and have a good time. You know, yesterday I did a show and I said, I’m not sure if I could ever live over here in Mexico. The longer that I stay over here and I’m overlooking this ocean, it’s not looking so bad. I remember when the American dream used to be to get out of or I’m sorry, to get into the United States of America in order to live the American dream, get the white pig and fence, house, dog, kids or whatever.
Now it seems like the American dream is to try to figure out how you can get out of America. This is a very wise, very smart use of taxpayer money. These people are spitting in your face and they basically pissing in your face and they telling you it’s raining. They’re pissing in your face and they telling you that it’s raining. And y’all, y’all are okay with it. Y’all just rolling with it. Y’all voting for it. Y’all rolling in it. And y’all think that this is cool. How on God’s green earth can you justify this from a taxpayer dollars? How? $600,000 per unit.
And this man is telling you, he’s telling you out of his own mouth, listen to what he’s saying, listen unit and even look at this compared to what you’re all hearing in the news at a million dollars a unit and even more for not nearly the $1,000 service. The total cost of this building was $595,000 per unit. He’s telling you out of his own mouth on the news, listen to what he’s saying. And if you look at this compared to what you’re all hearing in the news at a million dollars a unit and even more for not nearly the amenities, this is a very wise, very smart use of taxpayer money.
They’re telling you out of their own mouth what they’re going to do. And they said that you’re going to like it. You’re going to vote us in. You’re going to love us for it. And we’re going to use your money to give a $600,000 per unit apartment, permanent housing to homeless people. Help. [tr:trw].