The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Los Angeles:
8x8 Sheds for Homeless ... For $130,000 Each!

Jan 4, 2021

Little, 8-foot by 8-foot aluminum sheds, which Los Angeles politicians call “tiny homes”—that’s these politicians’ latest idea of supposedly helping the city’s homeless, 40,000 by official count, but in reality certainly many, many more.

Far from an answer to homelessness, it’s an abomination to call sheds the size of prison cells “homes” of any kind. Nonetheless, the price tag for the first 39 of these “tiny homes” is $5.2 million, or a whopping $133,000 per shed. In other words, it’s just another big gift to big companies.

On the other hand, the City of L.A. has thousands of empty lots and, by their own declaration, $2 billion to deal with the homelessness problem. If all city politicians are offering are these “tiny homes,” it’s obvious that they are not interested in doing anything about this big social problem.

But this “tiny homes” project, with its far overblown price tag, is sure giving a boost to corporate profits—which, in the end, is what these city politicians do, using every excuse they can find, including the enormous human crisis of homelessness.