Turning Point USA

Los Angeles city officials celebrated the opening of the Weingart Center Tower on Wednesday, a high-rise luxury apartment complex in downtown LA designed to serve as a shelter for the homeless population currently residing on Skid Row.

The 19-story tower features 228 studio apartments and 47 one-bedroom apartments, with a total project cost of $165 million. According to Fox News LA, this makes it the city’s largest permanent supportive housing project, with a cost of $600,000 per unit, funded by taxpayer dollars.

Residents of the Weingart Center Tower will have access to various amenities including a gym, art room, music room, and library. Additionally, the complex will offer services such as employment assistance, financial counseling, educational resources, and health and wellness classes.

“This is not just a building,” said Kevin Murray, a former state senator and the CEO of Weingart. “This is about people and this is about giving people dignity. Everybody deserves a good, well-designed environment.”

The city plans to construct two more towers similar to the Weingart Center Tower. This initiative is part of a broader effort to address the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles. In 2016, LA voters approved a proposition allocating $1.2 billion in bonds for the development of housing for the homeless.

Los Angeles County reported over 75,000 homeless individuals last year, following a 10% increase in homelessness between 2022 and 2023. Within LA alone, there are over 46,000 homeless people.

The opening of the apartment complex follows a call from a federal judge last March for an independent audit into Los Angeles’ spending on homelessness, as many critics have wondered where exactly the money has been going. 

“The city is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on homelessness every year and there is very little transparency around this — so much of it is going to service providers,” claimed Matthew Umhofer, attorney for the LA Alliance of Human Rights.