Our Research and Proposed Solutions
The Hestia Project is an organization that works to provide aid to homeless people in the local Los Angeles area. As native Californians, Olivia and Sage have been noticing the rise in homelessness in their surrounding area for years.
Through their research, they have learned about the Los Angeles government’s actions to help the homelessness crisis, such as Measure H and Proposition HHH.
What is Measure H?
As stated by by the Los Angeles County Homelessness Initiative, Measure H is, “the first revenue stream dedicated to preventing and addressing homelessness countywide.” This measure implemented a 1/4-cent sales tax, and was approved in March of 2017.
What is Proposition HHH?
Proposition HHH (abbreviated Prop. HHH) was a ballot measure approved in November of 2016. This proposition allowed the city of Los Angeles to issue up to $1.2 billion in loans to develop or acquire supportive housing.
With both these propositions, a common criticism was that the progress made by the county was quite minimal compared to problems that they face. As written by Ron Galperin, Los Angeles’s City Controller, “Despite steep increases in public spending year over year to address homelessness in Los Angeles, more people are unhoused today than when Prop. HHH passed in 2016.” Despite the City’s efforts, tens of thousands of people remain unhoused.
One of the major problems that Prop. HHH faces is the rising costs of developing and constructing housing units. Ron Galperin reports that, “one project in pre-development is estimated to cost nearly $837,000 per unit.” With this high cost, it makes it nearly impossible to be able to house all the homeless members of the local area.
Armed with this information, Olivia and Sage tried to conjure up a plausible solution to the issue of individual unit costs being too high. Through their research, they sifted through many other organizations' methods to solve the issue of homelessness and discovered prefabricated modular housing. To see more about why Olivia and Sage suggest this as a possible alternative way to make more housing units at a lower cost, see the Why Modular Housing? section of this page.
Why Modular Housing?
Modular housing allows us to first build 80-90% of the structure of our housing units off site. Then, these prefabricated units are transported and completed at our project sites. This process allows us to quickly and conveniently install numerous housing units, drastically shortening their construction period. Therefore, once a project is approved, homeless individuals are able to quickly move into a safe and comfortable shelter.
When it comes to price, modular housing made with shipping containers is also much cheaper than the housing that the county of LA has been funding (one unit costing up to $800,000). Due to modular housing being not only more convenient and time-efficient, but also more cost-efficient, this solution will provide more housing, faster.