Is L.A. Ready To Go Shopping?

I think sticker-shock would be a common response to the shopping list published in the Daily News recently.

They list the cost of all the urgent needs of Los Angeles. Their total price… $250 billion over the next 10 to 30 years. This includes things like highways and streets, sewers, community colleges, jails, health care, anti-gang programs, police stations, the subway to the beach, and, of course, homelessness.

The recent Bring L.A. Home plan states that our community would need to spend $12 billion in the next ten years to resolve homelessness. Not a big figure if you compare it to the quarter of a Trillion dollars listed.

So the big question is this… what is more important? Saving the lives of people floundering on our streets? Or building more jails and highways?

Like most of us prudent shoppers, we should put together a shopping wish list, with the most realistic purchases on top.

And what purchase should be on the top of this list? Saving people’s lives on our streets—homelessness.

Here’s the list:

Highways, streets, mass transit, sewers and storm drains throughout the county over 10 years: $100 billion

County's share of governor's infrastructure spending plan: $74 billion

L.A. Community College projects: $3 billion

L.A. County jails: $500 million

L.A. County health system: $1.1 billion

Gangs (proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase): $3.25 billion

L.A. County's share of unfunded liabilities for public employee pensions and retiree health costs: $50 billion to $60 billion

MTA Red Line extension through Westside: $4.5 billion

Homelessness: $12 billion

LAPD police stations (estimates from 20-year master plan adopted in 1996): $1.2 billion to $2 billion over 20 years