For years, Los Angeles voters have been saying: top concerns Includes housing and homelessness. This election gave them a chance to weigh these issues.

While Angelenos voted in favor of increasing local spending on homelessness, they did not support statewide measures aimed at expanding rent control and making it easier to issue affordable housing bonds.

Los Angeles political experts said the results show local voters still care about lowering housing costs and moving the needle on homelessness, but they won’t support everything that comes up for the ballot — especially if the measures are confusing.

Measure A soars to victory

A clear majority of LA County voters decided to pass a measure that would increase sales taxes to fund homeless services and new affordable housing development.

Measure A defenders victory was declared The vote count on Wednesday had about 56% support. The measure would double the current quarter-cent sales tax in L.A. County to a half-cent and generate nearly $1.1 billion annually for homelessness response efforts.

Some polls conducted ahead of the election suggested that voters may oppose the idea of ​​spending more on everyday shopping after a period of high inflation. large number of voters they were disappointed Seeing LA County’s homeless population increase by 37% since the current quarter-cent tax was first enacted with the passage of Measure H in 2017.

But Measure A supporters pointed out that while the number of homeless people in Los Angeles has plateaued this year, the number of people living on the streets without shelter has actually decreased. go down. Alan Greenlee, Executive Director Nonprofit Housing Association of Southern CaliforniaHe said many people saw this progress and voted to increase this funding.

“I’m not sure there’s a compelling alternative at this point,” Greenlee said. “People understand that there are interventions that need to be made. And if we choose to stop what we’re doing now and not replace it with an alternative, the average person may realize that this doesn’t seem like a path to success.”

If Measure A had failed, the current sales tax would have expired in 2027. The new half-cent tax will continue indefinitely until voters decide to repeal it.

Despite Measure A winning handily, voters still showed some fatigue about funding homelessness efforts through the ballot box. The measure received far less support than the initiative that first established the tax years ago.

“Voters are certainly not where they were in 2017, when Measure H had 69% support,” said Shane Phillips. researcher With the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.

Proposition 5 fails statewide, narrowly dividing L.A. voters

Unlike LA County Measure A, Proposition 5 was put on a statewide ballot. About 56% of voters in California rejected this offer Easier passage of affordable housing bonds by lowering the voter approval threshold from two-thirds to 55%.

Proposition 5 also struggled to gain support in L.A. County, where the majority of renters pay a large share of income for housing. About 50.3% of Angelenos voted “no,” according to Thursday’s count.

So why did voters support higher sales taxes to fund homelessness and housing but refused to make it easier to approve affordable housing bonds? Michael LensThe UCLA professor of urban planning and public policy said Proposition 5 could be more confusing.

“When you sit down to vote in California, there is a lot of information overload,” Lens said. “I think a lot of times the default option is ‘no’ because when you don’t fully understand something you become suspicious.”

In contrast, Lens said measure A is pretty simple. A yes vote ensured a higher sales tax and immediately generated money for affordable housing and homelessness programs. The value proposition in Proposition 5 was less transparent. Instead of quick results, the measure would only streamline the process of approving new funds in subsequent votes.

Another possible factor: Proposition 5 explicitly told voters that passing more bonds would result in higher property taxes; This was something many voters probably didn’t like to hear.

The third time wasn’t the charm of Proposition 33.

Another statewide measure, Proposition 33, sought to overturn a California law restricting cities statewide from passing stronger forms of rent control. He was defeated in both California and LA County.

According to the latest count, nearly 61% of Californians voted no on Proposition 33, including 57% of L.A. County voters. L.A. residents are more likely to be renters and tend to be more progressive than the state’s general population, but that didn’t help improve Proposition 33’s chances.

Housing policy experts were not surprised by this result. This The proposal has been put to the state ballot twice before In 2018 and 2020. Both previous measures failed by large margins.

Homeowner interest groups also spent once again millions of dollars In ads to defeat Proposition 33. The opposition campaign raised $125 million, the largest for any statewide measure.