How the battle between Trump and Clinton could pave the way for L.A.'s $1.2 billion homeless housing measure

Los Angeles voters who persevere to the end of a busy ballot Tuesday will decide whether to tax the city’s property owners to provide housing for the homeless.

Proposition HHH, the 26th item on the ballot, would authorize $1.2 billion in borrowing to accelerate the pace at which mostly nonprofit developers build permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless people. The bonds would be repaid by a new property tax averaging just under $10 for each $100,000 in assessed valuation over 29 years.

City officials who placed the measure on the ballot say it would help fund 1,000 apartment units a year for 10 years. Los Angeles County would provide the support services for the city housing.

Following years of ineffective efforts to stem the spread of tent encampments that now dot the city, the bond measure is an ambitious approach to achieve a long-term solution. If approved, it would have little immediate effect, leaving the city and county struggling to gain traction with short-term efforts including offering services to those living on the street and finding placements in existing housing.  

In an election dominated by the presidential race, political analysts expect that voter reaction in the acrimonious contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could prove the deciding factor for the homeless bond proposal.

While tax measures always face a difficult challenge getting above the two-thirds vote required for passage, a strong anti-Trump sentiment among Democrats and a corresponding Republican malaise in deep-blue California could be important to a proposal likely to win or lose by a small margin, they say.

 “It’s frankly looking very favorable for progressive measures, for revenue measures up and down the state,” said Sean Clegg, a partner in the political consulting firm SCN Strategies, which is not involved in the campaign.

“There is definitely a Trump effect in California,” Clegg said. “That augurs positively for any revenue initiative that’s going to be on this ballot.”

The measure has the backing of much of Los Angeles’ political leadership and civic groups. United Way of Greater Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce are coordinating the campaign. Opponents, who argue that the city should use existing revenue to address homelessness, have not formed a campaign committee or raised funds.

Though no polls specifically aimed at Proposition HHH have been published, voters have consistently rated homelessness as one of the city’s top issues.

The polling also suggests that voters see homelessness as a moral issue, said John Fairbank, a principal at Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates. Fairbank’s firm is not working on HHH but includes homelessness in all its polls, he said.

“Safety is a concern, but it’s to a lesser degree,” Fairbank said. “The basic responsibility of us as Angelenos to help people, whether mental illness or families with children, is one of the driving forces to deal directly with this issue.”

Given the positive polling, proponents are focusing their effort on two fronts: motivating voters who are likely to vote yes and guiding them through the thicket of a ballot with 25 items before Proposition HHH.

“It’s a survivor ballot and we’re at the end of it,” said Mike Shimpock, a political consultant at SG&A Campaigns, which is running the campaign.

The campaign has included mailers sent to hundreds of thousands of households. In a personal touch emphasizing the moral aspect of the measure, volunteers wrote a hundred thousand postcards mailed last week.

Paul Mitchell, vice president of election analytic firm Political Data Inc., said that early voting shows a slightly better Democratic turnout and slightly depressed turnout of Republicans and independents than in the 2012 general election.

But the small boost among Democrats reflects a pool of Democratic voters who, compared with 2012, are more diverse and younger, a group that is generally less likely to vote.

 “So, it’s a miracle that the turnout isn’t down,” Mitchell said. “Being up by a percentage might result in an over-performance by about 5% if they are growing their electorate by pushing more to vote early.”