LA voters care about housing. Why did they approve some measures, but shoot down others?

For years, Los Angeles voters have said their top concerns include housing and homelessness. This election gave them a chance to weigh in on those issues.

While Angelenos voted in favor of boosting local spending on homelessness, they did not support statewide measures aiming to expand rent control and make it easier to pass affordable housing bonds.

L.A. policy experts said the results show that local voters still care about bringing down housing costs and moving the needle on homelessness, but they won’t support everything that comes up for a vote — particularly if measures are confusing.

Measure A glides to victory

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

Measure A proponents claimed victory Wednesday when vote tallies had support at about 56%. The measure doubles an existing quarter-cent sales tax in L.A. County to a half-cent tax, bringing in about $1.1 billion per year for homelessness response efforts.

Some polling in the lead-up to the election suggested voters might balk at the idea of spending more on everyday purchases after a period of high inflation. Many voters were frustrated to see L.A. County’s unhoused population increase by 37% since the existing quarter-cent tax first took effect with the passage of Measure H in 2017.

But Measure A supporters pointed out that L.A.’s homeless count leveled off this year, with the number of people living unsheltered on the streets actually going down. Alan Greenlee, executive director of the Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing, said many people saw that progress and voted to boost 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 happen. And if we choose to stop what we're doing now and replace it with no other alternative, the ordinary person can realize that doesn't seem like a pathway to success.”

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

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

“Voters definitely aren't where they were back in 2017, when Measure H got 69% support,” said Shane Phillips, a researcher with the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.

Prop. 5 fails statewide, narrowly divides L.A. voters

Unlike L.A. County Measure A, Proposition 5 was up for a statewide vote. About 56% of voters across California rejected this proposal to make affordable housing bonds easier to pass by reducing the voter approval threshold from two-thirds to 55%.

In L.A. County, where a majority of renters pay outsized portions of income for housing, Prop. 5 also struggled to gain support. About 50.3% of Angelenos voted “no” according to Thursday’s tally.

So why did voters support higher sales taxes for homelessness and housing funds, but reject making affordable housing bonds easier to approve? Michael Lens, a UCLA urban planning and public policy professor, said Prop. 5 might simply have been more confusing.

“There's a lot of information overload when you sit at a California ballot,” Lens said. “A lot of times the default, I think, goes to ‘no’ because you're suspicious if you don't fully understand something.”

In comparison, Lens said Measure A was fairly straightforward. A yes vote ensured a higher sales tax, generating money that will immediately flow to affordable housing and homelessness programs. The value proposition on Prop. 5 was more opaque. Instead of quick results, the measure would only have eased the process of approving new funds in subsequent votes.

Another likely factor: Prop. 5 explicitly told voters the passage of further bonds would result in higher property taxes, something many voters probably weren’t thrilled to hear.

The third time was not the charm for Prop. 33

Proposition 33, another statewide measure, aimed to overturn a California law that restricts cities across the state from passing stronger forms of rent control. It got trounced — both in California and in L.A. County.

About 61% of Californians voted no on Prop. 33, including 57% of L.A. County voters, according to the latest tallies. L.A. residents are more likely to be renters, and tend to be more progressive than the state’s population as a whole, but that didn’t help propel Prop. 33’s chances.

Housing policy experts were not surprised by the result. This proposal has been on the state ballot twice before in 2018 and 2020. Both previous measures failed by wide margins.

Landlord interest groups also once again spent millions of dollars on ads to defeat Prop. 33. The opposition campaign raised $125 million, the biggest haul for any statewide measure.