In spring 2020, activists illegally seized more than a dozen publicly owned, vacant homes in Los Angeles, arguing that the state shouldn’t leave its own houses empty during a homelessness crisis.
Since then, a lot of taxpayer money has gone to preventing others from doing the same.
State officials have spent over $17 million in the last six years on private security firms and extra police patrols to protect hundreds of homes, including dozens that are empty, that were acquired decades ago for a failed freeway expansion through the San Gabriel Valley, according to records obtained by POLITICO from the California Department of Transportation. The hefty price tag brings additional scrutiny to a long-running housing and transportation saga, which has drawn international attention and come to symbolize the sluggish response by local and state officials to the tens of thousands of people living on the streets of Los Angeles…