A UCR housing scholar on why Riverside turned down $20M for homeless housing

UCR News: UCR public policy professor Stan Oklobdzija unpacks the January 4-3 vote that sent back $20.1M in state money to convert the University Avenue Quality Inn into 114 supportive-housing units. His through-line: homelessness tracks housing cost, not drug use or weather, and leaving land-use calls to low-turnout local elections hands outsized weight to a narrow, older, wealthier slice of voters. Worth your time if you track the housing-homelessness beat — it's a clear-eyed framing of the structural problem, with the Riverside vote as the case study. Opinionated, and openly so.