Its because they don't actually want to house the unhoused. They want to make it seem like this impossible challenge to provide affordable housing that doesn't cost the average person in LA $1M+
It's perhaps possible that this isn't a deliberate display of incompetence, but a set of systemic problems that make housing in California very expensive to build.
Sometimes this is masked, by regular maintenance, retrofits, and repairs. But if left to pot, a house is eventually worthless, then even a cost, for the new owner has to tear it down and rebuild.
Land appreciates. A house costs.
I have had a few friends who were in that position because they had to move but couldnt sell their houses (2008-2014 era roughly). They would have been better off taking the loss on leaving it empty after taking out loans to undo the damage done.
Though the article doesn't actually say anything about average costs or cost per type of unit, and since this is a professional news outlet they don't link their sources...
You would think so! Unfortunately, this is not the case. In SF, some of the systemic issues are planning processes voted into the city charter decades ago, so the city doesn't get to bypass them. Some of the larger issues, such as land price and CEQA, are state-wide issues that cities can't avoid.