Create a build directory somewhere under /usr and enable the util-linux package.
If the directory is /usr/local/home/me/buildroot, then you will find invalid settings from the following command:

find /usr/local/home/me/buildroot/output -name libblkid.la\* -exec grep dependency_libs '{}' ';'

One can just build from a different directory or "sudo mount -o bind /usr/local/home/me/buildroot /buildroot" to workaround this situation if it is not possible to move the files. However, in some environments, users may not have those options available.

I was tempted to try to fix the various sed commands like so:

diff --git a/package/pkg-autotools.mk b/package/pkg-autotools.mk
index b0eddde..486d66f 100644
--- a/package/pkg-autotools.mk 
+++ b/package/pkg-autotools.mk 
@@ -246,7 +246,7 @@ define $(2)_INSTALL_STAGING_CMDS 
        $$(TARGET_MAKE_ENV) $$($$(PKG)_MAKE_ENV) $$($$(PKG)_MAKE) $$($$(PKG)_INSTALL_STAGING_OPT) -C $$($$(PKG)_SRCDIR)
        for i in $$$$(find $(STAGING_DIR)/usr/lib* -name "*.la"); do \
                cp -f $$$$i $$$$i~; \
-               $$(SED) "s:\(['= ]\)/usr:\\1$(STAGING_DIR)/usr:g" $$$$i; \ 
+               $$(SED) "\|$(STAGING_DIR)/usr|!s:\(['= ]\)/usr:\\1$(STAGING_DIR)/usr:g" $$$$i; \ 
        done
 endef
 endif


---

Similar changes to sed commands needed in:
package/apr/apr.mk
package/pkg-autotools.mk
package/python/python.mk
package/python3/python3.mk
package/qt5/qt5.mk
package/qwt/qwt.mk


However, that fix is not sufficiently tested yet and there may be pathological path choices that would defeat it. Since the .la files are sourced as shell scripts, one should be able to use shell variable expansion to reliably generate the correct path, even when these sed scripts are run multiple times.

I've made a quick try editing in foo=sysroot_path and then dependency_libs=" ${sysroot_path}/usr". But quoting hell and time are making me leave this problem for another day.