On Friday, homeless advocates asked city leaders to purchase the L. A. Grand Hotel, which served as an emergency shelter during the COVID-19 pandemic, to turn it into permanent housing.
The hotel, located at Figueroa and 3rd Street in downtown Los Angeles, is the city’s largest lodging site as part of project Roomkey, a federally funded program introduced in the spring of 2020. The program has allowed cities and counties to provide emergency housing to others without medically vulnerable housing amid the pandemic. But it has become transitional housing for a wider diversity of homeless Angelenos.
With the end of Roomkey’s assignment in L. A. , four sites remain. Officials plan to pull everyone out of L. A. Large, which featured 482 rooms, through Jan. 31, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
In front of the hotel, existing and former citizens of the Roomkey project, as well as homeless advocates, demanded that the city ensure that each and every one of the hotel’s internal users find permanent housing.
Tanya Rivera, 53, said she had to leave the hotel last week. He said he ended up on the street before the departure date, had a medical emergency and was out of the hotel for more than 48 hours, a violation of the rules. .
Rivera, who uses a wheelchair and suffers from lupus and spinal spondylosis, said he won a housing voucher but struggled to navigate the confusing system. The voucher expires at the end of November, he said.
“No one helped me find an apartment,” he said.
Ashley Bennett, co-founder of the nonprofit Ground Game L. A. , said the coalition of homeless citizens and homeless advocates sent a formal ice letter Friday to Councilman Kevin de Leon, calling for the acquisition of the 13-story hotel. The coalition does not, however, know how much the hotel would cost, he said.
Getting an assessment “is our most sensible priority when it comes to a study project,” Bennett said.
De León, who represents the city center, was skeptical of the idea and issued a saying that focuses on “realistic solutions” that produce “real effects that take other people off the streets and keep a roof over their heads. “
Pete Brown, a spokesman for De Leon, said the council’s homeless committee receives weekly reports on efforts to empty the L. A. As a component of this process, everyone at the hotel “is presented with various lodging options,” Brown said.
“The last hotels in the Roomkey allocation are deteriorating thanks to an established and successful process,” said Ahmad Chapman, a spokesman for LAHSA. “Together with our partners, we have helped more than 4400 people who participated in the assignment of Roomkey. to end their homelessness. We will continue to use those effective strategies to position as many Roomkey assignment players into permanent housing and offer players a position in transitional housing.
The L. A. Grand Hotel is the only asset in the sights of activists.
Four months ago, the board took a significant step toward securing Hillside Villa, an apartment complex in Chinatown where dozens of families have faced steep hiring increases. Council member Gil Cedillo, who represents the area, has continually said he would be willing to use the force of a major estate — government authority to force the owner to sell — to obtain the building.
On Friday, homeless advocates said the city also deserves to employ a major property to win the L. A. Grand Hotel. They argue that assets have had a particularly turbulent history.
The hotel is in the midst of a federal corruption case against former councilman Jose Huizar, who resigned in 2020 and faces charges of corruption, organized crime and fraud. Prosecutors said the company that owns the hotel and one of its executives participated in a program to provide monetary benefits to Huizar in exchange for a new 77-story skyscraper planned at the site. The skyscraper was not approved.
Huizar and the owner of the work have pleaded guilty. The trial in the case against the developer, real estate company Shenzhen New World, is scheduled for next month.
A lawyer for the company responded to a request from the Times on Friday. Huizar’s trial is scheduled for February.
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Ruben Vives is a general reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Originally from Guatemala, he began in journalism writing for The Times’ Homicide Report in 2007. to 8 municipal officials. The 2010 series of polls won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and other prestigious awards.
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David Zahniser covers Los Angeles City Hall for the Los Angeles Times.
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