Project Roomkey case study: Homeless housing sans behavioral requirements is just plain dangerous
Image by Hunter Kerhart
CPC's Edward Ring recently analyzed for Opp Now that San Jose's Housing First methodology doesn't alleviate homelessness, but creates “highly unsafe,” gov't-dependent communities. The LA Times chimes in, breaking down how LA's Mayfair hotel was trashed—and neighboring residents endangered—when converted to accountability-free homeless housing.
By the time the Mayfair Hotel shut its doors last year, the building had been through a wrenching, tumultuous period.
Windows at the 294-room boutique hotel, in L.A.’s Westlake neighborhood, had been shattered. Bathrooms had been vandalized. In some locations, carpet had been torn off the floor.
“Participant in 1516 Threatened staff, Security, destroyed property. Screamed. Yelled cursed. Everything went wrong with her. Inside and outside the building,” wrote a worker with Helpline Youth Counseling Inc., a service provider assigned to the hotel, in early 2022.
Those and other incidents were described in emails sent to the city of Los Angeles during the final six months of the Mayfair’s participation in Project Roomkey, a federally funded initiative that transformed hotels across L.A. into temporary homeless shelters. The emails, copies of which were obtained by The Times, depict a staff of security guards, nurses, hotel managers and others grappling with drug overdoses, property damage and what they characterized as aggressive and even violent behavior.
“Around 10 am a male in 1526 assaulted another resident in Room 726,” a security guard wrote in March 2022. “The situation was quickly broken up and 1526 was escorted out by police.”
The city has quietly paid the hotel’s owner $11.5 million in recent months to resolve damage claims filed over Project Roomkey.
Now, Mayor Karen Bass wants the city to purchase the Mayfair and convert it into homeless housing once again. But this time, residents, merchants and property owners are pushing back, saying they don’t want a return of the conditions they say they encountered when the Mayfair took in unhoused residents from Echo Park, Koreatown and other areas.
“The neighborhood is still recovering from Project Roomkey,” said Ruben Lares, who lives across from the hotel. “The purchase of the Mayfair would just completely destroy the community once again.”
This article originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Read the whole thing here.
Related:
Twenty years of failure: Why SJ Housing Dept's 2003 Homelessness plan flopped
Opinion: Offer supportive services for the homeless; don't enable destructive habits
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