Hoping to prevent a surge of deadly coronavirus cases in the homeless community, Los Angeles officials have launched a new effort to move an unprecedented 15,000 people out of overcrowded shelters and encampments and into hotel rooms.
It’s a daunting goal, given that nearly 60,000 people live without permanent shelter in L.A. County, most of them sleeping in the streets each night. Getting every person into an emergency shelter or a hotel room is probably an impossible task.
Moving quickly is critical. If LAHSA can secure 15,000 rooms and fill them, it could prevent 1,400 hospitalizations and 350 deaths, according to an analysis by Randall Kuhn, the UCLA researcher who led a study on how many homeless people could die from COVID-19.
She sees it as a turning point in L.A.'s relationship with its homeless population. It would move more homeless people off the streets than ever before, and she said LAHSA is determined to ensure that they won’t be sent back after the immediate threat of the coronavirus passes.In the first few weeks of Project Roomkey, which was created by Gov.
The Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles, contacted by the county for help, has turned over a list of 270 hotels with 25,000 rooms whose owners are willing to participate.“This is extraordinary and unprecedented,” said Phil Ansell, head of the county’s Homeless Initiative, which is handing the hotels off to LAHSA to operate as shelters.
Fifteen state and county negotiators, working mostly from home, have been closing leases on about 150 rooms per day — a pace that would not allow L.A. to reach its goal until sometime in summer, potentially long after the peak of coronavirus cases.To speed things up, LAHSA created a streamlined system to get sites running once a hotel becomes available.
Venice-based St. Joseph Center committed 19 staff members to open a 136-room Westside hotel and is preparing to take on more.“That we’re able to step up and do this is tremendous,” said Va Lecia Adams Kellum, president and chief executive officer. “We do whatever it takes. I’m sending emails at night saying, ‘You know anybody looking for work?’ ”
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