The State of California has awarded the City of West Hollywood a conditional Homekey grant in the amount of $6,007,661 to address the capital and operating expenses for a proposed plan to convert the Holloway Motel site into an interim housing and supportive services location for people experiencing homelessness.
At its regular meeting on Monday, June 6, 2022, the City Council of the City of West Hollywood unanimously approved a Resolution approving the purchase of the Holloway Motel property, located at 8465 Santa Monica Boulevard, with $4,200,000 (plus closing costs) in unallocated reserves set aside in West Hollywood’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The Resolution initiates a purchase and escrow process. Closure on the sale is subject to negotiation and preparation of a development agreement with the property owner, which will require Planning Commission review and approval by the City Council at a future public hearing. This follows prior approval, in December 2021, of $2,800,000 in unallocated reserves set aside in West Hollywood’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund dedicated as a local match to operating expenses at the proposed interim housing site.
The City of West Hollywood is committed to engaging with the community and to providing opportunities to share detailed information about the proposed project and to collect feedback from residents and businesses. Staff members from the City’s Strategic Initiatives Division will host several meetings about the proposed project. Two upcoming meetings about the proposed Holloway Motel/Homekey Housing Program will take place virtually via Zoom on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. One meeting will take place at 12 p.m.; the other meeting will take place at 7 p.m. Community members are encouraged to attend either session; information presented by the City will be the same content at each meeting. Details about Zoom sign-up are provided on the City’s website calendar at www.weho.org/calendar.
The City’s Homeless Initiative addresses homelessness with a multi-disciplinary, multi-agency, collaborative response and works in close partnership with the City’s contracted and collaborative nonprofit social services providers, the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station, and Los Angeles County agencies. The work of the Homeless Initiative is guided by the City’s
Five-Year Plan to Address Homelessness in Our Community, which was approved by the West Hollywood City Council in 2018. The plan was developed based on extensive engagement with the community, and with funding support from LA County Measure H. The plan remains critically important in directing the local response to homelessness.
At its December 20, 2021 meeting, the West Hollywood City Council gave authorization to City staff to apply for a Project Homekey grant from the State of California’s Department of Housing and Community Development.
The proposed Holloway Motel/Homekey Housing Program envisions the purchase of the Holloway Motel to be updated, rehabilitated, and operated as an interim housing program, that will provide a comprehensive program for people who are experiencing homelessness to move off the streets with case management and supportive services, with the goal of identifying and securing permanent housing. Interim housing would typically provide a stay of up to 90 days to stabilize community members and assist them with getting the necessary care and resources to find permanent housing. The project plans would call for considerable physical improvements to the site and operations would include appropriate security measures and 24/7 onsite staff.
The City of West Hollywood is committed to providing comprehensive assistance to people who are experiencing homelessness in the City. A survey conducted of West Hollywood residents in November 2021 by FM3 Research, found that 90 percent of respondents ranked homelessness as a very or somewhat serious issue (72 percent “very serious” and 18 percent “somewhat serious”) making this one of the most significant issues of concern for the community. The survey also found strong support among residents for interventions to address homelessness. Of those surveyed, 79 percent of respondents supported increasing the prioritization of “Supportive Housing, including homeless services, within City limits” (52 percent “much more of a priority” and 27 percent “somewhat more of a priority”). 76 percent of respondents supported increasing prioritization of “City-funded temporary shelter beds and homeless services provided within City limits,” (50 percent “much more of a priority” and 26 percent “somewhat more of a priority”).
To report concerns about a community member who is homeless, call the West Hollywood Homeless Initiative Concern Line at (323) 848-6590. If the concern requires time-sensitive assistance during nights or weekends, please call the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station at (310) 855-8850.
For more information about the Homeless Initiative, please contact Corri Planck, City of West Hollywood Strategic Initiatives Manager, at (323) 848-6430 or cplanck@weho.org. For additional information, please visit www.weho.org/homeless. For people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, please call TTY (323) 848-6496.
I’ve heard on news, LA is using some older motels for housing the unhoused. In general FIRST GOOD & FEASIBLE PLAN (no more $500,000 per new unit. Motels are built safely but at THE LOWEST COST OF MOST ANY OTHER.BUILDING TO CODE. AS WEHO HAS TOO MANY HOTELS ALREADY, IT IS TOTALLY LACKING IN VERY LOW PRICED ACCOMODATIONS FOR PEOPLE NEAR & FAR WANTING TO GO TO WEHO FOR FIRST TIME. MOST CAN’T AFFORD THE COST OF THE LEAST EXPENSIVE HOTEL ROOM IN THE CITY THIS MOTEL (I have to assume not doing well financially, might be better as the… Read more »
I agree we have to do something about the homeless. I propose hiring busses and getting this undesirables far out if town. There must be consequences for thise who made bad life choices, like the decision they made to become an alcoholic or drug addict. Why should I have to support them? Let them be homeless in the desert.
Just wait until they put you on a bus so you won’t molest their children. Is that what you want? Just as disgusting is people who look at our desert as a dumping ground. It’s this kind of person who abandons pets, people (dead and live) and toxic materials in the desert because of pure ignorance.
Does he molest children? Should report that.
Complete waste of taxpayer money. That “Grant” is taxpayer money. WEHO doesn’t need this . YOU act like there is no help anywhere for the homeless . Take a ride downtown thru skid row block after block of missions helping homeless.. I’m so sick of the bleeding hearts in this city.
I’m really bothered by a lot of these comments. Everyone complains about the homeless, but if we don’t do anything, the problem will not go away. This facility isn’t even a shelter, it’s for people who have already accepted help. I’d also be really cautious suggesting that the unhoused to mental hospitals or any other similar facilities. If the right wing gains control at some point, they might decide that homosexuals, deviants or people with mental health issues need to go to a similar facility to keep society safe. If that door is opened, many of you will find yourselves… Read more »
Get a grip on your paranoia Hun
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!
There really are people out there who actually think this stuff?
Yes, the homeless problem could go away from West Hollywood if we did what Beverly Hills and many other cities do.
Nimbys are plentiful in weho.
Nimbys are and always will be the worst. If someone plants a tree anywhere in WeHo, some NIMBY on here is going to complain it should have been planted at least three feet further away.
The American Psychiatric Institute removed homosexuality as a mental illness from the DSM a long time ago, so no need to be paranoid. The right wing doesn’t want lgbt people in mental hospitals; they want us to not exist at all. Big difference. The mentally ill homeless, on the other hand, have severe mental health issues that can only be handled by mental hospitals because outpatient treatment can’t work for someone who isn’t compliant with treatment. Let’s exercise some logic here.
When is the last time you’ve looked at a website by any right wing extremist? Have you noticed what’s going on in Florida? They all still think homosexuality is a mental illness and that we’re all pedophiles. The point is that targeting a group of people and talking about shipping them away to “facilities” is dangerous. Who is and isn’t dangerous is a subjective and is up to whomever is in power. Remember when people wanted people with HIV to be catalogued in the 80s so that physicians could refuse to see them? This was a movement here in the… Read more »
I have never advocated for shipping the homeless to random facilities. That’s why we need State hospitals to institutionalize severely mentally ill people who can’t take care of themselves, and as such, are living on the streets. They need psychiatrists to treat them in lock-down psychiatric facilities so that they can get the care they need, and the rest of us don’t have to trip over them or get assaulted by them on our way to the store. This is the humane way. I don’t hang out on extremist websites and don’t care about their opinions. Being so paranoid that… Read more »
Some things that should be clarified: 1. This project is not a place where people with mental illness are treated. 2. I’m not saying that those with mental illness don’t need treatment, and that if they need full time care, they shouldn’t get it. 3. You seem like you have some compassion, which I respect.
Personally, I think that unused motels are a great transitional solution for the unhoused. A prevalent fear in West Hollywood is that this particular motel will only bring in more unhoused as the established unhoused members of my little part of the city (Santa Monica Blvd between La Cienega and Doheny) are unlikely to seek housing or rehabilitation. Most of these individuals appear to be afflicted by drug addiction/use and/or severe mental illness. On a daily basis I witness my unhoused neighbors yelling obscenities (sometimes directed at residents and sometimes not), exposing themselves (sometimes inadvertently), defecating on the sidewalk, banging… Read more »
While your comment veers into the histrionic, I agree that facilities for those needing help, like the Holloway, are very much needed. And really, it’s the least we can do in our so-called progressive city.
Very progressing, directly across the street from The Soho House. “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”
Oh no! Someone think of the rich “want to be seen” crowd! HEAVENS!
Disgusting comment, this is about the lives of real people. Maybe these people didn’t have your luck when they came to Los Angeles, hoping to make it big, or maybe they didn’t know which people they needed to sleep with to succeed.
It is a quote from Shakespeare merely eluding to the juxtaposition between The Elitist SoHo House and The Holloway as a shelter for the homeless being across the street from each other. Not passing judgement on either side, just an observation. So chill, Mary!
Ok, well that quote doesn’t really apply in this situation. Have any other quotes that might work better? Something from The Merchant of Venice, perhaps?
A negligible number of unhoused people are from West Hollywood. They’re transients by definition.
Creating incentives for them to come here (handouts, donations, tolerance from police, stores/residents/properties to rob when they’re high/desperate/psychotic) means that they come, and now ‘We Have To Do Something’.
We have the cart before the horse. Creating this facility will make the problem worse.
But that’s the unspoken goal of the homeless industrial complex.
Well-observed. And th tip of this sad iceberg of tent cities, is the number of people on the street who do NOT wish to be confined by rules and regulations. Do you ever think about ‘hoboes”? There are similarities that have been ignored and in the days of the trains and the tracks, we had homeless. They were called tramps and hoboes and they formed groups that stayed together and rode the freights and had their own rules and codes. Before there was radio and TV and Social media to influence them. And this influence was a snare and a… Read more »
The homeless I see here……aren’t looking for affordable housing.
These people must be forced in treatment centers and receive mandated mental health evaluations.
CA must reopen psychiatric hospitals and tell the ACLU to shove it.
No. They’re not looking for affordable housing. They’re looking for their next beer, next high, or they have a mental illness where they don’t even know who they are where they are what they’re doing.
good grief
In that survey of West Hollywood residents was the question even asked how many of us just want the homeless gone, as they are in communities all around us? Why do we have to be the community who takes them in? These surveys can be very misleading to provide the conclusion the survey takers want, and I have a feeling that’s what happened here.
How soon will the program and this site be up and running? This is a positive step forward. Please let’s not take a year to get started. The need is now.
I’m guessing it will take much longer than a year actually.
Anytime government is involved it takes longer than it should and they pay more than they should.
Sickening use of public funds
This will hurt the neighborhood in so many ways and likely increase the number of disturbed addicts and predators in the neighborhood.
Great. Let’s spend $10 million of taxpayer money to house maybe 12 homeless people, in one of the most sought out zip codes in the nation. Afterall, we don’t have enough homeless here. Let’s do what we can to encourage more of them to come here, so we can sacrifice other services to take care of those who made bad life choices. Is it any wonder so many years Americans are moving overseas. Then we have to listen to the idiot Lindsey Horvath types brag about all the good deeds they think they did, with other people’s money.