Inauguration of housing project for 97 homeless in Whittier

In the face of the housing and humanitarian crisis that 76,000 people live on the streets of Los Angeles County, the conversion of a Motel 6 in the city of Whittier will help 97 individuals to have a studio apartment as permanent housing in the summer of 2024.

Janice Hahn, President of the Board of Supervisors, Cheri Todoroff, Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative, and Cristian Almada, Director of Holos Communities were part of the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Project Homekey (Turnkey Project), located at 8211 Pioneer Blvd.

The Laurel Grove project, in the old Motel 6 -which served to house the elderly during the coronavirus epidemic-, will include the addition of a small park, open to the entire community. State funding will be used from the Project Homekey from the California Department of Housing and Community Development and the Los Angeles County.

“I think it is a very important project because we can build affordable housing in a faster time at a lower cost than if we tried to build something from scratch,” Supervisor Hahn told La Opinión.

“So buying a motel like that and converting it, so everyone has their own little apartment, is really smart. And it's fast.”

She felt that the community appreciates the effort that is being made to get people off the streets and start putting people on the path to a better life. Each unit will cost $300,000.

Hahn said conversions of hotels, motels and other buildings have been a quick and cost-effective way to create affordable housing. The West Whittier Motel 6 was purchased in 2020 by the county.

Cheri Todoroff told La Opinión that the Laurel Grove project “is an incredible project to quickly move people into housing.”< /p>

The executive director of the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative noted that statewide, the Homekey program has had this county as one of the largest beneficiaries.

“We have been able to acquire nearly 1,500 housing units, and these opportunities only come in existing structures that can be purchased—often hotels and motels—and perhaps a single apartment building that can be renovated if necessary.”, he said.

Despite the fanfare at the launch of the Laurel Grove project, Lupita González, a member of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) in Los Angeles, considered the initiative to be just a small step forward in search of solutions.

“If they are going to help 97 people to get out of the homeless state that is good, but we believe that there are many people who have not been counted as homeless, not only in the city but throughout the county of Los Angeles” he said.

He stressed that it is “impossible” to build a home for 76,000 homeless people or offer a solution to all of them at the same time.

“[The authorities] are showing that they are acting in good will, in good faith, but with the thought that they are not solving the whole problem,” González said.

Selection criteria

Victoria Weiss, Board Member of Holos Communities (Holistic Communities), formerly Clifford Beers Housing, said the Laurel Grove project is much more than just 97 permanent housing units for the less fortunate.

“It will be a building that increases sustainability, because Holos Communities is 100% committed not only to building homes, but also to building homes that help mitigate the impact of climate change in our communities; it will have a gray water system that will feed the entire landscape and a system to block pollution [from] the 605 freeway.

For his part, Carlos Ahumada, executive director of Holos Communities, announced that among the main requirements that candidates for housing must meet are: the number of episodes in which the person has lived on the street; chronic illnesses: asthma, diabetes, etc., mental illness and very low income.

“The most important thing is the episodes [the number of times] that a person has lived on the street,” he asserted.

In the building that was Motel 6, there will be offices equipped with professional staff to offer medical, social, nutritional and resource services for those who have some type of mental health problem.

“Between April and May 2024 we will open, although by that time we will already have defined -at least six months before- the list of the 97 people who will have their permanent home”.

It's important to know that applicants for housing must be individuals living on the streets of Whittier, a city where, in 2022, counted with 230 homeless, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).