Project Roomkey Coming to an End

The federally-funded Project Roomkey that aimed to get people living on LA streets into empty hotels and motels during COVID is ending.

There are now reports on calls for the city of LA to turn one downtown hotel into permanent housing.

“Ultimately? I just want a safe place to go home,” said Tanya Rivera, who is homeless in downtown LA.

Rivera knows her situation might be a little harder to overcome.

She needs housing that provides wheelchair access and a way to take care of her difficult medical situation.

“I’ve been staying either under the overpass or at the bus stop,” Rivera said. 

She says she was kicked out of the project roomkey program at the LA Grand Hotel in downtown LA 10 days ago because she missed check-in appointments.

“I didn’t check in because I was having an episode laying on the street for four days across the street. Staff walked by,” Rivera said. 

Back in May of 2020, the city was moving people off the street into the LA Grand.

It was never meant to be a permanent solution – but one to get people off the street at the height of the COVID pandemic. 

There were 37 hotels and motels across LA with 4,000 rooms available. 

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority says it housed more than 10,000 people over the last two years with more than 4,000 moved into permanent housing. 

But federal funds for the program dried up in July and the program has only three hotels left – two will close at the end of October and the LA Grand will close at the end of January.

“We see an opportunity here to create something that’s good for our people, our communities and that is the city taking over the la grand and turn it into permanent housing,” said Ashley Bennet of Ground Game LA. 

Ground Game LA is one of the homeless advocacy groups looking for a way to keep the remaining 400 residents housed at the LA Grand, even as the program starts to force some to exit between now and when the hotel closes.

“Four people a day, up to 20 a week and people don’t have a place to go,” Bennet said. 

“It takes a lot of time when no one is helping you,” said Sonja Verdugo, who lives at the LA Grand. 

Verdugo considers herself one of the lucky ones. She’s lived at the hotel for more than a year and says she recently found her own place for her voucher. She’s just waiting for LAHSA to approve it.

“To get the housing authority to set up an inspection and finish the paperwork and all that is a process,” Verdugo said. 

LA city council authorized nearly three million additional dollars just a few weeks ago to help move Project Roomkey along as the program nears its end, money that’s supposed to help get those still inside into another form of housing.