In a unanimous vote, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors moved earlier today to spent up to $75.5 million to purchase eight motels to serve as interim and permanent supportive housing.
The acquisition and renovation of the properties - which span from the San Gabriel Valley to the South Bay - would be funded through an approximately $60.7 million grant from the State's Project Homekey program, packaged with a roughly $14.7 million allocation of existing CARES Act money.
Under the rules of the Project Homekey program - which provides $600 million in grant funding for hotel purchases statewide - individual jurisdictions are required to provide local matching funds for all aquisition costs over $100,000 per unit.
The eight properties which the County intends to acquire and renovate include:
The County must complete the acquisition process for each of the motels by December 30, 2020.
Project Homekey builds upon an earlier effort by the state and local jursidictions - Project Roomkey - to use vacant hotel rooms as temporary accommodations for older homeless persons, who are considered especially vulnerable to coronavirus.
In Los Angeles County, officials set aside $100 million for Project Homekey with the intention of sheltering 15,000 people. The program, which is now sunsetting, brought more than 4,000 homeless persons indoors at its peak, but fell well short of its stated goal.
Separately, the City of Los Angeles has been awarded $48.5 million via Project Homekey for five projects.
