LOS ANGELES (AP) – When homeless people first visited their camp under a Los Angeles freeway overpass last fall, Veronica Perez was skeptical of her offer of not just a bed but a furnished apartment with meals, advice and the promise of some to offer stability in their life.
“They said they had a place to stay for me, but it just didn’t seem real,” said Perez. “When you are homeless, you become suspicious and you don’t trust people.”
Perez, 57, had slept in cars or tents across Southern California since losing her job in a warehouse and unable to pay her rent three years ago.
The second time the outreach team came to camp under Interstate 405, Perez decided she was ready to take a risk and make a change.
She accepted the offer and last year moved into one of 6,000 new buildings across the country as part of the Homekey project. The program, which started in June 2020, is used to convert vacant hotels, motels and other unused properties as permanent supportive living space.
Homekey is the linchpin of Governor Gavin Newsom’s $ 12 billion plan to tackle homelessness in the most populous state in the United States. California has an estimated 161,000 uninhabited people, more than a quarter of the nation’s total of 580,000, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Newsom signed the funding bill on July 19, calling it the “largest single investment in support of the weakest in American history.”
According to Newsom’s office, $ 800 million – most of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act – was spent on home keys in 2020 to shelter 8,200 people. Now the government plans to get even bigger: California will spend $ 5.8 billion in state and federal funds over two years to expand the program and create an estimated 42,000 housing units.
“If you look at last year as proof of concept, this year you can envision scaling that strategy and making it a core part of California’s approach to homeless housing,” said Jason Elliott, Senior Counselor, Newsom.
Newsom has made tackling homelessness a top priority. Now that the governor is about to be dismissed, the Republican candidates have released their own plans to combat the crisis. John Cox wants people who are not housed to receive all necessary treatment for addiction or mental illness before they can get housing. Kevin Faulconer wants to build more shelters to make it easier to clear camps.
It’s not just Republicans who are upset. The largely progressive Los Angeles City Council passed a controversial anti-camping measure this month to remove homeless camps.
Other states are also struggling with the escalating crisis. This summer, New York City launched an aggressive campaign to remove camps from Manhattan, and Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to move over 8,000 people from hotels they stayed in at the start of the pandemic to accommodation.
And in Washington state, Seattle residents will vote on a measure that would force the mayor to take steps to combat the problem, including creating 2,000 homes or apartments within a year.
In California, Homekey is an outgrowth of Project Roomkey, a temporary attempt to find shelter in hotels during the coronavirus outbreak that Elliot said provided beds for 42,000 homeless people aged 65 and over or others susceptible to COVID-19. It was extended until June 2022.
As part of Homekey, the state buys the real estate, pays all construction and renovation costs and then transfers them to cities or districts that conclude contracts with local service providers.
The state’s efforts should be welcomed, but are a “drop in the ocean,” said Eve Garrow, an analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
“That is considerable, but it is nowhere near enough to meet the needs of all the people currently being evicted from their homes,” she said.
A homekey location at a hotel in the small Silicon Valley town of Milpitas encountered some local opposition, leading to a lawsuit accusing officials of pushing through the project without public hearings.
“We say you have to ask our permission before you spend our taxpayers’ money and start building in our town,” said Suraj Viswanathan, a member of the Voices Of Milipitas group. The dispute was resolved, with the group ensuring regular security patrols in the vicinity of the hotel and biannual meetings.
The former hotel that Perez now calls home is operated by the nonprofit The People Concern, which operates three properties in LA County with a total of 162 units. All three are approaching capacity.
CEO John Maceri said the state has used local governments to make it work, but it will take a concerted effort from politicians and service providers to keep the program going. He estimates the remodeling cost will be well below $ 550,000 per unit, the common cost of building from scratch. It’s also much faster than building new units, and speed is important in a crisis.
“The goal should always be to offer permanent housing solutions faster and cheaper,” said Maceri.
In her new home in downtown Los Angeles, Perez enjoys her privacy, enjoys the three meals a day, and appreciates that she was allowed to bring her cat. She attends a weekly painting course.
“You told us, make yourself at home. And I do, ”she said. The staff helped her apply for a new social security card and will help her find a job when she is ready.
Perez was diagnosed with PTSD from years on the street and is receiving on-site counseling. Others with more severe mental health problems or addictions will also receive the treatment they need.
The goal is to make sure the “hardest to inhabit” people get in, said Dr. Margot Kushel, director of the Center for Vulnerable Populations at the University of California, San Francisco. To that end, Kushel says Homekey is getting the most important part right: providing permanent supportive housing, not temporary shelter.
“Some people need the services that come with this apartment, others don’t. But what really matters is that the services won’t work without the housing, ”she said.
Finally, Perez is given housing vouchers that enable her to rent a subsidized apartment.
However, it is unclear how long these coupons could last, raising concerns among proponents about long-term success in a state with exorbitant housing costs.
A new database shows that in 2020 almost 250,000 people looked for a housing agency. Around 117,000 of them are still waiting for help.
If California’s goals seem ambitious, Elliott said, it’s because they are: “Anything but ending homelessness means we’re setting our goals too low.”
