What could possibly go wrong?
/
waiting for check in time at the Ritz-CARLTON
LOS ANGELES (CNS) — A measure that would require hotels in Los Angeles to place unhoused people in vacant rooms and the city to consider its affordable housing needs before approving new hotel developments will appear on the March 2024 ballot.
The initiative received more than 126,000 signatures and was submitted to the City Council, which voted unanimously Friday to place it on the ballot rather than adopt it immediately.
If the measure is approved by voters, the city's Housing Department would pay hotels a fair market rate to lodge each person after identifying hotels with vacant rooms. It would require hotels to report the number of vacant rooms to the city [by 2:00 pm each day, while some guests are still checking out, and others are arriving, which may make touting available vacant rooms, er, difficult] and prohibit them from refusing lodging to unhoused people seeking housing through the program.
Maria Hernandez, communications director of UNITE HERE Local 11, said members of the union representing more than 32,000 workers at hotels, restaurants, airports, sports arenas and convention centers in Southern California walked to help collect signatures.
"We think this is a common sense issue [from gun control, to blocking pipelines, to mandatory flossing, every proposal for state action these days is “just common sense”] , and housing is an issue that affects so many of our members every day," Hernandez told City News Service.
Hotel owners opposing the measure packed the council chambers Friday, arguing that the proposal would decimate the local hotel industry by scaring away both staff and visitors.
Heather Rozman, executive director of the Hotel Association of Los Angeles, told the council … "Families and business travelers coming to Los Angeles want to know they'll have affordable and safe accommodations when they arrive."
Rozman added that she feared insurance companies would increase premiums if the measure passes. She said some organizers of large conferences are already contemplating pulling events from Los Angeles.
"Placing paying hotel guests next to an unhoused person shows a complete misunderstanding of the causes of homelessness, which often stem from mental illness and drug abuse," Councilman Joe Buscaino Buscaino said in a statement. [And then voted to put it on the ballot anyway]
Councilman Paul Krekorian, without stating a position on the measure, said special interest groups backing "any ridiculous policy proposal that can get enough Trader Joe's shoppers to sign a petition should not be the law of the city of Los Angeles, just because a petition qualifies." [And then voted to put it on the ballot anyway.]
Bambian Taft, who works as a hotel minibar attendant and helped obtain signatures for the petition… was disheartened to hear so many hotel owners come out against the proposal during the meeting. She thought they were casting people experiencing homelessness in a bad light.
"I was very disappointed about what they were saying, and how they were making people feel," Taft said.
Can’t argue with this, I suppose:
"Especially being homeless, it's like they don't want you around. They don't want you in the hotels. That was just very disappointing."
Mental illness, substance abuse and physical disabilities are much more pervasive in Los Angeles County’s homeless population than officials have previously reported, a Times analysis has found.
The Times examined more than 4,000 questionnaires taken as part of this year’s point-in-time count and found that about 76% of individuals living outside on the streets reported being, or were observed to be, affected by mental illness, substance abuse, poor health or a physical disability.
The Times … found that about 67% had either a mental illness or a substance abuse disorder. Individually, substance abuse affects 46% of those living on the streets — more than three times the rate previously reported — and mental illness, including post-traumatic stress disorder, affects 51% of those living on the streets, according to the analysis.
Readers may remember that prefab-constructed motel off Exit 6 (it sported a huge “WIN” sign on it while it was under construction, apparently because the lower cost of using a prefabricated building method was a show of support for then-President Ford’s “Whip Inflation Now” program that turned out to be as effective as our current “Inflation Reduction Act” will be). The place must have fallen on hard times, because it began accepting welfare “clients” of the City of Samford, while continuing to rent “normal” rooms to passing tourists from I-95.
A friend from upstate told me that one night, returning from D.C. and with five exhausted kids in the car, they decided to split the drive home and stay overnight in this hotel. The screams, and fights, and partying of their neighbors forced them to pack up and leave at 2:00 AM. Will Los Angeles hotels provide the same experience for their paying guests? Will the homeless crazies prove quieter and better mannered than ordinary welfare families and their friends? If you were in charge of planning a vacation or, worse, a convention, would you choose to stay in Los Angeles? Those are meant to be rhetorical questions, but genuine liberals will certainly answer in the affirmative. Your own response may differ.
