PHOTO CREDIT: Peggy Lee Kennedy/Venice Justice Committee
By Ernesto Arce | KPFK
California officials and local leaders are trying to solve the challenge of keeping unhoused communities and other vulnerable populations safe during the pandemic.
One coalition has launched the No Vacancy campaign. It’s a bid to get at-risk homeless residents into the thousands of empty hotel rooms while re-employing low-income hotel workers at the same time. But the idea is not without its detractors.
The No Vacancy Campaign is demanding Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti use their executive powers to commandeer private hotels into accepting vulnerable unhoused residents. The group says an essential takeover of the hotels is in the interest of public health and that both leaders have mentioned it’s a possibility.
Advocates for the unhoused and very low-income say the African-American community has been devastated by the pandemic. Latinos and immigrants have been hit disproportionately, as well.
Jed Parriott is with Street Watch LA. He wants officials to move swiftly to safeguard all unhoused residents who are at the greatest risk of contracting the virus.
“There shouldn’t be vacancies right now in hotels during this crisis,” says Parriott. “Three people, on average, die on the streets every day in LA. Over a thousand a year.
“We had already been demanding things like hotels being used before this but the COVID pandemic came about and the CDC said you’ve got to shelter in place but how do you shelter in place if you don’t have a home?”
Officials in Orange County have long tried to find suitable temporary space for its unhoused residents. Two years ago, it closed an encampment along the Santa Ana River. The OC Board of Supervisors sponsored hotel vouchers to house the residents who didn’t want to go to shelters. But they found resistance every step of the way from hotel owners who didn’t cooperate and neighbors who didn’t want the homeless in their community.
During the coronavirus pandemic, something similar is happening at the Ayres Hotel in Laguna Woods.
Lisa Bartlett, an OC Supervisor, said the large, empty hotel was a good fit to house sick unhoused residents should they need it.
“Unfortunately in all of south Orange County the only hotel that stepped up to make itself available that we could get under contract was the Ayres,” said Bartlett. But residents of the adjacent senior community swiftly protested the decision.
“There are 18,000 seniors living here and they want to put homeless people who are not only sick but might have the virus,” said one resident of Laguna Woods Village retirement community. “And then they’ll go to Stater Brothers and Home Depot where we all shop. Do they want to kill everybody in this community? There are still no homeless residents at the Ayres hotel.
Parriott with the No Vacancy campaign, says state leaders need to heed their warnings.
“We’re demanding all these officials commandeer hotel rooms for every unhoused person in California right now,” says Parriott. “Not just the ones with COVID but all of them because they’re all in danger. They’re more susceptible.”
Parriott says occupying empty hotels means hotel workers will be back on the job. He says it’s a win-win situation for everyone.
Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel workers, says the union is sponsoring food banks for employees who are in desperate straits.
“We run five food banks that have served about 5,000 hotel workers,” says Petersen. “We tell our members don’t worry when this is over – and it will be over – you’ll still have a job. But what about non-union workers? All they have is unemployment.”
The No Vacancy group says its next action is to target and put pressure on Mayor Garcetti to move quickly to save lives.
