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L.A. County falling short on goal to secure hotel rooms for 15,000 vulnerable homeless amid COVID-19

Wendy Brown enters her room at the Cadillac Hotel in Venice on June 1, 2020, as part of Project Roomkey.(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

An ambitious Los Angeles County plan to lease hotel and motel rooms for 15,000 medically vulnerable homeless people is falling far short of its goal and may never provide rooms for more than a third of the intended population.

Project Roomkey has given safe haven to thousands of those it has housed. But as it enters its fourth month, negotiators have secured only 3,601 rooms. That’s only a fourth of the number needed to house all those who are eligible.


As a result, homeless officials are now changing course, saying they will continue working to find permanent housing for all those eligible, whether they first move into hotel rooms or remain on the street.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is scheduled to submit a plan to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday to house all 15,000 eligible people. Although details have not been publicly released, it is expected to seek hundreds of millions of dollars over several years for services and housing subsidies.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.