Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s homeless team wants to buy a 15-story hotel in the Westlake neighborhood, the latest major expenditure planned as part of her “Inside Safe” program.

In a memo sent to the council’s Budget, Finance and Innovation Committee, Bass and her team acknowledge

i.e

They are currently looking for the 294-room Mayfair Hotel, which served as temporary housing for the homeless for two years before closing its doors last summer. The building was listed for nearly $70 million in recent months.

Bass and her team declined to say how much the city has offered, saying the price will be revealed when the transaction is presented to the city’s municipal utilities commission next month. They said the hotel would serve as a critical tool in the city’s fight against homelessness, and help reduce rent costs associated with Inside Safe, which has taken about 1,200 people off the streets and into hotels, motels and moved other facilities.

If the city completes the purchase, the Mayfair would be a key part of the city’s effort to create “permanent transitional housing” city-owned residential buildings where the homeless can live for up to a year before finding their own apartment.

Under the proposal, the city would provide a range of services on the ground floor of the Mayfair, substance abuse counselors, mental health clinicians

other

healthcare workers

said Bass

.

“There is no shortcut to doing this. You can put people in a shelter if you want, and they stay there for a few days and then they’re back on the street,” Bass said. “We have to think outside the box, and maybe a little outside the bounds of what the city normally does.”

A broker representing the Mayfair referred questions to Alex Moradi, an executive at the ICO Group of Companies. Moradi did not respond to several requests for comment.

However, Bass’ homeless team confirmed that the city has signed a non-binding letter of intent with Mayfair Lofts

LLC

, the owner of the hotel, three weeks ago. That company is affiliated with ICO, according to information from the provincial assessor’s office.

Bass has asked the city to allocate $250 million in next year’s budget for Inside Safe, which targets encampments in Hollywood, Venice, South Los Angeles and other parts of the city. That figure does not include the money it would take to buy the Mayfair. If the sale goes through, Inside Safe’s cost could exceed $300 million for the next fiscal year.

Councilman Katy Yaroslavsky, who sits on the council’s budget committee, supported the idea of ​​buying hotels and motels, saying the city will need “thousands and thousands of units” to deal with its crisis.

Jaroslavsky said her office has repeatedly unsuccessfully tried to rent hotels and motels in her affluent Westside neighborhood. But paying rent to motel owners is also “not a good long-term strategy,” she said.

“The logistics of trying to negotiate once [agreements] with hundreds of motel owners puts us in a bad bargaining position,” she said. “Going one by one, we’re not optimizing our purchasing power.”

On

Wednesday

, Bass and Yaroslavsky headed to the mayor’s 16th Inside Safe operation, located along a stretch of San Vicente Boulevard in LA’s Beverly Grove neighborhood, which is part of the Yaroslavsky district. Nearly two dozen tents had taken up residence on the medians and other rights of San Vicente

–

by

–

way.

Jeremy Mosley, who lived on one of those medians, said Wednesday he was ready to make the move. But he sounded unsure about moving to a motel in South Los Angeles, eight miles away.

‘I want to see what it’s like. Because this looks bad. I know it is,” he said, pointing to the furniture, tarpaulins, and other belongings occupying the median.

The mayor’s proposed homelessness budget for the coming year lists four separate temporary housing acquisition line items, adding up to $73 million. Bass’ team declined to say whether all or part of the money would go to the Mayfair.

Those funds

are not included in the

$250 million is being requested for Inside Safe.

The Mayfair was the site of a $37 million renovation in 2018 and 2019, according to the property’s real estate listing. In 2020, it became one of several city hotels to participate in Project Roomkey, a government-funded program that took homeless Angelenos off the streets as part of the country’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

City leaders voted last year to end the Project Roomkey program. But several of the locations that participated in the program continue to serve as temporary housing for LA’s homeless population.

Last fall, the council voted to allow the Highland Gardens Hotel to function as temporary housing for the homeless until at least June 30. That facility, located in the Hollywood Hills, offers 72 rooms or up to 143 beds.

City manager Matt Szabo said the hotel will

probably probably

remain as temporary homeless housing until 2025, at a cost of approximately $6 million per year. At that facility, lease costs are about $4,550 per room per month, according to a report to the council. Once social services offered by PATH, or People Assisting The Homeless, are included, monthly room costs exceed $7,000.

Councilor Nithya Raman, representing the Hollywood Hills, worked to secure Highland Gardens before Bass took office. Bass, for her part, was heavily involved in the effort to preserve another Project Roomkey hotel, the LA Grand in downtown Los Angeles.

The LA Grand was originally supposed to close like this

a

temporary housing for the homeless on January 31. Bass’ team managed to rent 481 rooms in that facility for another year. The monthly cost of a room, which includes not only lodging but meals, is $154 per night, or nearly $4,700 per month, according to a memo provided to the council last month.

The council would have to approve the purchase of the Mayfair. Meanwhile, at least one former Mayfair resident is objecting to the proposed takeover.

Cynthia Mama Cat Trahan, 62, who lived in the Mayfair for about four months, said Project Roomkey staff treated the hotel’s transient guests with “very little respect”, frisking them when they entered the building and sometimes leaving their room without permission entered. said.

Buying the hotel is “just not a good idea,” says Trahan, who now lives in an apartment in Glendale.

“We should invest in putting people in apartments, not hotel rooms,” she said.