The End of the Project Roomkey

Three bottles of drinking water a day, rice and vegetables for meals and disorganized medicine refilling schedules are the life for Susan Hartnett when she stays at the Project Roomkey. Hartnett’s case is typical among the other 500 participants living at the LA Grand Hotel, one of the three remaining places in the project.

Project Roomkey is a temporary shelter program for homeless people to quarantine at the beginning of the pandemic. As the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) runs out and the world starts to reopen in the post-pandemic world, this project phases out.

Though the project is not a permanent solution, it is meant to serve as a pathway for people who are experiencing homelessness to find prospective dwellings. As the project comes to a close, many unhoused tenants are unclear about the next step and afraid to go to shelters.

The project is a collective effort from the federal agency, California states, Los Angeles County and Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority (LAHSA) to protect high-risk homeless people from COVID-19 and help stop the virus’s spread. Thirty-seven properties in California were under requisition; two years into the project, most concluded their lease with LAHSA. Yet, the last three hotels currently hosting over 700 tenants started eviction in September.

The LA Grand Hotel downtown is the only one that will remain in the program through the end of the year. Its withdrawal plan started in September, amid extreme heat in Southern California when tenants received puzzling eviction notices with two different deadlines. According to LAHSA’s demobilization plan, all tenants at LA Grand will have to transfer out at the end of January 2023.

The uncertain exit plan frustrates tenants. Although shelters are prepared for participants who haven’t secured housing, space is limited. “The shelters are going to fill up really fast,” said Sens, “It’s not the solution that was offered at the beginning.”

The County of Los Angeles states on its website that there will be a strategy for everyone at the end of the project; otherwise, homeless people can stay in an “interim housing environment.”

(Photo courtesy: Clémence-Maureen Feniou)

“I do know that the overwhelming majority of people that were in the [LA Grand] hotel did not get into housing. Most people went to a shelter,” Sens recalls. Even with the option of living in a shelter, Sens accounts, half of them would choose to go back to the street due to bad experiences in the shelter. “[The shelter] will be way overcrowded and demeaning,” Sens says.

Yet, this is not what LAHASA promised at the beginning of the project. Participants were delighted over the planned housing possibilities, but the excitement soon faded.

“[LAHSA] promised a pathway to get a house, but they didn’t help us to connect to the landlords,” Sens said. The coordinators serve as a bridge between unhoused tenants and landlords. They handle negotiations and information logs with landlords.

Two housing coordinators have worked on Sens’ case. After the first lady from the Salvation Army noted some basic personal information such as social security number and income range, Sens and his partner never got in touch with her. Three months later, the other coordinator recorded the exact information they gave last time and disappeared again.

He is one of the few who has found a place to stay in 2023 but expressed his disappointment about the process, which was difficult.

“[The landlord] was saying, ‘No, I don’t know what that is. It could be anything,’” Sens recalled of his apartment-hunting experience. He managed to receive an Emergency Housing Voucher through LAHSA, a voucher that helps unhoused people register with landlords and pays off part of their lease based on their income. But he says many landlords and property managers were unaware of the program.

In response to the American Rescue Plan Act, which provides funding to save people at risk of homelessness, the Los Angeles County Development Authority (LACDA) received 1,964 Emergency Housing Vouchers from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

In a previous EHV briefing meeting, LACDA explained that the value of vouchers fluctuates based on tenants’ income and ability to pay. With a stable income tenant, the rent shouldn’t exceed 40% of their monthly earnings within the first year of living in the contract housing. With an unemployed tenant, the LACDA office would be able to pay 70% or all of the lease. The office also sent out weekly emails for available housing lists that are eligible for registering their Emergency Housing Vouchers. As for the longevity of stay, it depends on the landlords.

Nevertheless, most tenants weren’t aware of the briefing meeting or how to seek help. “You can’t even find [housing information] online or anywhere,” says Sarah Prater, Sens’ partner, who was also one of the project participants at the LA Grand Hotel. “[The housing office] didn’t [send out the email] until the very end, and they sent us one list,” Prater called four on that list, but none of them applied to her and her partner.

(Photo courtesy: Clémence-Maureen Feniou)

One is the house listing information is perplexing, and one is validating the emergency vouchers could be tricky. The vouchers don’t ensure the tenants will have future housing. Landlords will run background checks for every applicant and may exclude people with criminal records and lower credit scores.

Sens and his partner are now living in the new apartment in the Crenshaw district for almost a month, and he feels settled with a $1,500 allocation fee for purchasing furniture.

Among 400 tenants currently living at the LA Grand Hotel, the majority will be allocated to another temporary shelter or return to the street in the next year. “The overwhelming majority of people in the hotel did not get into housing,” Sens said. People are told to leave every day, and if they don’t have a place to live, they end up back on the street.

As eviction day approaches for Mario Rodriguez, a tenant at the LA Grand Hotel, he says his journey wasn’t easy, “What I had to do is I had to get on the rails. The squeaky wheel against the grease. You got to call [the housing coordinators] every day, email them, text them whatever, then they will respond. But still, it’s your responsibility. To find a suitable place.”

“I found [my new house] all by myself,” he said. “I am basically doing [the housing coordinator’s] job.”

After the program, Rodriguez will move to temporary housing on a month-to-month basis, and the apartment he found will be ready at the end of this year. Yet, without a stable income and help from the housing coordinator, Rodriguez has no idea how he’ll pay the rent long-term. “I’m going to use my voucher once I get there,” he said. However, he worries about what will happen after it can be validated in three months.

Sens and his partner and Rodriguez are the lucky ones. No one has approached Susan Hartnett from the housing management at all. Meanwhile, her stay at the hotel will not end until the end of January.

Hartnett is a senior woman and half deaf. Sometimes she doesn’t know how to use her phone, which appears outdated and broken. It bothers her to reach out to people.

Even with more extended stays than many other tenants, she is still afraid it could be terminated anytime soon. She recalled that one lady was kicked out before her end date without prior notice. “They come to your door and say you’re out,” Hartnett says.

By October 11, the LA Grand Hotel and Salvation Army refused to give any comments regarding the living and future housing situation.