Inside Safe and the Skid Row Action Plan
The County told it’s Skid Row Action Plan story through the LA Times and other newspapers in late June. Now the City is in the process of telling its Skid Row Action Plan story which is in the form of Inside Safe and the 60 million dollars for Skid Row from the State called Encampment Engagement, a grant written jointly by the County and the City.
Inside Safe is the primary strategy for the Mayor’s Office in dealing with homelessness, specifically the unhoused population in tents. In the words of Mayor Karen Bass about Inside Safe from USA Today dated August 4th:
“The one thing I did not want to do coming into office, I didn’t want to sit around and say, ‘We’re going to develop the best program and then we’re going to launch it,’” Bass said. “We just jumped into saving people from the street. And we have encountered a ton of issues along the way. And I’m going to keep doing it.”
A powerful example of Inside Safe being developed as we go along is what has happened with the Mayfair Hotel.
From Urbanize LA article dated August 21st:
“In 2018, an overhaul of the historic Mayfair Hotel in Westlake, brought the 1920s landmark back to life. Five years and one pandemic later, it is slated to continue operating in a different fashion.
In a 12–2 vote on August 18, the Los Angeles City Council moved last week to support Mayor Karen Bass’ proposal to acquire the 1920s Mayfair Hotel to permanently repurpose the nearly century-old landmark as interim housing.
“We need to do all that we can to get Angelenos off the streets and into temporary housing as fast as possible while permanent housing is still being built. The proposed purchase of the Mayfair is an important step toward that goal. I want to thank Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, Council leadership and the Chairs of the Council Committee on Housing and Homelessness, Government Operations, and Budget, Finance and Innovation for partnering with me to bring people inside and save lives through a citywide approach,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in a news release. “Together, with actions like this, we can sustain our momentum toward confronting the homelessness crisis.”
I’m really impressed by how the Pico Union Neighborhood Council handled this situation. The Mayfair was used for Project Roomkey, an emergency Covid response program for the unhoused population that included little or no supportive services, and so the Westlake and Pico Union neighborhoods strongly opposed turning the Mayfair into interim housing out of concern — — it will continue the negative dynamics the neighborhood experienced during Project Roomkey and because the Mayor’s Office did virtually no neighborhood engagement around the City possibly purchasing the Mayfair and because the residents will be from Skid Row and very few if any from the surrounding Mayfair neighborhood.
What the Pico Union Neighborhood Council did was submit to City Council a strong letter of opposition but said if their Councilmembers concerns, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, were made part of the City process, they would reconsider their position. City Council included her amendment, the City/Inside Safe could now purchase the Mayfair, and so the Pico Union Neighborhood Council will now reconsider their position.
To provide the supportive services for the Skid Row folks moving into the Mayfair, Inside Safe is contracting with the Weingart, one of the large service providers in Skid Row, as the main service provider for the Mayfair. I have no idea how much of the 60 million dollars — 10, 20, 30 million, maybe more than 30, maybe less than 10 — will be spent at the Mayfair over the next two years for supportive services. After two years, the residents will be unhoused folks from the Westlake Pico Union neighborhood.
There is a very interesting situation in Skid Row that possibly could connect these dots in a terrific way or this might be total wishful thinking on my part given the complexity of the situation including possible construction delays. Everyone in Skid Row is aware of the huge housing tower being built by the Weingart on the north side of 6th and San Pedro that should be finished by the end of 2023. But across the street, the Weingart has put a fence around their huge parking lot with another housing tower to be built — 298 units of permanent supportive housing set to open in June 2025.
If hundreds of folks from Skid Row are going over to the Mayfair for two years, maybe they could leave the Mayfair the summer of 2025 to move into the recently completed Weingart tower. The Mayfair is 294 rooms and the Weingart tower is 298 rooms.
The Inside Safe story will continue to be told in a Q and A meeting taking place right after the second day of Community Design Sessions facilitated by Change Well Project on September 1st.
Based on our Resident Advisory Committee meeting on August 25 preparing for August 31/September 1, there was a strong sense from the Committee that it’s time for the Skid Row Neighborhood/Community story to be told as part of the Skid Row Action Plan. And so hopefully the Inside Safe story is close to being fully told.