Twenty-one hotels have been cited so far. If the citations are enforced and upheld in court, hundreds of rooms could be turned back into low-cost permanent housing for the city’s poorest residents.
A city law sought to prevent low-cost housing from turning into hotels, but some landlords rented to tourists anyway. That didn’t stop them from receiving city funds for a new temporary shelter program.
A 2008 city law intended hotels used as primary residences to be preserved as safety-net housing. But with little enforcement, some landlords had turned their buildings into tourist hotels.
Amid the city’s homelessness crisis, some landlords have turned buildings meant for low-cost housing into tourist hotels.
After a Capital & Main and ProPublica investigation found that landlords were turning low-cost housing into tourist hotels, the city ordered some building owners to comply with the law.
Hotel ads, booking sites and guest reviews. Tourists staying in rooms meant for low-cost housing. Yet the city’s Housing Department has cited few landlords for violating the residential hotel law.
When the American Hotel converted into a tourist hotel, its long-term residents lost not just their affordable housing but the creative community that long thrived in the iconic building.
Following a Capital & Main and ProPublica investigation, which found that buildings meant for housing are instead being rented to tourists, the mayor’s office asked for a review.
Fifteen years ago, Los Angeles passed a law to preserve residential hotels as housing of last resort. Now, amid the homelessness crisis, some hotels may be violating that law by offering rooms to tourists.