Building on the success of Project Homekey 1.0, Los Angeles County has secured $243 million in state funding for Homekey 2.0 which it will use to convert 14 hotels and multi-family apartments into interim or permanent housing for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. This will add 720 units in Boyle Heights, Compton, East Hollywood, Inglewood, Koreatown, Redondo Beach, Lancaster, San Pedro, Westlake, Woodland Hills, and unincorporated Los Angeles.
Nine of the Homekey 2.0 properties will provide interim housing, including 291 units for families, 69 units for youth, and 61 units for veterans, all of whom will receive support towards permanent housing solutions.
The remaining five properties, with a combined total of 299 units, will provide permanent supportive housing into which particularly vulnerable people who have experienced homelessness can live and be connected to health care, mental health care, substance use disorder treatment, public benefits, and other services that can help them stabilize and avoid returning to the streets.
Homekey 2.0 projects include Dunamis House, a 40-unit property in Boyle Heights that will be converted into interim housing for youth at risk of homelessness. It once served as a boarding house for repatriated Japanese Americans who had been forced to live in internment camps during World War II.
Another Homekey 2.0 project is Avenida, which will repurpose the former Avenue Hotel between Koreatown and Rampart Village into 76 studio apartments for households that have experienced chronic homelessness and need permanent supportive housing.
Thanks to Homekey 1.0, launched in 2020, the County already owns and operates 10 hotels and motels with a combined total of 847 units that have provided interim or permanent housing for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
Located in Baldwin Park, Compton, Hacienda Heights, Harbor City, Long Beach, Norwalk, Whittier, and unincorporated Los Angeles, Homekey 1.0 properties have provided more than 1,000 vulnerable men, women, and children a safe place to stay indoors during the pandemic. Most Homekey 1.0 units started out as interim housing, but all of them will have been converted into permanent supportive housing by 2024.