Los Angeles County’s Pathway Home program has helped 27 people transition from several encampments into a new apartment complex, thanks in part to a newly expanded effort to increase the affordable housing stock through master leasing.
All of the new tenants at The Dalton apartment complex came from Pathway Home encampment resolutions in Lennox, East Gardena/West Rancho Dominguez, Hawthorne, and Walnut Park/Firestone Park. Their transition from encampment to interim housing and then finally, permanent housing, spanned weeks or months.
Cirila Morales was full of emotion the day she got her keys. “There’s actually still good people out there who want to help us,” she said.
Pathway Home is an LA County Homeless Initiative-led encampment resolution program that is a critical component of the County’s comprehensive response to the local emergency on homelessness adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2023. By leveraging emergency powers and partnerships with local jurisdictions, Pathway Home is a full-circle solution that brings people off the streets into immediately available interim housing accompanied by a comprehensive suite of supportive services and, ultimately, into safe, permanent homes.
With master leasing, the homeless services system can secure apartments on the private rental market and lease them directly to people experiencing homelessness, including those with tenant-based rental subsidies who struggle to lease up with traditional landlords.
To cover the non-rental costs of master leasing, LA County is working with L.A. Care Health Plan and Health Net through California’s Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program (HHIP), which the state launched with matching funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) tapped HHIP dollars to master lease The Dalton.