Proposal to house homeless in Los Angeles hotels has been pulled
The controversial initiative that would have required Los Angeles hotels to place unhoused individuals in vacant rooms has been pulled from the city’s March ballot.
The removal of the union-backed measure, known as the Responsible Hotel Ordinance, comes as Los Angeles Council president Paul Krekorian appeared to have struck a deal with Unite Here Local 11. Under the compromise, Krekorian has proposed a revised version of the initiative, which promises to protect housing stock and empower residents to have a say in hotel development plans as well as codify a program that provides temporary housing to unhoused individuals and families.
Local 11, which represents more than 32,000 hospitality workers throughout Southern California and Arizona, introduced the ordinance after gathering more than 100,000 signatures in support of the initiative.
The measure’s original iteration included language that would have required L.A. hotels to inform the city of any available rooms. The city could then direct people without housing to those rooms and provide the hotels with payment in the form of prepaid “fair market rate” vouchers. Hotels would have been prohibited from discriminating against those using these vouchers or refusing to participate in the program.
This specific part of the ordinance received significant pushback from trade organizations like the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) and the American Hotel & Lodging Association, whose CEO Chip Rogers last month called it “one of the worst ideas we’ve seen.”
Unite Here Local 11 argued that the ordinance would “help address the affordable-housing crisis” and that vacant hotel rooms would create much-needed temporary lodging for unhoused families and individuals.
Krekorian’s proposed revision, however, has been well-received so far. The AAHOA on Thursday commended the removal of the original ordinance from the ballot. Although specifics on new plans to formalize a temporary housing program have yet to be released, the AAHOA said that “a new provision” will be announced Nov. 7 and will “revise the homeless voucher program into a voluntary opportunity.”
“The AAHOA applauds the decision to transition the mandatory homeless voucher program into a voluntary initiative,” said president and CEO Laura Lee Blake. “This shift significantly empowers our hoteliers to pursue long-term solutions to a homelessness crisis that must be addressed.”
Unite Here Local 11 co-president Kurt Petersen also praised the proposed updates, which he said in a statement will do “more to protect housing than any single contract demand would have done.
“I’m happy to see both the hotel industry and their employees’ union putting the interests of the entire city first in supporting this ordinance,” Krekorian said. “I hope to see this spirit of cooperation continue in the current negotiations among all the players in this essential industry.”
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