California, Los Angeles Flags flying outside of Los Angeles City Hall (Photo: Evan Symon for the California Globe)
LA Hotel Owners Forced to Rent to Homeless Instead of Tourists
Officials say that hotel owners are breaking city law
By Evan Symon, August 12, 2023 2:30 am
The Los Angeles Housing Department announced this week that 17 owners of residential hotels in the city have received warnings over letting out rooms to tourists, highlighting that they are breaking city law if the rooms aren’t being rented out to city residents instead.
In total, 21 residential hotels, which are single rooms and used as a means of affordable housing, were cited as breaking the law. According to the city, the owners are specifically breaking the 2008 Residential Hotel ordinance, which specifically established a moratorium on the demolition or conversion of residential hotel units to any other use, including hotels. Its ultimate aim was to keep in place as many low-cost rentals as possible to keep housing available for lower-income, elderly, and disabled citizens in LA.
However, hotel owners, between the ordinance, Project Roomkey, and more recent initiatives by Mayor Karen Bass to increase motel and hotel housing for the homeless, have felt squeezed in choosing what to do with their own property. Many renters are behind on payments, with owners finding it hard to collect payment or evict residents due to several state and city laws. Some have found loopholes over renter violations and safety concerns, while others have simply let out rooms to tourists or set up Airbnbs to help bridge the gaps in payments and between renters. Still others have simply sold their property, putting all renters residing there into jeopardy as a result.
A crackdown this month, initially asked by Mayor Bass, on the hotel owners led to warnings being issued over tourists getting rooms over long-term low-income renters.
“So many are behind on rent,” said Anjali Singth, a motel co-owner in Los Angeles, to the Globe on Friday. “The COVID laws delayed payments for years. What can we do? Renting rooms against the ordinance is a way to stay in business, but now the city is denying us that.”
The Los Angeles City Council is also due to take action, with a motion to be considered soon that will have the Housing Department report on their enforcement of the residential hotel law. The Department will also soon say how enforcement methods of the ordinance can be improved.
The LA residential hotel ordinance
“I know very dramatically the impact of not having that enforced because that means more houses, more low-income units, that we as a city have to figure out how to build,” explained motion author and City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield. “It means more people on the street and more services and more costs and more human suffering. The loss of residential hotel rooms to tourist units may be exacerbating our homelessness crisis.”
“Nobody’s ever come to me and said, ‘We don’t have the money to enforce our residential hotel conversion law’. Now that I’m aware of it, I’m going to do what I can to make sure that it does get enforced.”
However, hotel owners are fighting back against the ordinance. Many are saying that they are a ‘hotel first’ and have hired lawyers to challenge the city ordinance. Others that were given warnings conversely sent in proof that they haven’t had hotel guests for years, only residents.
“The city is increasingly making hotel owners, especially owners of residential hotels, angry,” added Singth. “A few years ago we weren’t even talking about lawyers and taking the ordinance to court. Now we are. The city decided that, out of everyone in the city, we are the ones who have to help solve the housing and homeless [crises]. They’re approving so many luxury condos and expensive apartment complexes, but nothing low-income. It just falls to us. And more and more of us have had it. This is heading to a court battle probably if they don’t cut us some slack. These warnings are not the way to do it.
The LA City Council will consider the motion over residential hotels soon.
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More MARXIST INSANITY. But this is what comes from thinking govt dirty money was clean and innocent and would solve all your problems in the first place —– now the govt thinks they own you, innkeepers. As they think they own the rest of us out here, too. It’s an ugly picture and it looks like it will only get uglier
Glad to see some hotel and motel owners yelling about it now though. Seems as though through all of this project roomkey crap and similar they have been pretty quiet. Or maybe their voices have been suppressed and censored by main media. All the more reason to be glad to see it reported here at the Globe by Evan Symon.
There’s an organized crime problem among the residence hotel owners. Most of them are owned by a small group of Brahmin families with significant political clout. I have a feeling there’s more to this story.
An estimated 70% of the motels and hotels in the U.S. are owned by Gujaratis from India among them, three-fourths share the last name Patel. Can’t imagine that they would go along with this hair-brained Democrat scheme in LA unless it was lucrative for them?
There is an interesting article in the LA based “Our Weekly” about the homeless who are a source of revenue for Indian and Southeast Asian hotel/motel owners through room rentals or paying to take a shower. The motels facilitate prostitution, sex trafficking, as well as the sale of drug paraphernalia. Many of these motels were known as crime centers by the Los Angeles Police Department. Indian, Sri Lankan and other Southest Asian immigrants are offered the opportunity by the United States government to get green cards in return for putting up as little as $40,000 to start and run a business that would theoretically generate jobs in depressed communities under the U.S. visa program officially known as EB-5. A recent Supreme Court struck down a Los Angeles ordinance that allowed police to inspect hotel/motel guest records on demand. The justices voted 5-4 to reject the city’s argument that the measure was needed to help fight prostitution, drug trafficking and illegal gambling at budget hotels and motels. Prior to the ruling, the city of Los Angeles required hotels and motels to record basic information about guests and their vehicles. Guests without reservations, those who pay in cash and those who rent a room for less than 12 hours had to also present photo identification at check-in. (https://www.ourweekly.com/2015/10/22/indian-motels-and-untouchables-los-angeles/)
Thank you for this information TJ — and for the link
Interesting and appreciated info and food for thought from you both, TJ and Thomas Busse.
About two weeks ago Mayor Bass was on TV talking about Los Angeles is open for business now. She really doesn’t get it that is clearly evident. And now more nonsense like this. If not the landlords aren’t the ones suffering the most, it’s the hotel owners like the folks mentioned here. More pathetic leadership!
All your properties are belong to us.
Hurricane Hilary is coming for a visit.
LA be ready for the gub’mints treatment of you, just like Lahaina!
Karma is a bitch,Karen!
Such an appropriate name for your mayor!
HMMMMM…AND YET, lDI0T PEOPLE KEEP VOTING IN DEMONCRATS! EVER THINK ABOUT WHERE THAT GETS YOU? THERE IS A REASON, AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT IT IS, HOW/WHY CALIFORNIA HAS GOTTEN SUCH A BAD REPUTATION IN THE COUNTRY, AND ALSO HERE, FROM IT’S DECENT CITIZENS, WHO REALLY KNOW IT, BUT MIGHT NOT ALL FEEL SAFE TO SAY THE WORDS OUT LOUD!! AND IT’S ALLLLL ON THE WAY THEY KEEP CHOOSING TO VOTE. MAKES ME THINK ABOUT THE DEFINITION OF INSANlTY! REMEMBER THAT? HERE IT IS FOR THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW…IT’S DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER, AND EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS! HOW’S THIS BEEN WORKING OUT FOR YA, CALI PEOPLE? ARE YOU OK WITH ALL THE ISH IN THIS STATE…JUST TO STAY INLINE WITH YOUR “PARTY”…EVEN WHEN YOU KNOW DEEP INSIDE THAT IT’S ALL BEEN A BUNCH OF CRAPPY B.S.! SO, IF YOU KNOW THIS, AND STILL KEEP VOTING TO ALLOW IT, THEN YOU DESERVE IT ALL! THAT IS INSANITY!