Vacant hotel rooms have been identified as a potential source of new housing on a large scale. These particular rooms are in the Los Angeles area, where as many as 100,000 more people could become homeless when the COVID-19 eviction ban is lifted. Just about that many hotel rooms are currently lying vacant and predicted to remain so, thanks to the downturn in travel during the pandemic.
Using hotel rooms for housing, temporary or permanent, is not a new idea. But, there’s a new twist in this story. These hotel units received public subsidies, averaging $187,000 per room, to build them. Ananya Roy and Jonny Coleman are the scholar and organizer who penned the following article. They argue it’s all the more reason that the rooms should be used for housing.
Are Roy and Coleman on to something that could be applied in other communities? Read their full story in The Appeal: People Are About To Be Pushed Into Homelessness On A Large Scale. Hotels Are Key To Keeping Them Off The Streets.
