Los Angeles proposal to place homeless in vacant hotel rooms draws criticism

A proposal to place homeless people in Los Angeles hotels is drawing criticism from a leading trade group in the hotel and lodging industry over its potential impact on employee safety.

A ballot initiative put forward by Unite Here Local 11, a hotel workers’ union, would require hotels in Los Angeles to report the number of vacant rooms each day along with average daily rates to city hall. The Los Angeles Housing Department would then provide homeless people with vouchers to use at hotels, which would be prohibited from discriminating against those participating in the program.

"It’s really sad because homelessness is a very serious situation and this is not a serious answer to it," Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA), told FOX Business. "Our biggest concern is the danger that it would put hotel employees in. They are not trained in any way to take care of this population, and to have to attempt to do so is very dangerous."

"The proposal does a lot of things, all of which are bad, but the most concerning to us is this idea that you would house homeless people alongside regular paying guests inside of hotels if this measure passes," Rogers added.

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The Unite 11 union did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Unite 11, which is currently on strike, has argued that hotels have contributed to high housing prices by crowding out development and that hotels should play a role in alleviating the homelessness crisis.

"Los Angeles has seen a massive increase in new hotel development in recent years at the same time as the number of people experiencing homelessness has skyrocketed and the City’s affordable housing crisis has grown," the union wrote on its website. "Hotels are frequently proposed for land that is equally suitable for housing development and thus crowd out sites that could be used to help alleviate the City’s need for affordable housing."

"The Responsible Hotels Ordinance will help address the affordable housing crisis by ensuring that hotel developments do not displace affordable housing and establishing a program similar to the City’s successful Project Roomkey to provide temporary lodging for unhoused families and individuals," the union added.

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Rogers told FOX Business that there are some important distinctions between the union’s proposal and Project Roomkey because homeless people would be housed alongside hotel patrons under the ballot initiative rather than being in a hotel that’s been repurposed to house homeless people with wraparound services to support them.

"In certain places, New York and Los Angeles and other places, entire hotels are being taken over for housing migrants, for housing the homeless," Rogers said. "This is completely different because in those cases there are wraparound services being provided by the government to help take care of those people. For example, Project Roomkey in California takes over an entire hotel, and then they send in service people, experts who can work with the homeless population to help take care of them."

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He went on to warn that if the ballot measure is enacted next year it could have a "devastating" economic impact on Los Angeles hotels as guests may look to stay elsewhere.

"I realize that some have a hard time understanding the simple concept of a free-market economy, but guests don’t have to stay in a Los Angeles hotel. They can, first of all, not go to California at all. If they do decide they want to go to southern California, they can go to Orange County, they can go to Santa Monica, they can go to all sorts of places. They don’t have to stay in Los Angeles," Rogers said. 

"And if you’re telling me that my choice is five miles down the road I can get a hotel where I don’t have this problem, or I book a hotel in Los Angeles, I’m not going to book a hotel in Los Angeles. So, the economic impact is going to be swift, and it’s going to be devastating," he added.

The ballot measure was proposed by Unite 11 last year and the union gathered the requisite 126,000 signatures. Voters in Los Angeles will weigh in on the proposal in March 2024 after the city council unanimously voted last year to refer the measure to voters rather than approve it.

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The structure of the ballot measure, which will be billed as "Initiative A, Hotel Developer Land Use and Replacement Housing Initiative" on the ballot, includes several other provisions aside from the requirement to house homeless people with vouchers in hotels, such as:

• A hotel development with 100 or more rooms would be required to obtain a land use permit that takes into account its impact on affordable housing, transit, social services, employees and local businesses.
• A hotel development with 15 or more rooms would be required to replace demolished or converted housing with an equivalent amount of affordable housing at or near the project site.
• Establishing a special police permit requirement for hotels would require hotels to meet specified standards, including compliance with wage theft and employment laws to obtain a permit and avoid disciplinary action.