This is why the number of homeless has increased in L.A. They spend the money, then do not build the project.
“By early 2022 a registered sex offender was living at the facility, which is located within a few blocks of three elementary schools. Two other residents died there, both from drug overdoses. In September, 2022 LAHSA signed another contract extension, agreeing to pay PATH $1,023,000.82 to operate the facility between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023. The Current reached out to LAHSA (who provided us with the contracts) to ask how much, exactly, PATH was paid to offer services at the property, and have not heard back.
In August, 2022, all of the facility’s residents were notified they would have to move out within 30 days to make room for upcoming renovations to convert the property to permanent housing. Contrary to the terms of the city’s promissory note and regulatory agreement, which required PATH to use the property for interim housing for “three (3) to (5) years”, 3130 Washington served as interim housing for only about 18 months.
The community is opposed to this. Crime has increased in the community—yet the city has wasted millions by creating a crime center instead of helping the holeless.
$11M Homeless Housing Project in Venice Sits Empty Amid LA’s Homeless Crisis
Angela McGregor, Westside Current, 5/7/24 https://www.westsidecurrent.com/news/11m-homeless-housing-project-in-venice-sits-empty-amid-la-s-homeless-crisis/article_9e053da0-0bf5-11ef-8db0-6fa0cd32facc.html?utm_source=westsidecurrent.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletter%2Foptimize%2Fweekly-best-of%2F%3F-dc%3D1715526022&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline
LOS ANGELES — In the midst of Los Angeles’ housing crisis, the controversial Ramada Inn project located at 3130 Washington Boulevard in Venice sits vacant. The City of Los Angeles funded the purchase of the property by PATH (People Assisting the Homeless) with an $11 million taxpayer-funded loan. The terms of the loan state that the project was to be run as a transitional housing facility for 3 to 5 years, but after 18 months, the facility was shuttered and remains empty to this day.
According to PATH, it will remain uninhabited until the first quarter of next year. “PATH Ventures [PATH’s real estate holding division, the property owner] is still in the plan check phase with the City of Los Angeles and has been since December of 2022,” said Tyler Renner, a spokesperson for PATH. “There have been multiple challenges through various city departments that we have been working to resolve. As of now, we are expecting to secure permits in the next month or two and to begin construction this summer. Affordable housing projects, especially rehab projects, are complicated. While we aim to bring these communities online as fast as we can, we must work through many layers of bureaucracy at every level. As of now, the site should be completed in the first three months of 2025.”
Last June, Renner told the Current that PATH hoped to open the facility in December 2024 and was still “responding to comments from City Planning” on the plans they had submitted in December 2022. Planned improvements include the installation of new kitchenettes in each of the motel’s 33 suites and new flooring.
The delays that Renner describes on the part of “various city departments” contrast sharply with the project’s acquisition, which was voted on and funded within a month at the height of the pandemic.
On December 9, 2020, the City of Los Angeles passed a motion approving “the acquisition of The Ramada Inn, located at 3130 Washington Blvd…for a not-to-exceed amount of $9,900,000.”
On December 14, a grant deed transferring the property from Marina Suites, Inc. to PATH Ventures was recorded. On December 16, the city issued an $11,000,000 promissory note to PATH for the purchase of the property (which, according to city documents, had appraised for that amount), along with closing costs and money to cover some of the cost of improvements to the property.
The 18-page note, on file with the City Administrator’s office, describes the terms: “0% interest accruing during the term of the note, and a full balloon payment of the principal amount of the note due upon the earlier of (a) closing of construction financing for conversion to permanent housing, or (b) five years from execution of the note”, which indicates that PATH is required to pay the city $11,000,000 on December 16, 2025.
A 20-page Project Homekey Regulatory Agreement between PATH Ventures and the City, dated the same day, also states that “the Project shall operate 33 rooms as interim housing for the homeless” and that “funding for client services provided at the property will be provided to [PATH Ventures] through a contract with LAHSA.” It also restricts “the use of the property to interim or permanent supportive/affordable housing for fifty-five (55) years of project operations”.
On December 23, 2020 LAHSA signed off on the aforementioned contract with PATH to provide services at the new site — $807,705.00 for six months, between January 1, 2021 and June 30, 2021.
Once the facility had opened, this contract was amended to “extend the funding term for capital improvement funds to August 31, 2021” and PATH’s compensation for those nine months to $1,312,825.00. The contract also specified that PATH was required to provide outreach, housekeeping and meals to a population defined as “low barrier”, and could not deny entry to the program based on “suspicion of substance abuse, insobriety, mental disorder or criminal background unless a participant poses an imminent threat to themselves, staff, or other participants.”
Shortly thereafter, a representative from then Councilmember Mike Bonin’s office announced at a community meeting that the facility would be used for “transitional housing” for the next “3-5 years.”
In February, 2021, dozens of Venice residents spoke at a Bureau of Engineering hearing in opposition to the building’s transition to interim homeless housing, citing a lack of community outreach, a concentration of such projects within Venice, and the dire public safety consequences of the Venice Bridge Home. Their concerns (and a community benefit agreement passed by the Venice Neighborhood Council) were ultimately disregarded, and they were not informed that LAHSA had long since signed a contract with PATH which would have contradicted many of their demands (including pre-screening applicants to determine their criminal history). In March of 2021, the City Administrator recommended the City grant an additional $805,120 to PATH for “rehabilitation” of the recently acquired property, and a Coastal Development permit was issued. By June, the facility had opened.
In November 2021, for an article in the Nation entitled “An LA Councilman Tried to Help the Homeless. Now He May Lose His Job”, Bonin was interviewed in the courtyard of the former motel, swapping stories and laughs with its new residents, described as fellow recovering addicts making use of their newfound stability to embrace sobriety and employment on the road to a better life. Bonin’s CD11 constituents who had opposed the project were described as “white homeowners with resources…who have long wielded tremendous power”.
By early 2022 a registered sex offender was living at the facility, which is located within a few blocks of three elementary schools. Two other residents died there, both from drug overdoses. In September, 2022 LAHSA signed another contract extension, agreeing to pay PATH $1,023,000.82 to operate the facility between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023. The Current reached out to LAHSA (who provided us with the contracts) to ask how much, exactly, PATH was paid to offer services at the property, and have not heard back.
In August, 2022, all of the facility’s residents were notified they would have to move out within 30 days to make room for upcoming renovations to convert the property to permanent housing. Contrary to the terms of the city’s promissory note and regulatory agreement, which required PATH to use the property for interim housing for “three (3) to (5) years”, 3130 Washington served as interim housing for only about 18 months.
Documents available on the L.A. Department of Building and Safety’s website show that the first application for a permit to convert the property’s “30 existing non transient guest rooms to light housekeeping rooms” was filed on December 16, 2022. Since then, these plans have been returned to the applicant for corrections six times, most recently in September, 2023. It’s unclear from the site whether those multiple requests have anything to do with the fact that the property will be used for affordable housing.
LADBS also has on file a certificate of occupancy for 3130 Washington dated April 1, 2022, for the “change of use/occupancy for 30 transient hotel guestrooms to long-term, non-transient hotel” listing Marina Suites — the property’s previous owner — as the applicant. Marina Suites also applied for permits for plumbing and electrical improvements dated January and February, 2022 — over two years after they signed a deed transferring ownership of the property to PATH Ventures. The Current reached out to PATH for an explanation of this (a number of developers we spoke with could cite no good reason why the previous owner would have applied for permits on the property) and Renner told us that he had spoken “with our development team, and they shared that Marina Suites has not been involved since they sold the property to the City of Los Angeles in 2020.”
As of publication, PATH Ventures’ website lists 21 completed projects in both Northern and Southern California, built with a variety of public funding between 2012-2022. Their most recent tax filing lists just over $70 million in total assets. The site also states they have 11 projects in “pre-development”; presumably, 3130 Washington is one of them.
