Mayor Karen Bass cut the ribbon Thursday on a taxpayer-funded homeless housing project at a renovated North Hills Motel 6, a development carrying a total price of $72 million, or nearly $650,000 for each of its 111 units. The property on Roscoe Boulevard, near the 405 Freeway, is the latest example of Los Angeles' costly effort to convert hotels and motels into housing for people experiencing homelessness.
Bass toured the refurbished rooms Thursday morning and praised the accommodations and communal areas. "The rooms are absolutely beautiful," she told the crowd, pointing to the counseling facilities and shared spaces as critical resources for residents rebuilding their lives. The project's cost, however, is likely to renew questions about how much taxpayers are spending on homelessness as Los Angeles faces a persistent housing crisis and growing budget pressures.S1S2
The former Motel 6 was purchased in 2023 for about $40 million, and another $32 million was spent converting it into permanent housing, bringing the total to approximately $72 million. Based on the 111 units, that works out to about $648,649 per unit. Hope the Mission, a nonprofit homeless services provider operating shelters and housing programs in the San Fernando Valley, will manage the facility, offering three meals a day, case management, housing navigation and other supportive services. Bass told attendees, "They will leave here knowing how to manage their lives."S1S2
The project was funded through California Gov. Gavin Newsom's Homekey initiative, which has directed billions of dollars toward converting hotels, motels and apartment buildings into housing. The North Hills development is not the first Homekey project with a substantial price tag. The California Post previously reported on a project at 5050 Pico Boulevard, where a modern apartment complex once marketed as luxury housing was acquired for about $35 million, roughly $1.2 million per apartment in acquisition costs alone. Since 2020, Homekey has committed approximately $1.3 billion to homeless housing acquisitions in the Los Angeles region, according to figures previously reported by The Post, and city and county agencies have committed roughly another $1.3 billion for renovations, construction and operations.S1S2
