Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was joined by City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto on Thursday to announce an initiative to preserve and rehabilitate 2,000 housing units in Skid Row.
The announcement comes after the Skid Row Housing Trust’s recent announcement that it would no longer be able to continue operating its 29 buildings across the city. The plan aims to turn the city’s aging downtown real estate into housing for the homeless.
“We approached this crisis from the stance that failure is not an option,” said Mayor Karen Bass. “Losing nearly 2,000 units of housing would be devastating to Skid Row, would be felt citywide, and undoubtedly, people would have lost their lives.”
City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto will be at the helm of the endeavor to move the properties into the control of entities capable of operating them in the long term.
“Preventing people from falling into homelessness and preserving the housing we’ve already got are essential to this work,” said Feldstein Soto. “We are seeking this…not only to protect and keep housed the 1,500 people who live in these buildings now, but to enable hundreds more to move off the streets.”
