Wednesday, Jan. 6, and I’m your guest host, Tony Barboza. I’m filling in for Julia Wick and writing from Long Beach.
We made it through to the New Year, with the surging coronavirus making it the strangest, and perhaps darkest, holiday season in many of our lifetimes. But 2021 isn’t having much of a honeymoon period.
The pandemic in California is already at a point of crisis. Cases, deaths and hospitalizations in L.A. and other areas across the state keep rising, signs that we are well into a new spike in infections from holiday gatherings and travel. It’s the beginning of the dreaded “surge on top of a surge on top of a surge” warned of by health officials.
L.A. County was all set to purchase its 10th vacant hotel and convert the property into housing for the homeless as part of California s new Project Homekey program, but there was one minor problem: the Studio 6 motel in Commerce wasn t vacant.
Earlier this month, after the motel owner kicked everyone out, dozens of occupants claimed they d been living in the motel for months or even years and were being forced into homelessness.
Several families believe they were illegally evicted and denied rights like relocation fees. Others say they were locked out of their rooms this month or that management didn t give them any notice about the sale.