(Photo: Project Roomkey)

Project Roomkey is scrambling to meet the goal

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is affecting large population areas including Los Angeles, California, and the city embarked on an ambitious mission to provide much-needed housing for medically vulnerable homeless people. Project Roomkey started the mission by leasing motel and hotel rooms for 15,000 homeless people, providing rooms for more than a third of the intended population.

As Project Roomkey enters its fourth month, they were only able to secure a fourth of the goal with only 3,600 rooms. This is causing homeless officials to work out a new plan to find permanent housing for eligible people.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is set to submit a plan on how they will be housing 15,000 for approval by the Board of Supervisors.

Reports indicate they will be seeking hundreds of millions of dollars with assistance for several years in the form of housing subsidies and services. Governor Gavin Newsom launched Project Roomkey as a means to utilizing hotel businesses losing business due to COVID-19 while housing people, agreeing to pay 75% of the cost with $150 million of state money.

To make this mission possible, they will need to increase the case of opening new leases but has gone slowly thus far. Since May 20, only one hotel has been added and is contributing 91 rooms. Over 3,700 are being housed with the assistance of the program and county officials are not giving up on reaching their ultimate goal.