El Pueblo site (Credit: the Mayor’s office)
The city’s temporary homeless shelter program is rolling out another location, this time on the Westside.
The newest location for the mayor’s ambitious A Bridge Home initiative will target homeless veterans at the West L.A. Department of Veterans Affairs campus in Brentwood, LAist reported. The plan is to build two structures with 50 beds each – one for women veterans and the other for men — along with laundry facilities, hygiene centers, and industrial tents and trailers.
They are set to open in early 2019. The city and county will pay about $5 million for construction, and the VA will provide services, intake and case management.
The mayor set aside $20 million in his 2018-19 budget for the Bridge Home program, which calls for temporary homeless shelters on city-owned land in each of its 15 council districts. The City Council then added $10 million, allowing for about $2 million for each district.
Although the county is expected to help, the VA shelter will cost about twice as much as the program’s first shelter in El Pueblo, which also ran over budget with a cost of $2.4 million. That shelter opened on Sept. 10 with 45 beds.
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Originally, the goal was to have all-new facilities with 1,500 beds completed by the end of 2018, according to LAist. But that has become more difficult than anticipated, as officials have struggled to determine where the shelters can be located.
So far, the number of completed beds remains at 45.
Earlier this year, mass demonstrations killed a shelter plan along Vermont Avenue. Brokers and real estate executives told The Real Deal that the plan made developers nervous.
But City Councilman Mike Bonin told LAist.com that the Brentwood neighbors have signaled support for the project.
The city is reviewing at least 13 sites for future shelters, and others are in the beginning stages. [LAist] – Gregory Cornfield
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