When Mayor Karen Bass bought the Mayfair hotel in August 2023 for $60 million, her office said the goal was to “provide desperately needed permanent interim housing infrastructure to bring more people inside.”
The 294-room building is a flagship location for Bass’ Inside Safe program.
Last month, L.A. City Council approved $400,000 to cover the cost of keeping the outside area clean.
Council member Eunisses Hernandez told Fiegener she supports spending the $400,000 to clean up the area.
“This motion is following through on the commitments that we made to that community saying that yes, we're gonna open up the Mayfair and we're gonna bring an additional 300 people to this area,” she said. “But we're also gonna invest $400,000 in a clean team so that we can make this very densely populated neighborhood much more cleaner [sic] than it is. So this is part of those commitments that the mayor and I have worked together to make sure that they come to fruition for this neighborhood.”
So, how’s it working out? KNX News’ Craig Fiegener spoke with residents in the area about if they think it’s clean and safe.
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One woman said she doesn’t think the area is clean enough.
“They need a pretty good deep pressure wash,” she said.
One man said the area is okay in the daytime.
“But at night time I don't recommend to nobody,” he said.
But another woman said she’s noticed some changes.
“At the very beginning, it wasn't so clean because they would always have a lot of trash here and stuff. There was a point where there was a bed there and people were sleeping,” she said. “I recently went out of town to another state. So I just got back and it looked cleaner when I got back.”
The $400,000 being spent to keep the area around the hotel clean has been designated as an annual cost for as long as the Mayfair remains open to house the homeless, Fiegener reported.
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