User:Marisa Balades/Housing First

Hotels
Hotels have historically been used to house the homeless population temporarily while further accommodations are made. For example, the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, CA had intentions of converting upwards of 400 units of housing for the local residents before the project was shut down due to a greater interest in gentrification of the surrounding region. This surrounding region, now known as Skid Row, is now notoriously known for hosting one of the largest populations of homeless individuals in the United States. Given their ability to house a large number of individuals in a minimal amount of space, hotels have become a recent point of interest with regards to transitional and emergency housing for sudden circumstances such as COVID-19 and other natural disasters. In support of using hotels for the COVID-19 crisis, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FEMA) announced that their Public Assistance Program Category B is able to reimburse 75 percent of the expenses endured from obtaining temporary housing and shelter. This program specifically targets those sheltering in hotels as FEMA already stated that they have pre-established relationships with certain states in order to fund hotel shelter-in-place programs.

Hotels have also become relevant in the conversation of Housing First as they've been used increasingly as a response to the global pandemic. Though they fail to move the unhoused directly to long-term shelter such as apartments or other affordable housing units, hotels have proven to be critical to the stabilization of large homeless communities in density populated cities such as New York and San Francisco. Organizations like Hotels not Hospitals (HnH) in San Francisco have utilized hotels as a "first-step" towards long-term housing as COVID-19 became especially concerning within the unhoused community. Given the spontaneity of the global pandemic, this NGO leaned on hotels to quickly house the vulnerable unhoused community while apartment living situations were curated. At the start of the pandemic, this organization immediately began funneling in as many at-risk unhoused individuals as they could into willing hotels.

HnH fits into the framework of Housing First as they operate without overwhelming prospective occupants with several tedious questions. They have attempted to lower the barrier of entry to long-term housing for local, unhoused San Franciscans by moving as many unhoused individuals into, more recently, apartments. By utilizing an emergency response alteration the Housing First framework, they've been able to protect the vulnerable from enduring a global pandemic without necessary, fundamental support and resources such as PPE and health guidance. Though hotels are not a permanent solution, they have helped non-state actors immediately respond while simultaneously working out long-term solutions amidst sudden, dangerous circumstances like COVID-19.