Bonin Points Fingers: Not My Fault

Mike Bonin

By his successor, Bonin of course means current CD11 Councilmember Traci Park, and he’s correct that the project has been languishing during her tenure.  But it was in October 2022, when Bonin was still in office, that the City allowed the developer, PATH Ventures, to empty the former motel after it had been serving as temporary housing for just 14 months, under the pretense that renovations were imminent.

If she’s “shutting down shelters and blocking housing”, Traci Park has an odd way of doing it.  In June, 2023 she introduced a motion to extend the operations of the Venice Bridge Home for another six months, stating that “Beds in interim housing like the Venice Bridge Home are essential to getting people off the streets and onto a path of permanent housing.”  At last month’s “grand opening” of the 98-unit, income-restricted Thatcher Yard, she was lauded by the developer for her tireless efforts to get the project built.

To be fair, Park did attempt to put the brakes on the Ramada project before it opened.  In April, 2021, she and 400 of her neighbors appealed the project’s fast-tracked Public Works permit, citing a failure to notify the community of the change of use as well as safety concerns.

But as we reported at the time, “During the Board’s deliberations, there was no discussion of the conditions requested by the community.”   Given that the Ramada is three blocks from two elementary schools, those conditions seemed reasonable at the time.  But unbeknownst to the community, the mortgage on the property mandated that it be a “low barrier” facility, meaning PATH didn’t even have the option to screen occupants for prior criminal convictions, registration as sex offenders or mandate sobriety on site as the community wished. By the time it was emptied, two of its residents had died of overdoses.

Which is not to say that the City Administrator hasn’t been busy when it comes to the Ramada.  Within the 56 documents produced by my CPRA there is an infuriating email exchange between the CAO and representatives from PATH Ventures.

Time and again the CAO implores the developer to move forward with the project, only to be told that they need more money.  So the CAO – which, to be clear, are not the ones responsible for building the project – goes out of their way to identify and acquire new sources of funding.  $1.5 million in HHH money.  A $1.2 million construction loan from a non-profit that specializes in facilitating projects in “economically distressed” communities (the Ramada is about a mile from the Venice Pier).  Rental subsidies.  And, finally, the conversion of their $11 million mortgage note into one that, for all intents and purposes, really doesn’t need to get paid back…ever.

The developer’s attitude – calling the shots and unapologetically insatiable for more funds, even when the total cost exceeded the limits of credibility – is symptomatic of the real reason the Project Homekey program went so far off the rails.  As the L.A. Alliance audit showed, “LAHSA and the city routinely approved invoices from service providers without verifying whether the billed services were actually provided. Payments were often processed based on high-level summaries, with little scrutiny of receipts or actual service delivery.”

The County’s audit was equally damning, revealing that $50 million in advances had been doled out to various not for profits with no formal agreements on how the money would be repaid.  In March of last year, LAHSA paid $800,000 to two whistleblowers, keeping their very serious allegations of misspent funds and unprofessional conduct out of the public eye.

Los Angeles’s vast network of not-for-profit housing developers has thrived in this no-rules, big money environment.  As I reported a year ago, PATH Ventures more than doubled their reported assets between 2019-2022, to $70 million, a figure that doesn’t include 23 multi-unit properties, including the Ramada.  One year ago, the Current reported that over 70% of Homekey-funded rooms in Los Angeles are still vacant.

Fortunately, what Sue Pascoe rightfully called the Homeless California Gold Rush may be finally held to account for its failings.  In April, the CEO of LAHSA resigned, and the County voted to withhold its funding for the organization.  Last week, former L.A. City Controller Ron Galperin (who in 2022 authored an in-depth analysis of Proposition HHH spending which was met with swift condemnation from the organization representing affordable housing developers) was tapped to oversee the city’s homelessness numbers.  And according to LAist, in late May the County “commissioned a months-long outside investigation” into those whistleblower allegations.

As projects like the Ramada sit empty, the city faces fiscal challenges that no longer allow for indiscriminately spending millions of dollars without accountability.  Real change is necessary, and the time for political finger-pointing is over.