The complex, multi-layered and lengthy process that created the Project Homekey site in Culver City was recognized at the 2024 Annual Homes Within Reach Awards, hosted by Southern California Association of Non Profit Housing at an event on Thursday, September 12, 2024.
The Homes Within Reach Awards recognize and honor excellence in affordable housing. Culver City staff, Mayor Yasmine-Imani McMorrin, members of the Project Homekey lead operations team Exodus Recovery, as well as the design and construction team accepted the Rehabilitation Development of the Year Award.
In the almost seven years that it took to bring the project to fruition, the numbers of ideas and contributors of ideas can be estimated in the hundreds.
Former Culver City Mayor Alex Fisch remembered “We started studying motel conversion for homeless housing at the Committee on Housing and Homelessness in 2016 with just the glimmer of a hope that there might one day be funding. We took that to the next level with a feasibility study early in my term on city council. So once Homekey launched, our application was very strong, because we’d already put in the work.”
With the applause of the state level organization, Culver City took a formal bow for the Project Homekey’s 73 total units for chronically unhoused persons; that number is divided into 38 interim housing units and 35 permanent supportive housing units.
In September of 2018, the LA Weekly noted that “[Culver City’s] city leaders agreed to solicit the assistance of consultants to study how motels could be repurposed for affordable housing, and how and where a seasonal, temporary homeless shelter could be established.” Then Vice-Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells was quoted as saying “We need strategies for making housing affordable to different income levels.”
There was also the solidly successful model of Upward Bound House, a motel conversion on Washington Boulevard that had been offering housing and support for homeless families since January of 2010. “Upward Bound house provided a model for motel conversion that worked and helped get numerous families off of the street,” noted former Mayor Dr. Daniel Lee. “[the previous model of hotel conversion helped ] to secure additional funding which resulted in the first homeless housing being built in Culver City in a generation. It was a historic win for the community.”
In 2023, Culver City opened the dual motel repurposed project, which now provides a safe place indoors where people can find wraparound services, healing, and stabilization. Due to the size of this housing project, Culver City started moving in clients to the Permanent Supportive Housing side in October 2023 and then moved participants into the Interim Housing side in February 2024.
The official opening celebration on Sept. 29, 2023 gave everyone a walk-through on the complete facility. Residents began to move in the following month.
At the SCANPH celebration, Housing and Human Services Director Tevis Barnes offered “Dozens of City staff from every department worked tirelessly, and with absolute devotion with our design and construction partners to bring Project Homekey to fruition. I am so proud to have worked on this project and to be part of such an incredible team.”
What began as a glimmer of hope is now winning awards, and most importantly, giving some people a roof over their heads.
Judith Martin-Straw
Additional text from City of Culver City
Photo of Culver City Mayor Yasmine-Imani McMorrin accepting award at SCANPH ceremony.
