Project Roomkey blamed for Norwalk's dramatic spike in homelessness
NORWALK – The number of unhoused people living in Norwalk nearly doubled in the last two years, according to the results of a homeless count released this month.
In 2020, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority counted 168 people living on the streets of Norwalk. There was no count in 2021 due to the pandemic.
This year, the number of homeless people in Norwalk reached 311.
Norwalk officials attributed the spike to Project Roomkey and Project Homekey, county programs that placed homeless individuals in local motels.
In 2018, in an effort to combat homelessness, the Norwalk city council adopted a homeless task force and the Homeless Operation Prevention and Engagement (HOPE) team. Operating as part of the Norwalk Public Safety Department, the HOPE team increased engagement with homeless people and directed them to resources provided by other agencies.
“The city noticed a marked improvement on how it dealt with the homeless population. Our numbers of those on the street began to drop almost immediately,” said Norwalk Mayor Rick Ramirez. “However, that all changed during the pandemic when our city was forced to deal with the consequences of having Project Roomkey and Project Homekey site placed here by the County of Los Angeles.
“In fact, we had the largest [Project Roomkey] site in the Gateway Cities region.”
Norwalk had a Project Roomkey site at the 210-room Saddleback Hotel, located at 12500 Firestone Blvd., that operated from May 7, 2020 through Aug. 4, 2021.
When initially forced on the city, the city council voted in April 2020 to impose a temporary ban to prevent motel conversions for Project Roomkey without prior city approval. L.A. County then sued Norwalk and in April 2020 a judge issued a temporary restraining order directing the city to comply with the state and county.
“What ensued was an influx of homeless population from outside the city,” Ramirez said. “As a result, the council had to approve additional funding for both the Public Safety Department and Social Services Department to strengthen supportive services.
“It was unfortunate that this program had a high abandonment rate that resulted in over 300 former participants being unaccounted for and left to roam on the streets. This was consistent with what other areas in the region that also had a county run program within their city limits.
The City Council made efforts to combat this problem in the Fiscal Year 2021/2022 General Fund, as operating expenditures were increased to further enhance services, primarily under the Public Safety’s H.O.P.E. team and Social Services Department. This resulted in an overall operating budget increase of $7.6 million, or 15%.
The budget also increased the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department contract by 5%.
In June 2021, the City Council recognized the importance and successes of the H.O.P.E. team and approved the addition of a second full-time H.O.P.E. team that worked into the evenings to provide dedicated homeless engagement seven days a week.
Additionally, in June 2022, the City Council voted to enhance city services under the Social Services Department by adding evening/weekend coverage to work concurrently with the H.O.P.E. team. This allowed the city to have ample homeless support services seven days a week.
“Despite the hurdles thrown upon us, these efforts show that the City of Norwalk is doing its part in combatting homelessness in the region,” Ramirez said. “Our residents want to see these numbers decrease, and the council has aggressively sought efforts to that end. We are confident these efforts of providing resources to tackle this issue