LA’s latest homeless plan could turn hotels into squatter dens: expert

By: Emma Colton | Published: October 17, 2023

A proposal in Los Angeles intended to address the city’s rampant homelessness issues could turn hotels into squatter dens, according to the CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA).

“You will have squatters. Imagine if you give someone who’s experiencing homelessness a voucher, and they go to a hotel and they don’t want to leave. What are you going to do?” Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview. “And, by the way, you don’t have their credit card or their identification because they don’t have it. So, then you’re going to have to call law enforcement, and in law enforcement, they don’t want to be responding to things like this.”

Unite Here, a hotel, food service and casino labor union, proposed a hotel ordinance that would force hotels to inform the city when they have unoccupied rooms and give out vouchers to homeless people. The proposal would give homeless people rooms alongside paying customers. Los Angeles voters will determine the fate of the proposal via ballot measure in March 2024, unless the union pulls the proposal before December. 

Read the full story from Fox Business here.