A hotel near Venice Beach that Los Angeles bought with taxpayer money to house the homeless has sat mostly vacant since 2020 while its price tag has nearly tripled, according to a new city report.
The former Ramada Inn at 3130 W. Washington Blvd. was purchased in December 2020 for $8 million. The project was supposed to quickly put roofs over homeless residents’ heads. Instead, the 32-unit property spent years trapped in permitting delays and financing shortfalls. The total cost is now approaching $20 million, putting each unit at roughly $625,000.
“Taxpayers spent millions to buy that building and years later it’s still sitting empty. That’s the definition of a boondoggle,” said Councilwoman Traci Park, as per the New York Post.
The site briefly operated as a short-term shelter before officials shut it down in October 2022 to convert the building into permanent supportive housing. Once emptied, the project stalled. Permits alone took 20 months to secure, according to a January report from City Administrative Officer Matthew Szabo. Nonprofit operator PATH Ventures raised about $5.5 million from public and private sources but couldn’t close the financing gap.
The city eventually approved $1.5 million in additional funding earmarked for supportive housing, and PATH secured a $1.25 million construction loan from Genesis LA. Financing finally closed in September 2025. Construction began in October. Estimated completion: December 2026.
“We bought buildings before we had approvals, before we had a plan, and before we had the services in place. That’s why this project has been sitting there,” Park said. “This property should have been housing people already. Instead it’s a symbol of how badly City Hall botched the rollout of these projects.”
The Venice hotel isn’t an outlier. The same city report reviewed all 45 sites the city and the Housing Authority acquired under a pandemic-era push to shelter the homeless. Combined, those properties represent 3,098 beds or units. Only 2,054 are currently occupied or in the leasing process. More than 1,000 taxpayer-funded units remain offline, with hundreds still undergoing rehabilitation, conversion, or waiting on financing.
The delays have drawn sharp criticism from residents and fiscal watchdogs who note that Los Angeles has spent billions on homelessness in recent years with little measurable improvement in the number of people living on the street.
