A new group, Angelenos Protecting Hospitality (APH), has launched to mobilize people against the proposed policy mandating all Los Angeles hotels to house the homeless alongside regular paying guests.
APH is a lead group that will work with Los Angeles voters and stakeholders to counter the ballot initiative, which will require all hotels in Los Angeles to house homeless people next to paying guests. If the proposed policy is passed, Los Angeles will be the first city in America to house the homeless and paying guests together.
Los Angeles residents will vote in March 2024 on whether to implement this as part of a measure proposed by Unite Here, a labor union representing hotel workers in the Los Angeles area.
APH will work with community groups to educate voters about the “harmful effects” of the ballot initiative, the group said in a release.
APH will launch a six-figure paid advertising campaign — “Housing homeless people in hotels: Expensive. Dangerous. Wrong” — to educate LA voters about the “dangerous” measure, the group said. The campaign will warn that putting the homeless and paying guests together in hotels will be an “expensive, taxpayer-funded band-aid” that will impact tourism and put hotel workers and guests at risk. The measure will also fail to provide the specialized care that homeless people need.
Earlier this month, a poll commissioned by the American Hotel & Lodging Association revealed that the proposed policy would deter most Americans from booking rooms in Los Angeles. According to the poll, about 71% of Americans said they would be deterred from visiting Los Angeles for leisure or vacation if hotels were mandated to implement the policy.
Many people expressed concern about the services and amenities hotels will provide once the policy is imposed, with 75% of the respondents stating that the proposed policy ignores the root cause of homelessness.
Terming it as a dangerous measure, AHLA President & CEO Chip Roger had said that if Unite Here succeeds in turning all Los Angeles hotels into homeless shelters, eventually there would be no hotels or hotel workers left in the city.
Besides the AHLA, other opponents of the homeless in hotels ballot initiative include the California Hotel & Lodging Association, the Hotel Association of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Business Federation, the Greater Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Northeast Los Angeles Hotel Owners Association, the LAX Coastal Chamber of Commerce, and other stakeholders.