Vacant LA General Hospital to Become Homeless Housing

Los Angeles County General Hospital, a 1.25M SF Art Deco landmark on the Eastside that hasn’t served a patient in 14 years, will be converted into a homeless and affordable housing and treatment facility.

The $250M adaptive reuse project, to be undertaken with state and city funding, will turn the hospital into what is being called a “Healthy Village” with housing, mental and medical health care, and social services including art resources and community activities, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

The facility also will encompass the Restorative Care Village, an 8-acre compound on the grounds dedicated to short-term and permanent housing.

Historic Los Angeles General is the largest hospital built west of Chicago. According to the LA Conservancy, in 1985 nearly 1 out of every 200 children in the US were born there.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion by Supervisor Hilda Solis to redevelop the hospital site. In her resolution, Solis credited the 150-year-old hospital with being “the birthplace of Emergency Medicine.

Cementing our commitment to its restoration and reuse can aide in our response to the housing crisis our region is experiencing,” said Solis, in a statement.

The state has approved $50M for structural upgrades to the hospital building, which is being stripped to its core.

In 2013, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development rewrote funding guidelines that re-routed federal funds dedicated to addiction and mental health treatment to housing.

The homelessness problem in Los Angeles has grown in magnitude during the pandemic. According to LAHSA’s 2022 Greater Los Angeles Homeless County, released in September, the homeless population in LA County is 69,144, a 4.1% increase from 2020.

The problem is national: as LA announced the conversion project for General Hospital, New York City Mayor Eric Adams issued an unprecedented order the NYPD and EMS services to involuntarily hospitalize mentally ill people who are living on the streets.

NYC has been reeling from a series of violent crimes involving deranged people roaming the streets and attacking pedestrians without warning, including victims who were shoved onto the tracks on the subway.

NYC’s shelter system was stretched to the breaking point over the summer due to the arrival of migrants from the southern border, prompting Adams to ask housing developers to voluntarily give up units designated for affordable housing lotteries to homeless families.