AHF Tells LA City Hall to Save the Embassy Hotel

In a new L.A. Times ad (Sunday, August 28), AHF urges City Hall to help save the Embassy Hotel, which has been sitting empty for over two decades since billionaire and convicted felon Joseph Chetrit bought it in 1998

Ad is the latest in AHF’s SOS campaign (Save Our Single Room Occupancy hotels campaign) urging City Hall to identify and assist in repurposing thousands of vacant SRO hotel rooms to address L.A.’s homeless crisis

AHF will run another full-page, full-color housing advocacy ad targeting Los Angeles elected and city officials, which is set to be published this Sunday, August 28^th in the Los Angeles Times. The ad headlined “Save the Embassy Hotel” highlights the recent history of the Embassy Hotel (893-855 South Grand Avenue between 8^th and 9^th Streets) near Grand Hope Park which has been sitting vacant since the Chetrit Group, headed by billionaire and convicted felon Joseph Chetrit, purchased it 24 years ago in 1998.

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AHF’s ad urges City Hall to try and work to get the Embassy Hotel repurposed as homeless and extremely-low-income housing and to help identify and assist in repurposing what AHF estimates are thousands of other vacant SRO and other hotel rooms across Los Angeles. The Embassy is a nine-story building that can accommodate up to 330 rooms or housing units.

The “Save the Embassy Hotel” ad is another in AHF’s SOS campaign (“Save Our Single-room-occupancy” hotels) urging the city to preserve Los Angeles’ single room occupancy buildings, and to stop allowing developers to demolish and/or convert these properties into luxury units, or, as in the case of the Clark, warehouse it vacant for years on end while the city’s homeless crisis exploded.

The ad notes “All the empty hotel rooms in Downtown LA could house all of the currently homeless people there,” and that “City Hall received more than $1 billion in federal COVID relief and spent zero on housing those experiencing homelessness.”

Since 2017, AHF through its Healthy Housing Foundation (HHF) has been purchasing, restoring, and re-populating 13 Greater Los Angeles area single-room-occupancy buildings and other hotels and motels (1,415 rooms and counting) at a low cost, to provide everyday Angelinos with the access to desperately needed affordable housing for the city of Los Angeles.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 1.6 million individuals in 45 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth, follow us @aidshealthcare or subscribe to our AHF podcast “AHFter Hours.”

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AHF’s ad urges City Hall to try and work to get the Embassy Hotel repurposed as homeless and extremely-low-income housing and to help identify and assist in repurposing what AHF estimates are thousands of other vacant SRO and other hotel rooms across L.A.