Advocates to Caravan & Circle LA’ s Vacant Sunset Gordon Tower Friday; Demand its Use as Homeless Housing

In Featured, News by Ged Kenslea

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“LA City Council President Nury Martinez, Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, It’s Time to House the Unhoused!”

 

Friday, April. 17, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Caravan starts @ Corner of Sunset Blvd. and Gordon St. in Hollywood; Circles north to Carlton Way, east to Bronson Ave., south to Sunset

 

In midst of LA’s homeless crisis and the growing COVID-19 pandemic, housing justice and health care advocates will stage a caravan protest/advocacy action to urge use of the building as homeless housing; stalled 22-story, 299-unit Sunset Blvd. apartment complex has been sitting vacant for over three years

 

LOS ANGELES (April 16, 2020) As the COVID-19 pandemic continues its deadly course and epic housing affordability and homelessness crises continue to wreak havoc across California, particularly in Los Angeles, advocates from Housing Is A Human Right (HHR), the housing advocacy division of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), will hold a socially-distant car protest at the Sunset Gordon tower in Hollywood on Friday evening, April 17.

The PROTEST CARAVAN kicks off at 7:00 p.m. and runs until 9:00 p.m. in front of, and circling the blocks around the Sunset Gordon tower, a 22-story Sunset Boulevard apartment complex that has sat vacant for more than three years. The automotive advocates are demanding that the building be quickly repurposed as housing for the homeless by government officials under the auspices of the state’s recent pandemic-driven emergency declaration.

WHAT:            HOMELESS HOUSING PROTEST CARAVAN: housing and health care advocates to demand vacant Hollywood apartment complex be used to house homeless

 

WHEN:            Friday, April 17, 2020     –     7:00 p.m.  to 9:00 p.m.

 

WHERE:         Circling around…Sunset Gordon tower

1500-1528 Gordon Street (corner Sunset), Los Angeles, CA 90028

 

B-ROLL:           Advocates will project their message to Martinez and O’Farrell on the facade of the Sunset Gordon tower with the use of GOes Before Optics (GOBO) light display. A GOBO is a template that light shines through to project an image onto a surface.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Ruthie Thomas, Communications Director, Rental Affordability Act (RAA)

[email protected] (310) 663-4159 cell

Ged Kenslea, AHF Communications Dir., [email protected]  (323) 791-5526 cell

 

After four weeks of inaction by LA City Council, despite a citywide shelter in place order and a statewide stay at home order issued by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and California Gov. Gavin Newsom to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the housing advocates are calling on LA City Council President Nury Martinez and Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell to act immediately to provide adequate housing for thousands of unhoused Californians who are still living on Los Angeles streets.

The Sunset Gordon building is a 299-unit almost entirely market rate apartment complex on the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Gordon Street that has been sitting vacant after a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge retroactively invalidated the project’s construction permits.  The project currently has only 15 units set aside for people earning below median income.

“It is a national disgrace that such a vulnerable population is exposed and left to die on the streets as this major public health crisis rages on,” said Housing Is A Human Right Director René Christian Moya. “As millions of Californians remain under quarantine to shelter from the COVID-19 pandemic, over tens of thousands of men, women, and children remain with no place to shelter, even as thousands of hotel rooms remain vacant downtown.”

 

The activists are urging the City Council to use eminent domain to save thousands of LA’s unhoused residents from certain death, by opening the hotel’s vacant units to families immediately. They will project their advocacy message to Martinez and O’Farrell on the facade of the Sunset Gordon tower with the use of GOes Before Optics (GOBO) light display technology. A GOBO is a template that light shines through to project an image onto a surface.

“Medical experts and government officials have said that shelter is key to containing the spread of the coronavirus. Yet a month into a statewide stay at home order, little has been done to shelter the unhoused. We urge LA City Council to act immediately and save lives,” Moya added.

 

The Sunset Gordon project first stalled and the initial construction permits were revoked after it came to light that developer CIM Group razed a columned front entry section of the historic Spaghetti Factory building, which they were to save and incorporate into the new building. Since 2012, several lawsuits against the City of Los Angeles and CIM have been filed to delay or halt the project including lawsuits by the La Mirada Homeowners Association and AHF and its affiliate organizations.

 

The call to repurpose Sunset Gordon comes amid exploding and intertwined COVID-19, homelessness and affordable housing crises roiling Los Angeles. Last year, the number of homeless people in Los Angeles County rose by 12% to 58,936 and by 16% in the City of Los Angeles to 36,300 individuals.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the parent non-profit of Housing Is A Human Right and Healthy Housing Foundation, has long addressed public health emergencies — from the AIDS epidemic to the Ebola crisis to California’s homeless crisis. AHF will do everything it can to help the vulnerable during this difficult time.

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