AHF LA Times Ad: ‘City Hall: Save the Clark Hotel’

In a new L. A. Times ad (Sunday, August 14), AHF urges City Hall to help save the 550-room Clark Hotel, which has been sitting empty for the last decade since billionaire and convicted felon Joseph Chetrit purchased it in 2012

Ad is the latest in AHF’s SOS campaign (Save Our Single Room Occupancy hotels campaign) urging City Hall to identify and assist it repurposing thousands of vacant SRO hotel rooms to address L.A.’s homeless crisis
LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–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 14th in the Los Angeles Times. The ad headlined ”Save the Clark Hotel”, highlights the recent history of the Clark (426 S Hill St. between 4th and 5th Streets) near Pershing Square which has been sitting vacant since the Chetrit Group, headed by billionaire and convicted felon Joseph Chetrit, purchased it a decade ago in 2012.

AHF’s ad urges City Hall to try and work to get the Clark’s 550-rooms 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 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 the homeless.”

Since 2017, AHF through its Healthy Housing Foundation (HHF) has purchased, restored, and re-occupied a total of 13 single-room-occupancy buildings and other hotels and motels, totaling 1,415 rooms at a low cost, conclusively providing 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.”
Contacts
Ged Kenslea, Senior Director, Communications for AHF, +1.323.791.5526, gedk@aidshealth.org

Lauren Hogan, Associate Director, Communications for AHF +1.310.940.0802 cell lauren.hogan@ahf.org