Knock LA

Culver City’s Project Homekey facility started as an ambitious and cutting-edge initiative to combat the homelessness crisis in Southern California. But what was intended to have a positive impact has fallen dismally short of expectations and morphed into a situation rife with violence and unsafe conditions, according to a resident of the facility. 

Project Homekey launched in 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Governor Gavin Newsom introduced it as a “statewide effort to sustain and rapidly expand housing for persons experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, and who are, thereby, disproportionately impacted by and at increased risk for medical diseases or conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.” The aim was to convert and develop a broad variety of housing types — hotels, motels, hostels, single-family homes, and adult residential facilities, to name a few — in order to move unhoused and at-risk individuals off California streets and into transitional homes. 

Culver City opened their Project Homekey location in September 2023. Made up of two repurposed motels, the facility contains 73 total housing units. Exodus Recovery is the lead services provider onsite. On the city website, it states that residents have access to laundry, meals, healthcare, caseworkers, and mental health clinicians. 

The city came under fire in 2023 when leaders voted to approve a ban on tent encampments. Over the last five years, community organizations like Palms Unhoused Mutual Aid have advocated for more humane policies towards unhoused folks and an end to persecuting homelessness.

A painful beginning

Veronica, a Culver City Project Homekey resident since September 2024, said that mistreatment and disrespect started within a month of her arrival. One day, she went to a security guard and asked if he had the building’s office phone number. He said he didn’t, but asked if he could put her number in his cellphone in order to reach out when he had the contact information she requested. Veronica agreed, thinking nothing of it. Then she began receiving inappropriate texts from the guard. 

“He started with some vulgar language,” she told Knock LA in an interview. “It kind of made me uncomfortable.” 

The situation escalated when the guard sent her a sexually explicit video of himself. 

“He started asking me if I liked it,” Veronica said. “I completely froze and never responded to anything from him ever again. I get scared because people can retaliate.” 

Veronica brought the issue to her case worker a few days later and showed them the video. Her case manager told the facility’s management, and the guard was fired soon after. Upon his removal, management took Veronica’s phone and deleted his number, even though Veronica wanted to keep it to be able to identify him in case he called and threatened her. 

For Veronica, the incident with the security guard was only one in a series of disrespectful experiences at Culver City’s Project Homekey. When she arrived at the facility, she was placed in a room that was across the hall from her ex-boyfriend, a man she had a 10-year stay away order for. 

“This guy hit me with a hatchet across the face a long time ago,” Veronica told Knock LA. “There’s a girl that moved in here [who] claims that he stalked her and broke her nose, too. This guy is really dangerous.”

She repeatedly asked her case manager to move her to a room away from him. Then her ex began harassing her and making sexual remarks. 

“My request kept getting ignored,” Veronica said. 

Telling her case manager and requesting a move did nothing, so she requested a hard copy of the 10-year stay away order from the court. However, there were obstacles to receiving the physical order. 

“We are not in charge of our mail,” Veronica said of the Project Homekey circumstances. “Sometimes we don’t even receive our mail at all. [Management] stated for about a year that they never received a copy of the stay away order even though I requested a copy by mail twice.” 

Nearly a year of harassment and intimidation passed. The document never arrived by mail, so Veronica went to court to ask for a hard copy in person. Veronica successfully obtained a physical copy of the order, and only then did her case manager and the program move her ex-boyfriend.

“This is not how you advocate for a person.”

In total since 2020, $3.8 billion in state funds were granted to service providers and nonprofits in local jurisdictions to execute Project Homekey. Since the initiative’s start, Los Angeles County has acquired 32 properties, totaling 2,157 units, for conversion into interim and permanent housing. 13,500 people currently live in Project Homekey facilities. In the past six years, there have been zero audits — independent or otherwise — of Project Homekey. Based on the number of residents and the total money spent, Project Homekey has spent about $280,000 on each person housed. 

Despite the onsite services and support supposedly provided at the Project Homekey facility by Exodus Recovery, Veronica also experiences frequent medical neglect. She requires a wheelchair, but her room is not ADA compliant and staff have not addressed her request to be moved. The bed in Veronica’s room does not have rails on the side, something she has specifically requested multiple times. As a result of rails missing, Veronica has fallen out of bed four times and been unable to get up. She had previously suffered from an injured ankle and a fractured elbow before the most recent fall. 

The fourth time Veronica fell from her bed, staff came into her room for a routine security check. These checks occur every two hours, including throughout the night when residents are attempting to sleep. Veronica asked for staff to help her up and put her back into the bed. They did nothing and left her on the floor. She said that this is reflective of management’s general attitude toward unhoused folks.

“[They say] we shouldn’t complain because we don’t pay rent. We shouldn’t complain because it’s a shelter,” she told Knock LA. “Their mentality is ‘you lived in the street.’ But we’re not in the street. We are in a facility.”

When she raised her concerns to the Exodus Recovery staff, they replied that they had no ADA-compliant rooms available and no way to get bed rails for her. To minimize injuries from falling, Veronica asked her case manager if she could put her mattress on the floor. They said yes, which shocked her as she felt this was a very unsanitary situation. 

“This is not the way you advocate for a person,” Veronica said about the staff’s behavior. “I have brought you plenty of letters from my doctor requesting an ADA-compliant room. You can do better.” 

When other residents saw Veronica’s mattress on the floor they were appalled. The building is plagued by roaches, according to Veronica. She wakes up from time to time with roaches crawling across her face. Sleeping so close to the floor is not the hygienic option, but it was the only one available so she wouldn’t re-injure herself. 

When asked for comment, Culver City Health and Human Services Department provided the following statement to Knock LA: 

“The City of Culver City takes very seriously any concern involving the health, safety, dignity, or personal property of Project Homekey program participants. City staff conducted a site visit and met with Exodus Recovery staff regarding these concerns. We expect all participants to be treated with dignity and respect, and we encourage anyone with concerns to use the established grievance process available to them.”

Maintaining faith

Veronica’s experiences paint a grim picture of the general outlook of Project Homekey service providers toward unhoused people. She told Knock LA that other residents have received similar treatment from staff and case workers and that management and providers’ behavior demonstrates a pattern of dehumanization of the Culver City Project Homekey residents. Such an attitude about unhoused people is endemic among the general public, according to Veronica. 

“When you end up homeless, people start treating you like trash,” she said. “You’re no longer seen as a human being. You’re seen as the worst of the worst. But I’m somebody’s grandmother, somebody’s mother.” 

Despite the staff’s constant mistreatment and the persistence of unsafe living conditions, Veronica is committed to lifting others up as she navigates her own journey toward being housed and living a safe, healthy life. 

“Don’t look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up,” she said. “I’m gonna get better, and I’m gonna go out there and help the people that I can, as many as I can.”