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SLO agency awarded grant to buy Anderson Hotel, house homeless

December 1, 2022

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

Following a deal with the state of California, the Housing Authority of the City of San Luis Obispo (HASLO) will purchase the Anderson Hotel in downtown SLO and convert it into an apartment building intended to house homeless people.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday he is awarding HASLO $11.6 million toward the purchase and remodel of the Anderson Hotel. The 68-unit hotel has contained affordable housing for very low-income seniors and disabled people for more than 40 years. HASLO currently administers the affordable housing units in the building.

HASLO will convert the structure into a 42-unit apartment building, according to Gov. Newsom’s office. Two of the units will serve as manager apartments.

Newsom announced funding for the San Luis Obispo project along with grants of $19.9 million, $2.4 million and $2.2 million respectively to the city of San Jose, San Benito County and Santa Cruz County for other homeless housing projects. Each of the grants are part of the state of California’s ongoing Homekey awards, a program that funds the purchase and conversion of properties, including hotels, motels and vacant apartment buildings, into housing for the homeless.

Previously, the state awarded HASLO a grant of $15 million in order to purchase Motel 6 in Paso Robles and convert it into a shelter and housing for the homeless.

“Homekey is proof once again that what California is doing to solve homelessness – and to keep people from falling into homelessness in the first place – is moving with speed, innovation, and on-the-ground coordination,” said California Department of Housing and Community Development Director (HCD) Gustavo Velasquez. “HCD first heard about the Anderson Hotel through our work with Preservation Notice Law, and through robust technical assistance and flexible resources like Homekey, we are preserving much-needed affordable homes for seniors to age in place.”


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The lobby of that place stinks to high heaven and has flies in it…like rotting corpses are around somewhere


-4

so as someone asked before, what happens to someone currently in the building?

if it was fine as 68 units for low income and seniors, why does it take nearly 12 million to convert from 68 units to 42 for homeless?


16

Guessing because the 68 are SROs with just wiring for a hot plate or microwave and no up to code kitchen sinks. Upgrading to current code will chew up square footage. And maybe some units will be expanded from SRO to double occupancy.


0

I don’t take the anger very seriously since I know if Anderson Hotel were proposed as a project today these people would be screaming bloody murder about the death of their town. The reality is that a lot of folks in this town just don’t support any kind of housing and really just don’t like poor people.


-26

That’s because poor people don’t help pay the taxes that support a bloated government bureaucracy, outrageous government compensation packages and a multi-billion dollar underfunded pension system.


29

Actually it’s rich people who don’t pay for that


-23

Actually, the “Rich” (top 1 percent) pay approximately 25 percent of FEDERAL income tax collected. Conversely, the bottom 49 percent of income earners pay ZERO. The middle class pays the bulk, of FEDERAL income taxes.


9

So they are going to get rid of 68 housing units for the elderly, poor and disabled downtown so they can replace them with 42 homeless units. Why do the citizens allow these decision makers to run the government? Voting really does matter.


9

Somewhere out there Dee Torres Hill is wishing she could ‘help’ manage the money allocated for this project.


17

Sixty-eight units currently used for low-income seniors being renovated into 42 units for housing homeless???


72

Decades ago, friends & I would walk all over downtown day or night w/no issues. We’d shop at Law’s Hobbies, Leon’s Books…stop by the Coffee Merchant and Tacos Acapulco or Blazing Blenders… There were a few random drunks and maybe a homeless guy or two; we were never harassed or felt threatened. Overall we felt very safe.


Sadly those days are long gone and things in downtown SLO are getting worse, not better. Converting the Anderson into a homeless facility won’t help to make downtown SLO any safer; it’s a very bad (and expensive) idea.


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