Units will provide essential housing to most disadvantaged residents

Riverside County will receive $10.5 million to provide housing for people experiencing homelessness as part of the state’s new housing initiative called Project Homekey, the  state has announced.

Building upon an established link between temporary and permanent housing, the emergency hotel vouchers provided in Project Roomkey will pave the way for these permanent housing units.

The projects that received funding from Project Homekey include a hotel in Palm Springs, a mobile home park in Oasis for farmworker families, as well as a 52-bed community for LGBTQ youth living with HIV or AIDS in Riverside.

County Awarded $10.5 Million for New Housing

Supervisor V. Manuel Perez

“Riverside County is tremendously thankful to receive this grant to fulfill three new efforts to provide permanent housing to individuals and families in our communities,” Board Chair V. Manuel Perez, Fourth District Supervisor said in a prepared statement. “I am proud to work with the local leadership of Palm Springs in partnership to advance the efforts for Ivy Palms. This grant will also help expand Mountain View Estates in the eastern Coachella Valley to provide better living conditions to our farmworker and service worker families. We are proud to be among the allocations from this state program, and it will go very far to address homelessness and housing needs.”

Project Homekey provides funding to purchase and rehabilitate hotels, motels, vacant apartment buildings and other properties, and convert them into permanent homes for people experiencing homelessness.

Riverside County applied for three projects, all three of which were accepted for funding in the initial round of projects announced by the state this week.

In addition to the three county projects, the City of Lake Elsinore was awarded $3.1 million to acquire, rehab and operate a former hotel to provide 14 transitional housing units for up to 28 residents. This project will help the city achieve a goal of functional zero for chronic homelessness within the next two years.

“These new housing units will provide essential housing to some of our most disadvantaged residents,” said Vice Chair Karen Spiegel, Second District Supervisor. “Housing is essential to creating healthier, safer and more secure communities and the county continues to find ways to provide that essential housing to people struggling with homelessness.”

Image Sources

  • Supervisor V. Manuel Perez: Supervisor V. Manuel Perez
  • Housing: Pixaby