A Motel 6 near the 405 freeway on Roscoe Boulevard in North Hills has been converted into 111 units of interim housing, according to the New York Post, with the project tied to a state-funded effort to turn old motels into shelter for homeless Californians. The building will be run by a San Fernando Valley nonprofit that says residents will get three meals a day along with case management and housing navigation.
A June 2023 Los Angeles Housing Department report mentioned Hope the Mission, according to a City Clerk filing. A companion filing from that same month laid out the goal plainly: convert the motel into an interim-housing development with 110 units of supportive housing plus one manager's unit, for a total of 111 units. The New York Post reports Mayor Karen Bass cut the ribbon on the finished project and toured newly renovated rooms, calling them “absolutely beautiful” and saying of residents, “they will leave here knowing how to manage their lives.”
Hope the Mission, described in the Post's reporting as a nonprofit homeless services provider running shelters and housing programs across the San Fernando Valley, will operate the site. Per the Post, the North Hills renovation includes communal spaces and counseling facilities.
How the State Funding Came Together
The city's Homekey 3 application for the North Hills site sought up to $32.06 million in state grant funds, according to the same City Clerk filing from June 2023.
The state later confirmed the award: a California Department of Housing and Community Development announcement said Los Angeles, in partnership with Hope the Mission, would receive $32,068,000 for what it called the Motel 6 North Hills acquisition and rehabilitation project, intended to create 111 units of interim housing for people experiencing homelessness and chronic homelessness. A more recent Los Angeles City Administrative Officer report, dated this past November 25, again described the project as expected to provide 111 interim-housing units, tying the funding to the broader Homekey effort.
The city filing is explicit that the June 2023 report itself was a recommendation requiring City Council action, not a completed funding award — the money had to move through that approval process before it became final. The Post's reporting places the project's total cost at roughly $72 million, which on 111 units would work out to close to $650,000 per unit, though the city and state records reviewed here document the Homekey award and proposed city funding components rather than a verified all-in construction total.
A Pattern Playing Out Statewide
North Hills is one piece of a much larger program. Homekey, launched under Governor Gavin Newsom to convert hotels, motels and apartment buildings into homeless housing, has awarded more than $3.8 billion to local governments statewide, according to a CalMatters investigation published this past May. That same investigation found that projects involving about 3,000 homes — roughly one in five promised by the program — weren't finished as of the end of last year, while another 2,000 units had people living in them only temporarily, without having been converted into permanent housing. CalMatters also reported that nearly 13,500 people now live at Homekey sites statewide, citing the state Housing Department.
An earlier analysis from the Terner Center at UC Berkeley flagged what it called the program's biggest long-term obstacle: a lack of operating funds to support property management, maintenance, security and resident services at converted sites. That same analysis found average development costs of about $270,000 per unit at Homekey sites running as permanent supportive housing, with interim-housing sites like motel conversions averaging closer to $200,000 per unit to acquire and make occupancy-ready — figures that offer useful context for North Hills without confirming its final per-unit cost.
Per-unit costs on homeless housing conversions have drawn scrutiny elsewhere in the region too. The Los Angeles Times reported in September that renovating Building 13 on the VA's West Los Angeles campus was estimated to cost $1.25 million per unit across 24 veteran-housing units, with the project's overall $52 million estimate including $22 million in VA funds earmarked for the ground floor.
What Comes Next for Residents
For now, the North Hills building stands as a finished entry in a program whose statewide track record remains mixed — some sites fully converted and operating, others still unfinished or filled only on a temporary basis, according to CalMatters' reporting. Whether the North Hills site avoids the operating-fund shortfalls the Terner Center flagged as the program's central long-term risk isn't addressed in the records reviewed for this story. Hope the Mission's stated plan, per the Post, is to pair the renovated rooms with case management and housing navigation meant to help residents move toward long-term stability.
