AHF: L.A. Times Ad Highlights Barclay Hotel's New Life as Affordable Housing
AHF and its Healthy Housing Foundation hosted a turn-of-the-century themed holiday reception and cornerstone plaque dedication ceremony Wednesday in Downtown Los Angeles to mark AHF's acquisition and conversion of the Barclay Hotel to affordable housing for extremely-low-income and formerly homeless individuals. AHF purchased the 158-unit Barclay?the oldest continually operating hotel in Los Angeles?in October and has been working to renovate and upgrade the units before people move in. The Barclay is located at 103 West 4th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013.
To mark the occasion, AHF and the Healthy Housing Foundation will also run a new advocacy ad in the Los Angeles Times to highlight this latest acquisition and encourage and promote the adaptive reuse of existing older buildings as affordable housing stock. It is set to run this Sunday, December 26, 2021. Headlined "The Barclay is Reborn," the full-page, four-color newspaper ad shares an old photo of the hotel from a bygone era with the simple text:
"Reimagining a classic historic hotel, as a low-cost housing solution, to an urgent humanitarian crisis for 158 Angelenos. The Healthy Housing/AHF family is 1,183 units at 11 properties with more on the way."
The ad closes with the tagline "There are practical, affordable solutions if we truly care."
Speakers at the Barclay plaque dedication event this week included Michael Weinstein, AHF President; Dominique Eastman, Regional Property Operations Manager for AHF's Healthy Housing Foundation, who was at one point himself unhoused; Hon. Tony Vazquez, California Board of Equalization Member; Hon. Henry Stern, California Senator - 27th District; Michael Lawson, Los Angeles Urban League President and Cynthia Davis, MPH, AHF Board Member.
The Barclay Hotel becomes the eleventh hotel or motel in the Los Angeles area that Healthy Housing Foundation has purchased and repurposed as homeless or extremely-low-income housing since 2017 when AHF first kicked off its housing program. In addition to the Barclay Hotel, Healthy Housing also has one additional L.A. area hotel purchase for use as affordable housing pending, near HHF's Sinclair Hotel, which became part of AHF's ?family of housing' in April. Healthy Housing Foundation also has plans to build new affordable housing units in Fort Lauderdale near its AHF Southern Bureau Headquarters and many of its AHF affiliate organizations across the U.S. are also involved in providing affordable housing in their communities.
AHF launched Healthy Housing Foundation in 2017 to address the rampant affordable housing crisis sweeping the nation by providing fast, easy, and compassionate access to affordable housing with a focus on addressing the needs of low-income individuals, struggling families, youth, and those living with chronic illness.
"AHF's Healthy Housing Foundation focuses on the faster, much less expensive model of adaptive reuse of existing buildings, repurposing them as housing for those previously unsheltered, homeless and/or for extremely-low-income individuals," said Michael Weinstein, president of AHF. "We wanted to highlight this housing model with a festive, old-time holiday-themed reception and plaque dedication ceremony recognizing and honoring the long history of the Barclay and also celebrating its new life as affordable housing for those in need."
AHF previously renovated and repurposed ten historic or older Los Angeles buildings. With this latest building, AHF has now created a combined total of 1,183 units in L.A. in our effort to more quickly house individuals and families.
"Due to the enormity of the homeless and housing affordability crises, we need viable solutions that are economic and fast because communities?and the people in those communities?simply cannot wait any longer," added Weinstein.
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 and follow us @aidshealthcare.
News published on and distributed by:
