LOS ANGELES – The elevator doors at 5050 West Pico Boulevard open onto a dim hallway scrawled with graffiti. Down the corridor, someone shouts incoherently. A man stumbles past, barefoot and muttering. Moments earlier, a resident had offered a quiet warning: “After dark, this place turns into a drug den.”
This isn’t an alley in Skid Row. It is a Project Homekey site – part of California’s flagship response to homelessness.
Once the scene of a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles lawmakers, the Mid-Wilshire property is now a symbol of the disconnect between promise and reality. Purchased by the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) for $36.5 million, the building still advertises “luxury” apartments with “modern elegance” and “sweeping views of L.A.” Yet, at the time of sale, it carried 18 active mechanics’ liens totaling more than $2.1 million…