Voters in Los Angeles will cast a ballot in 2024 on a proposal to offer vacant hotel rooms to the city's homeless, CNN reports.
Unite Here Local 11, a union representing hospitality workers in Los Angeles, announced this week that they've collected enough signatures to allow L.A. County residents to cast a ballot on a bill forcing every hotel in the area to report their room vacancies at 2 p.m. each day, which would then be offered to local people without housing.
"We think this is one part of the solution," Kurt Peterson, who leads the union, told CNN. "By no means do we think this solves the homelessness crisis. But do hotels have a role to play? Of course they do."
He added that opponents of the measure in the hotel industry "don't seem to understand who the unhoused are. We're talking about seniors, students, working people -- that's who the voucher program would benefit the most."
Stuart Waldman, the president of the Valley Industry & Commerce Association, told CNN that the bill is "just insane," adding, "it isn't going to solve the problem."
Manoj Patel, who manages a Motel 6 in Los Angeles, said that while he does rent rooms to some homeless people, who have been vetted by a local church that pays the cost of the room, he opposes a policy to make doing so mandatory.
"We barely are surviving, number one. Number two, we have to think of the safety of our staff. And number three, we're not professionally or any otherwise equipped with any of the supporting mechanisms that the homeless guest would require," he said.
"We all want to help the homeless, but we don't want to just put a band aid on it," Patel continued. "You're trying to address an issue and creating an even bigger issue. And in the process, you're actually, I think, taking the entire hospitality industry and devastating it."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.