AHF Rededicates L.A.’s Barclay Hotel as Low-Income Housing

AHF and its Healthy Housing Foundation hosted a turn-of-the-century themed holiday reception and cornerstone plaque dedication ceremony today 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 and promote the adaptive reuse of existing older buildings as affordable housing stock, AHF and the Healthy Housing Foundation outfitted the lobby of the hotel in period décor and elements, including carolers in turn-of-the-century period costume and a safecracker who cracked the lock on the nearly century-old hotel safe.

Speakers at the event 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.

“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.”