Housing units set aside for chronically homeless in South Los Angeles as part of $24 million project

SOUTH LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A vacant lot on Vermont Avenue in South Los Angeles will soon be the site of a permanent home for the homeless.

City leaders held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday morning to announce the 50-unit affordable and supportive housing complex, called The Pointe on Vermont, located south of Florence Avenue.

"You only solve homelessness by creating and building beds," said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

The $24 million project is being funded with help from Measure HHH, which was passed by Los Angeles voters three years ago, setting aside $1.2 billion for the creation of homeless housing.

Twenty-five of the units at The Pointe are set aside for those who are either formally homeless, chronically homeless or mentally ill. The other half of the units being built are for low income households.

The project is in partnership with EAH Housing, an affordable housing non-profit organization and A2Z Enterprises, a real estate development firm.

"The Pointe on Vermont is a direct result of the community's desire to help solve the housing crisis," said Laura Hall, president and chief executive officer of EAH Housing.

"We've never had a pipeline like this in our city's history," said Garcetti, who touted more than 150 projects currently funded and under construction linked to Measure HHH.

This year, more than 1,300 housing units will open, says Garcetti. Next year, the number should double, before more than 10,000 bedrooms are created.

"We've got one foot in front of the other on our journey to end homelessness as we know it in the city of Los Angeles," said Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, also attending Wednesday's groundbreaking.

"There is no city in the entire United States that is doing as much around homelessness as the city of Los Angeles," added Harris-Dawson.

The project should be completed in approximately 18 months. It will include retail space on the ground level and a recording studio.

"Anyone who thinks we can just snap our fingers and suddenly have millions of new apartments overnight, we know how hard this work is," said Garcetti.