Last month, the city of Los Angeles mistakenly moved people living on the streets into a motel that was previously declared a “public nuisance.” According to officials, it had been a source of criminal activity for more than a decade.
During an Inside Safe operation in early May that took “months of coordination and focus,” according to the local councilmember, roughly two dozen unhoused people living along a median in the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Council District 5 were moved approximately 15 miles to the 108 Motel, a one-story motel in South L.A. next to the freeway that the city has been trying to shut down for years.
The city council declared the 108 Motel a public nuisance in 2018 “and required the discontinuance of the motel’s use and any similar land uses at the property.”
This month, Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson introduced a new city council motion to padlock or fence off the troubled motel at 10721 South Broadway after the owner reportedly removed a fence erected earlier.
Harris-Dawson’s motion calls the 108 Motel “a public nuisance” that “has continued to be a source of criminal and other nuisance activity.” The motel has been a magnet for prostitution and violent crimes for more than a decade, according to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).