[dropcap size=big]C[/dropcap]urfews, no internet, cable or phone line, daily room checks, suicides and overdoses; these are some of the conditions and situations unhoused residents say they encountered while sheltering in hotel rooms during the pandemic.
Standing on the western steps of Los Angeles City Hall, unhoused residents living in Project Roomkey—a program to shelter the most vulnerable uhoused residents in vacant hotel rooms during the COVID-19 pandemic—announced the formation of Unhoused Tenants Against Carceral Housing (UTACH), alongside housing advocates and a civil rights attorney.
“The reason why we're here today is we’re introducing the voices of unhoused people. Too often we have people pontificating that are sitting in housed positions telling people what they should be doing with unhoused lives,” Theo Henderson, an unhoused resident and podcast host of We The Unhoused, said on Wednesday morning before introducing speakers to elaborate on their experiences in Project Roomkey.
During the lengthy, unconventional press conference, UTACH outlined pages of demands that the group wants to discuss with city and county officials within 10 days. Those demands include an extension of Project Roomkey, eliminating curfews, requiring that communication between staff members and tenants be made in writing, as well as better access to medical supplies such as Naloxone (more commonly known as Narcan, a life saving medication that reverses the effects of opioid overdose). In a press release the group stated, “UTACH’s mission is to fundamentally transform Project Roomkey and other forms of carceral shelter — that is, housing options where people are treated as if they are prisoners.”
“Let's call this what it is. It's discrimination. It is class warfare,” an unhoused man that identified himself as Phoenix told reporters Wednesday morning. “You're poor, you're homeless, so you should just take whatever crap treatment we give you and that's bullcrap. We are human beings, we have inalienable constitutional rights at the end of the day, plain and simple.”