Mix-up at the Mayfair Hotel

I'm Marla Diaz. Thanks so much for watching. We want to get you to downtown Los Angeles or adjacent to it. I should be very clear. This is in the neighborhood of Westlake. This is where the Mayfair Hotel is. This is. It turned a hotel, turned housing, interim housing for the homeless population. And there was some misinformation that was put out ultimately on social media today. And it has resulted in quite the scene outside the Mayfair Hotel. I'm going to bring up my colleague, Nick Garcia. He is there where there are hundreds of people and they're all kind of there for the same reason. They need housing. Can you sort this all out for us, Nick? Yeah, Marla, well, we can show you that there's a scene, the crowd has dispersed just a little bit, but there are still at least 100, if not 200 people out here still waiting to get in. They're just making some announcements that only people who were already signed up and here with their case manager are able to go in and take part in this program. And so they're still trying to deal with the crowd here. It has gone down significantly, but there are still a lot of people. ...who are looking for housing and will not be able to get into the hotel today, but Lhasa tells us that they're working to connect those people with resources. You see still people across the street. They have not left. That crowd across the street has dispersed a little bit, but they remain there, even though they've made it pretty clear that they're not going to be getting into the hotel today. They may be able to meet with... somebody from Lhasa and get some more resources but like you were saying Marla this happened because there was a pre-planned limited space event for about 300 people here you had to already be enrolled in this program you had to be here with your case manager and somehow that got communicated on social media not by Lhasa just by somebody who shared the flyer wanting to get the word out except there really wasn't a need to get the word out to anybody else. Who wasn't already part of that program, and that's why so many people showed up here. Hundreds of people, upwards, I would say close to a thousand at the peak. A thousand? Much more than that, 300. Thank you. I'm just estimating, Marla. I don't know if it's a thousand. I would say it was hundreds. It was more than 300. Absolutely. Probably hundreds more than 300. I guess I just didn't realize the ultimate response. I knew, to your point, I knew it was more than those who were, it was there for the 300 or so enrollees. I knew it was dozens more. I didn't realize it could be up to a thousand. I mean, that's a lot of people This is an event that is expected to last through 3 p.m. We're already almost to 3 p.m. at this point. So she said it probably will go longer because she doesn't want to turn anyone away. It's going to have to go longer, Marla. And I'm going to tell you, too, the people down the street, down 7th here, just the businesses. I was kind of overhearing some of the chatter and speaking with them. They were saying that they thought it was going to take much longer than hours because the line really did stretch down the street there, around the hotel, around the hotel on both sides, actually. So it was a lot of people. Again, I don't have exact numbers, but hundreds more than the 300 who were planned to be here. Yeah, I know I got very animated, but it just, it speaks to the need, and I mean, it really does, and it's just, yeah, it gives you a good visualization of how great the need is here, I mean, just that one social media post, and of course, it gets circulated and spread, and word gets out, but people see, hey, there's help, and they show up for it, and that's what we're seeing here. Okay, and then how... Often is the line moving, you know, I would say. It's a bit slow, but I would imagine there's a lot of processing work that has to take place. Here's the thing, too. They've got to kind of sort through the people who were signed up for this program and find them in the crowd and find those case managers and get them through the crowd. And that's what we were witnessing earlier, a lot of people trying to make their way around the crowd to get inside to be a part of this. We know that it was, again, 300, I don't know if it's specifically 300 spaces here. at the Mayfair or somewhere else in the city. But it is taking some time. Okay. Well, we're glad that you're there and helping us sort this all out because it is pretty complicated down there and chaotic, but it looks like at this point sort of organized chaos. We'll check back with you. Thank you so much, Nick.