A state-funded plan to turn a crime-ridden Southern California motel into housing for homeless people has become a years-long money pit – swallowing millions of taxpayer dollars while the project remains unfinished nearly six years later.
Residents living next door say they have endured years of early-morning construction, flying dirt and debris and, more recently, repeated gas leaks at the former M Motel in El Monte, which was bought in 2020 as part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $3.8 billion Homekey program.
The city received $10.35 million in original Homekey funding for the 93-room motel’s acquisition and rehabilitation, along with millions more in subsequent state, federal and county funding.
But the site — renamed Hilda Solis Rose Court after powerful Los Angeles County Supervisor and former congresswoman Hilda Solis — remains under renovation years after officials first celebrated the Homekey project.
“Why did they spend too long to fix the building?” said Edgar Gudiel, 63, a retired resident of neighboring Baldwin Valley Apartments whose first language is not English.
“They’re spending too much, too long, too much time.”
Homekey was launched during the pandemic to give local governments money to rapidly acquire motels and other properties and convert them into housing for homeless people.
But the program has been plagued by delays, with 3,000 planned homes — about one in five of those promised — still not open at the end of 2025, according to a CalMatters investigation.
El Monte was awarded Homekey funding in November 2020 to purchase the M Motel and neighboring Budget Inn, receiving a combined $17.7 million for the two properties.
The city acquired them the following month.
The M Motel received $10.35 million for acquisition and rehabilitation, while the city later secured another $5.8 million in federal CDBG-Homekey funding for rehabilitation work at the property. Los Angeles County also provided $7.5 million toward Rose Court after the project faced a budget shortfall.
In 2024, Solis presented El Monte with another $2 million grant to support operations and services at Rose Court and the neighboring Hilda Solis Iris House.
Neighbors at Baldwin Valley Apartments told the California Post that living alongside the seemingly endless construction project has been hell.
They said work can begin as early as 6:30 a.m. and they are forced to keep their windows shut at all times because dirt and debris blow into their apartments.
“I wouldn’t have moved in if I knew that they’re going to start this horrible construction thing every day at 6 o’clock,” said Luke Boyer, 26.
“I’m trying to sleep at 6:30. I’m dealing with, you know, cops and I’m dealing with angry girlfriend, dealing with angry neighbors.”
The situation turned potentially dangerous this year when construction triggered gas leaks that neighbors said forced them to evacuate and left some suffering nausea and breathing problems.
On April 22, a fire crew discovered a two-inch gas line break, according to LA County Fire Department records shared with the California Post.
Gudiel said he remembers frantically fleeing the apartments and waiting for around eight hours before learning the gas would remain shut off for 24 hours.
Then, on Aug. 25, another gas leak forced the entire street to be shut down, according to county records.
A pregnant resident, who asked not to be named, said she was awakened by a sickening smell and fled to a hotel with her young child.
She said she remains frightened that the repeated leaks could harm her unborn baby.
“Now that I know the severity of what the damage that [leak] can do, I am worried because I have a child and I have another one on the way. God forbid, I fall asleep again through a gas leak,” she said.
Gudiel said the repeated gas leaks left him and his wife with breathing problems.
The incidents have added to neighbors’ anger over why the project has taken so long.
Nearly six years after the original Homekey award, the 93-room Rose Court is still not fully operational.
Local officials celebrated an “opening” in 2022, when LA County said the M Motel was already housing 39 people.
But extensive renovations followed. A 2024 state filing said the work included re-roofing, ADA improvements, repairs to framing, drywall, flooring and water-damaged insulation, along with new fire sprinklers and plumbing, electrical and mechanical upgrades.
Rose Court was later scheduled to open in January 2025, operating as temporary housing for five years before converting to permanent supportive housing in its sixth year.
Yet discussions over operations and lease agreements with homeless service providers continued well into this year, according to city council meeting minutes, while neighbors say construction has continued.
City officials acknowledged earlier this year that after buying the motel they discovered its interior and exterior needed significantly more work than had been identified in an initial property assessment, driving rehabilitation costs beyond the original budget.
“I felt like our lives don’t matter to these out-of-touch, corrupt politicians,” said resident Ian Jameson, 34.
The California Post contacted the city of El Monte, which owns Rose Court, seeking answers about the neighbors’ complaints, the gas leaks, the project’s ballooning costs and when it will finally be completed.
Inquiries to the mayor, City Manager Alma Martinez and Steve Fowler, the city’s economic and community development director, were not returned.
“I think it’s a joke, and I think that the people that are doing construction need to be further watched,” Boyer said.
A spokesperson for California’s Department of Housing and Community Development told The Post it was aware of problems at the El Monte site and said delays were partly caused by asbestos remediation and “difficulties coordinating environmental plans and approvals.”
“The Department is closely monitoring construction progress and has taken appropriate actions to ensure accountability for the project by the City of El Monte, including requiring regular updates and conducting a site visit,” department spokesperson Jennifer Hanson said.
Hanson also confirmed El Monte will now be blocked from receiving any more HCD funding until the Rose Court project is completed.
Hanson said Homekey has funded 16,000 homes across 261 developments, serving some 30,000 Californians.
Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow with think tank the Pacific Research Institute, said the project is a classic example of the problems with Homekey model, which the think tank has criticized as an ineffective waste of money.
“To tell somebody who’s homeless, ‘Sorry, you’re homeless, but we’ll have something built for you in two years. Come back to me then.’ I mean, it just it defies logic,” he said of the bureaucracy and red tape.
While the projects are plagued by delays, Winegarden blasted governments for not doing enough to address the delays’ effects on the surrounding communities. There have been multiple cases across the state of residents coming out to oppose a nearby Homekey project.
“What happens to the community absolutely matters when you’re reducing people’s quality of life,” he said. “If I’m seeing this is what happens in that neighborhood, well, I’m going to fight twice as hard if you’re going to try to bring into my neighborhood.”
“Undoubtedly, we need to help help those who are homeless. We need to address the problem, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of communities, and and that’s just one of the myriad problems,” Winegarden added.
Jameson said Fowler told him briefly before an August city council meeting that Rose Court “should be completed in the next month,” but after years of delays, neighbors aren’t convinced.
“I don’t know what’s going on over there, but it’s made me definitely frustrated and, you know, anxious, too,” Boyer said.
