Santa Monica Greenlights Plan to seize apartment blocks for homeless - 'they could move in next door'

Santa Monica is moving full steam ahead with a radical scheme to master-lease entire apartment buildings, motel blocks, and individual units across the city and beyond - then fill them with the homeless.

City officials announced this week they are actively hunting landlords willing to hand over vacant properties under a new Master Leasing Program. The city or a nonprofit partner would become the "master tenant," pay the rent, handle security and "supportive services," and sublease the units as interim housing for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

The program is part of the city's freshly approved Housing Focused System of Care, which aims to shutter the long-running SaMoShel congregate shelter and scatter non-congregate rooms and apartments throughout neighborhoods instead.

"Property owners can rely on the city to maintain the units, quickly fill vacancies, provide on-site support services for residents, and pay rent on time," Housing and Human Services Director Aileen Reynolds said in a statement. Officials insist they won't pay above fair-market rent and will only take vacant units that meet basic housing standards.

Critics see a different picture: taxpayer-funded homeless housing dropped into regular residential buildings, potentially right next to families and working residents. Local posts and discussion boards are already lighting up with alarm that "people could be moving in right next to you in your building."

Under the plan, leases can run up to five years. The city controls who gets referred - prioritizing those with a Santa Monica connection - and promises performance metrics, security coordination with police, and pathways to permanent housing. Service providers will be selected later under city contracts.

Santa Monica's latest point-in-time count showed overall homelessness down about 12% to 718 people, with the unsheltered population dropping nearly 19%. Officials frame the overhaul as taking control from Los Angeles County and creating a more accountable local system.

Yet the optics are pure California: a wealthy beach city converting market-rate housing stock into government-run interim digs while regular renters struggle with high costs. No strict sobriety or high-barrier rules are highlighted in the rollout; the emphasis is on services "options" and structured stages rather than pure Housing First.

The city is accepting expressions of interest through the end of August and is open to properties both inside Santa Monica and elsewhere in LA County. Whether landlords rush to sign up - or neighbors push back hard - remains to be seen.

One thing is already clear: Santa Monica is betting that scattering the unhoused into ordinary apartment buildings will solve what decades of shelters and spending have not. Residents may soon find out if that bet pays off - or if the problems simply move next door.