Hotel Lobbyist Predicts The End Times If They Help Homeless
UNITE HERE is a national union which represents hospitalities workers, such as hotel housekeepers.
They are making a push in Los Angeles to have the city pass a law that would require hotels to report how many vacancies they have each day. Then they would be required to allow homeless people to occupy those rooms. The hotel would be compensated at the market rate. The move is to help alleviate the housing crisis that LA is facing. The union members would benefit by not having to worry about getting their hours cut because they would be needed to clean the rooms every day and the hotels would benefit by having full occupancy, which would in turn help them recover from the loss during the COVID pandemic.
Sounds like a situation where everyone wins. The city addresses the homeless problem. The homeless have a roof over their head. The hotel staff have steady work to do. And the hotels have full occupancy.
However, the hotel owners are not happy about the idea. They've complained that they can't charge over market rate. And the hotels can save hundreds of millions of dollars by not having a full force of workers, since they don't have all those rooms to clean. And they figure, if business does pick up, they can always call the workers back for a few days.