Palm Springs will use a hotel to help solve its homeless problem

The Ivy Palm Resort & Spa near downtown will be overhauled and used for immediate housing. It will not be a temporary shelter. 

A former Palm Springs hotel that is in bankruptcy will be converted to permanent housing that will get homeless people off the street quickly.

The Ivy Palm Resort & Spa, a four-building complex at 2000 N. Palm Canyon Drive, will provide support services to homeless and other low-income people, said Mike Walsh, deputy director of the Riverside County Housing Authority.

“It will not be a homeless shelter because people will be allowed to stay there indefinitely,” said Walsh, whose agency will manage the project in partnership with Palm Springs. “It’s going to be for people who can’t find any other place to live.

“We’re trying to get people off the streets and into housing they can afford.”

Funding will come from two sources: $4.25 million from Project Homekey, a $600 million state program designed to eliminate homelessness administered by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, and another $4.25 million from Riverside County.

Palm Springs’ contribution is from a $10 million grant from the state, said Jay Virata, the city’s community and economic development director.

“California is trying to do something about homelessness all over the state, not just Palm Springs or the Coachella Valley,” Virata said. “The homeless problem is everywhere.”

The county’s contribution will come mostly from the assistance it received from the Cares Act, the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus aid package signed by President Trump in March. 

The housing authority, which will buy and manage the hotel, considered two other Palm Springs properties: the Travel Lodge, also on South Palm Canyon Drive and the Quality Inn downtown. It chose the Ivy Palm because it’s a better location and is in better condition than the other two properties, making it easier to work on, Walsh said.

The estimated cost of the hotel is $8.5 million, but that figure could go higher. If that happens, other sources of state and county funding are available, according to Walsh.

The hotel is in escrow, valued at $8.5 million, the price set by the bankruptcy court. The court is expected to issue a final price ruling in several weeks, according to Walsh.

Built in the early 1980s, Ivy Palm Resort covers about three acres near Palm Springs International Airport and the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway.

It was to have undergone a multi-million dollar renovation two years ago, along with several other downtown hotels, as part of Palm Springs’ Hotel Operations Incentive Program. Those plans were dropped by the property’s owner, Phoenix-based Oxygen Hospitality.

Ivy Palm has not accepted guests since July,  Walsh said.

Each of the Ivy Palm’s 81 units – each of which covers 325 square feet – will be renovated, at a cost of $50,000 per unit. The hotel’s restaurant will be converted into a job training facility where people can learn about working in that industry.

Construction is expected to start late next year and be completed in 2022.

“The cost of this project could go up depending on fees or how it’s designed,” Walsh said. “That’s the way these things are, which is why we have plans A,B,C,D and E, depending on how things turn out.”

Several business owners near the Ivy Palm have reportedly complained about the project being rushed through to approval, but Palm Springs officials have said they must act quickly or risk losing the funding.

Palm Springs does have a homeless problem. In last January’s Point-In-time Count –  an annual nationwide tabulation of sheltered and homeless people conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – 189 homeless people were found to be living within the city’s borders

That was fewer than last year’s count of 196 but well above 2018, when the city’s homeless count was 126.

Conducted in January, this year’s Point-in-Time Count found 2,884 homeless people in Riverside County, a three percent increase from 2019. The study, conducted by volunteers who search communities looking for homeless people, also found a rise in homelessness among young people but a decline among people over 60.

Homeless people often migrate to well-to-do towns like Palm Springs because they have services – hospitals, libraries, malls, government offices – that they can’t get in other places.

“Most homeless people don’t have internet access, so when they need services they have to do it in person,” Walsh said. “One thing we try to do is match services with whatever income people have.”

Converting hotels into facilities for the homeless is a common practice, and it usually works, said Eric Gavin, owner of Open Door Community Partners, a for-profit business that helps cities in San Bernardino County eliminate homelessness.

“It’s a good approach because the hotel already exists and you can get people into it quickly,” said Gavin, who runs Open Door from his home in Upland. “You don’t have to deal with a lot of permits because you aren’t building from the ground up.”

Palm Springs’ plan for Ivy Palm also conforms with the approach to eliminating homelessness that Gavin favors: first get a homeless person a place to live, then work on their other issues so they can become self-sufficient.

“Any homeless facility should be accompanied by basic services, like job placement and drug and alcohol rehabilitation,” Gavin said. “But what Palm Springs is doing [with Ivy Palm] is a “housing first” approach, and I think that’s a good idea.”