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Long Beach is winding down a multi-million dollar shelter project at a Downtown motel that has, since June 2024, temporarily housed scores of people who would otherwise be living in some of the area’s most noticeable homeless encampments.
The city launched the program at the Vagabond Inn at Alamitos Avenue and Second Street as part of a plan to resolve chronic clusters of tents and shanties that clogged a five-city-block stretch that included Lincoln Park, areas around the Metro A Line and sidewalks outside the Billie Jean King Main Library.
Since the operation began, 90 people have moved through the three-story 60-room motel, staying around 182 days each on average, according to data provided by the Long Beach Health Department. Nine have been placed into permanent housing — a resource that’s in short supply, according to Long Beach Homeless Services Bureau Director Paul Duncan.
City officials plan to keep the motel shelter open until June 1. In the meantime, they’re trying to get the most use out of rooms while simultaneously moving occupants into other living situations ahead of the closure.
The city’s homelessness bureau said it has set aside $200,000 in motel vouchers to hand out and any leftover money — as well as excess Measure H funds — will go toward more vouchers. Inevitably though, some people are expected to return to the street.
“Do I feel confident that nobody is going to return to unsheltered homelessness, whether it’s in that area or not? Well, that is not going to happen,” Duncan said. “Ultimately, we’d love to get to a place where nobody is returning to unsheltered homelessness, but that is the challenge of a time-limited lease without an ongoing funding source.”
The Vagabond Inn program is ending now because Long Beach has spent the $5.3 in state grant funding awarded for the project.
According to their application to the state, the city will have achieved its goal of temporarily housing 90 homeless people at the motel. The city is still trying to meet the application’s goal of placing 110 people from the Downtown encampment areas into permanent housing by November 2025.
The group the program was designed to meet has a high rate of drug overdoses, mental illness and chronic homelessness — meaning they’ve been unhoused for more than five years, according to the city’s application.
“These factors have led this to be the largest and most visible encampment area within Long Beach over the past 20 years,” the document reads.
Duncan said a majority of those who came to the Vagabond have stayed there since the start: “Either the entirety or near the entirety of our operational time there.”
As the program enters its final months, they’ll begin receiving 90-, 60- and 30-day notice to leave, Duncan said.
Officials lauded the program for moving people off the street in record time, but it wasn’t cheap, costing $110 per room per day on top of other staff and operational costs.
“It is a pretty, you know, pricey operation,” Duncan said. “Leasing a motel as much as we’d love it to be cost-effective, especially in the Downtown area where you’re close to the convention center, we try to keep our costs as low as possible.”
The motel also drew complaints from neighbors who said the shelter program has brought on problem tenants or visitors, trash and other issues.
“My office is out there every single day, we’re taking pictures of the area; we understand the concerns,” Councilmember Cindy Allen said at a recent council meeting where some locals said they feel unsafe even walking by the motel.
Although it’s closing the Vagabond, Long Beach will continue its reliance on motels for homeless housing in other parts of the city.
It currently has three motels with 137 beds for that purpose, and renovations are expected to conclude at the former Luxury Inn in North Long Beach in late summer, officials said, which will open up 78 additional rooms.
Long Beach also recently won an $11 million grant from the state to help fund a two-year, $17.4 million plan to house some of the hundreds of people living along the 9.5-mile segment of LA River in Long Beach. Officials say they’re currently looking for a hotel or motel along the riverbed to lease for the program, which is expected to launch this summer.
Still, options for shelter and for permanent housing remain tight.
City data shows its shelter space is typically at 93% occupancy — over 90% capacity since 2022 — while 99% of its emergency housing vouchers are used.
Citywide, it took an average of 251 days for someone in 2024 to be placed in permanent housing — triple the time it took in 2020. But the time it takes for people in interim housing to find a permanent place to live has decreased steadily since 2022, from 246 days to 136 days in 2024.
So far in 2025, Long Beach says it’s served 683 homeless individuals, moved 334 people into interim housing and placed 32 people into permanent housing.