The Santa Monica City Council voted late Tuesday to bring the Palm Motel under city control as part of a new local homeless services system, while adding a directive that the city not shut down its longtime SaMoShel shelter until officials identify replacement housing and present a more concrete transition plan.
The council approved all seven staff-recommended actions tied to the proposed Housing Focused System of Care, including authorizing the city manager to negotiate agreements with the Palm Motel's owner and with The People Concern to run services there, and with The Salvation Army to fund shelter bed activation at its Bell Shelter in the city of Bell. Councilmember Dan Hall recused himself from the item, saying his rented residence sits between 500 and 1,000 feet of SaMoShel and could be affected by any relocation of shelter capacity away from the downtown site.
After passing the broader package, the council took up a separate motion, brought by Councilmember Ellis Raskin, directing staff not to demobilize SaMoShel until the results of a forthcoming request for expressions of interest, or RFEI, are known and a "robust plan" for what comes next is presented to the council. That motion passed on a split vote, with Councilmember Lana Negrete opposed. Negrete said the direction was unnecessary because staff had already made clear "they're not in the business of closing shelters and sending people elsewhere."
City Manager Oliver Chi said the council's direction would push back the timeline for winding down the 60-bed congregate shelter, which had been initially targeted for the end of this calendar year, but that the city remains committed to ensuring no one is displaced onto the street. Aileen Reynolds, director of the city's Housing and Human Services Department, told the council she could commit to updating them on the RFEI process within 30 to 90 days.
The vote caps months of city work aimed at overhauling how Santa Monica delivers homeless services, as the regional system undergoes what Reynolds' presentation described as its most significant restructuring in a generation. Over the past year, Los Angeles County withdrew hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and created a new county Department of Homeless Services and Housing, then approved nearly $200 million in cuts to homeless services amid a budget shortfall. In June, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended federal funding to LAHSA and the Los Angeles Continuum of Care, adding further strain.
Locally, the city has been building toward this moment since a 2022 assessment from Moss Adams and a subsequent Homelessness Strategic Plan developed with consultant BerryDunn and published in March 2025. The October 2025 Realignment Plan called for moving away from SaMoShel's congregate shelter model toward a "healing center" approach pairing shelter with treatment and a direct pipeline into permanent housing. In March, the council directed staff to conduct community engagement before finalizing any changes; staff held 14 meetings between April and July before returning with Tuesday's recommendations.
Under the plan, the Palm Motel — which has operated for two years as county-funded interim housing under the Pathway Home program — would come under city control once county funding for that program lapses this summer. The city would limit placements to people who meet the Santa Monica Program Participant, or SMPP, definition, referred exclusively through the city's own outreach and first-responder teams. The 34-room motel can accommodate up to 48 occupants. Separately, the city would fund the activation of 35 currently unfunded beds at the Salvation Army's Bell Shelter, which would be available to any Los Angeles County jurisdiction partnering with the organization, giving Santa Monica outreach teams a referral option for unhoused people who don't meet the SMPP definition. A third action directs staff to issue the RFEI seeking non-congregate housing sites in and around Santa Monica to eventually replace SaMoShel's capacity.
Reynolds told the council that the county's 2026 point-in-time count, released last week, found 718 people experiencing homelessness in Santa Monica in January, an 11.6% decrease from 2025, with unsheltered homelessness falling 18.7%. She said roughly 10% of SaMoShel's 60 beds are typically occupied by people who meet the SMPP definition, with the rest serving people referred from elsewhere in the region.
Several council members voiced support for taking direct control of the Palm Motel while raising concerns about the broader plan. Raskin argued that closing SaMoShel without a firm replacement in place would effectively strip the city of 60 shelter beds, leaving people to end up "living in cars, living on maps" without anywhere else to go. Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Zwick, who made the motion to approve the seven staff actions, said he wanted assurance that any future non-congregate sites be sought "both in and outside the city" rather than concentrated in any one neighborhood, and added language directing staff to prioritize locations outside the areas that have historically hosted such facilities. Councilmember Barry Snell said he supported keeping SaMoShel open until the city has identified where displaced residents could go.
Negrete, who said she lives and walks her children to school within blocks of the Palm Motel, described years of frustration that the county converted the site to interim housing without notifying neighbors, but said crime and disorder near the property had improved markedly under the current on-site security and no-visitor policies compared with when it operated as a motel. She said she wanted to see the city diversify its roster of service providers beyond The People Concern going forward and reiterated her support for closing SaMoShel without further delay. Mayor Caroline Torosis asked staff to publicize crime data from before and after the Palm Motel's conversion to interim housing and confirmed that on-site security would continue under city management.
For residents near the Palm Motel, city officials said day-to-day conditions are not expected to change significantly, since the site would continue operating with the same on-site provider, security staffing and a similar population as it has under the county's program. For people experiencing homelessness, the changes mean SaMoShel will remain open for now, while the city works to stand up a locally controlled continuum intended to move people from street outreach through stabilization, interim housing and ultimately permanent housing, rather than relying on the fragmented, county-run system currently in place.
The council also adopted a related finding that the agreements are statutorily exempt from California Environmental Query Act review and authorized a budget amendment shifting $3,458,150 from the Providence Saint John's Development Agreement fund to help cover the roughly $9.5 million in combined costs for the three agreements.