Anaheim to turn once-blighted motel into homes for former foster kids

Anaheim will convert a once crime-ridden motel into homes for former foster kids who became homeless.

The city will renovate what was once the 32-room Tampico Motel at 120 South State College Street into permanent supportive housing for young adults, the Orange County Register reported.

Anaheim used state funds to buy the blighted motel early last year for $5.3 million, or $165,625 per room. The hotel-to-housing conversion is expected to cost $2 million, with a grant from CalOptima. A developer behind the project was not disclosed.

The 63-year-old motel is expected to reopen with 32 affordable studio apartments in 2025. The historic neon sign for the Tampico Motel will likely be removed and the building renamed.

“For years this motel was a problem for the families that just lived on the other side,” Councilman Stephen Faessel, who represents the area, told the Register. “Affordable housing is one of the best investments we can make in our neighborhoods.”

Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said the conversion is a cost-effective and quick way to create affordable housing, as building new units takes more time and money.

The complex will focus on housing young adults who have been through the foster care system and are homeless, or are at risk of ending up on the street. The goal is to provide stable housing at a critical stage to help them become self-sufficient and avoid falling into a lifetime of homelessness.

The nonprofit Jamboree Housing is in talks with the city to run the future housing complex, and has submitted a proposal, according to Erin Ryan, a spokeswoman for the city.

“This is a group that sadly often falls through the cracks,” she said.

The Tampico Motel is the third conversion of its kind in Anaheim, which has launched a campaign to clean up its Mid-century motels, now often home to drug deals, prostitutes and crime.

The city opened two other motel conversions to serve as housing in 2021 and last year, according to the Register.

In December, Anaheim bought the condemned Covered Wagon Motel at 823 South Beach Boulevard for $6.6 million, or $94,300 per room.

The 70-room motel was then bulldozed after being red-tagged for water leaks, electrical problems, mold, filth and squalor. It will be replaced by condominiums or townhomes.

In June, Anaheim opened a 102-unit affordable housing complex on Orangewood Avenue near the 5 Freeway.

In October 2021, the dilapidated Americana Motel on Beach Boulevard was torn down to make way for a affordable apartments, for-sale townhomes and 5,000 square feet of shops and restaurants

— Dana Bartholomew

Read more

Commercial

San Francisco

Anaheim could buy red-tagged motel for $6.6M

Commercial

Los Angeles

Business corridor named Little Arabia in Anaheim