The Project Homekey Best Western site off Long Beach Boulevard accounted for 20 of the 62 deaths of homeless individuals enrolled in 12 city-funded shelters or programs since 2021, according to data requested by NBCLA and released by the City of Long Beach.
The site, located at 1725 Long Beach Blvd., had been the center of concern by former employees who complained that lack of staffing may have contributed to increasing deaths of those enrolled at the facility. A total of eight people died on-site, 11 others died off-site -- mostly at hospitals.
Project Home Key provides temporary transitional housing and services for homeless people.
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“The leading cause of death, where a cause was determined, was cancer,” the city of Long Beach wrote in an earlier statement.
The Project Homekey site, run by Orange County-based Illumination Foundation, was awarded three annual contracts of $2 million or more to run the 99-bed facility since March 2021.
Emails obtained by NBC4 indicate executives with the Illumination Foundation alerted Long Beach Homeless Services Bureau Manager Paul Duncan of caseworker concerns about the lack of additional medical assistants and drug addiction counselors.
NBC4 reached out to Illumination Foundation for comment Tuesday and previously two other times last month, but has not received a response.
Illumination Foundation ended its contract with the city in February and a new nonprofit, First to Serve, Inc., has been hired to operate the facility.
On April 3, the city of Long Beach confirmed that increased staff will be part of the new changes when a new operator starts to take control later this month.
“We are expecting changes within the day-to-day operations from what has existed to now, which will be worked through over the next several weeks,” wrote Jennifer De Prez, Long Beach Office of Public Affairs and Communications. “Within the area of staffing there will be an increase from 17 onsite support staff to 25. There will be four staff that are on-site case managers with one of the case managers being a mental health clinician.”
