On July 28 the Riverside Drive Bridge Home opened to 100 formerly homeless Angelenos in Council District 4. Operated by People Assisting the Homeless (PATH), the site is part of the Mayor’s “A Bridge Home” Initiative, which is a model of temporary housing that has service-enriched programs aimed to quickly bring homeless individuals off the streets and help them rebuild their lives. Guests will be provided with on-site services like case management, mental health care, substance abuse treatment, and housing placement to help stabilize their lives and move on to permanent housing.

This is not the first time Griffith Park has played a key role in temporarily housing people. After World War II, the park became a home to 1,500 veterans and their families who returned to the city with no place to live. Los Angeles responded by building the largest veterans housing project in the country, the Rodger Young Village, on 114 acres of the park.

Since the Bridge Home Program has a limited time frame of three years, there are additional opportunities to utilize the site in the long term. Therefore, Councilmember Ryu introduced another motion which instructs the Department of Recreation and Parks to work with relevant City departments to determine if the same site on Riverside Drive has potential to expand the existing Griffith Park Adult Community Center. This popular community center would be a vital resource for the City’s fastest growing population, seniors, in addition to serving the surrounding community.