All throughout the Academy of Media Arts, there are indicators of an energetic campus life.
Faculty initiatives are nonetheless plastered on the partitions; books are strewn on tables; apples sit uneaten within the cafeteria.
What’s lacking are the scholars — some 50 ninth- by Twelfth-graders, many from low-income Black and Latino households, who have been pressured to scramble after the non-public highschool in downtown Los Angeles abruptly shut its doorways Jan. 15.
The varsity occupied the primary three flooring of the L.A. Grand Lodge, which since 2021 has been used as non permanent housing for a whole bunch of homeless Angelenos. The varsity’s founder, Dana Hammond, filed a breach of contract lawsuit in January in opposition to the constructing’s proprietor, claiming that the presence of so many homeless individuals made the campus unsafe, forcing it to shut.
A syringe on the bottom outdoors the Academy of Media Arts faculty, housed within the L.A. Grand Lodge in downtown Los Angeles.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Occasions)
In an interview, he additionally blamed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for repeatedly extending town’s lease on the property for her Inside Secure interim housing program.
“Human poop on sidewalk. The scent of urine throughout campus. Outburst from ‘Inside Secure’ tenants. Break-ins by ‘Inside Secure’ tenants. Drug paraphernalia discovered on campus. ‘Inside Secure’ tenants present in trash bins,” learn feedback left on a classroom whiteboard.
Requested about Hammond’s allegations, Clara Karger, a spokesperson for Bass, stated in a press release that town heightened safety on the Grand by putting in extra fencing, conducting on-site visits to deal with the varsity’s considerations and collaborating with the academy’s safety personnel to answer pressing calls.
When Hammond signed the lease to maneuver his faculty into the L.A. Grand in 2022, it was the end result of practically 20 years of labor.
His faculty, which started in a South Los Angeles church, now had its personal area the place the scholars may have entry to state-of-the-art amenities.
After an aggressive recruiting marketing campaign pushed the coed physique as much as 250, a mass exodus started, dropping the enrollment to round 50. Hammond stated that by mid-January, he was unable to pay the $100,000 month-to-month lease.
Reviews compiled by faculty safety and reviewed by The Occasions describe incidents involving the resort’s residents, together with a person threatening to battle safety outdoors the varsity’s gate; a lady exposing herself to college students at 9:30 a.m.; one other girl mendacity fully bare behind the varsity, who threatened to “shoot and stab” a safety officer when confronted; a person who broke into the varsity by the again.
Academy of Media Arts faculty principal Dana Hammond stands within the faculty’s out of doors amphitheater.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Occasions)
Empty lecture rooms on the Academy of Media Arts faculty, which has quickly closed down.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Occasions)
“Our college students’ lives have been in jeopardy due to the Inside Secure residents,” Hammond stated. “We’re not enemies of the homeless shelter, we simply can’t put them in the identical constructing as a highschool.”
However data reviewed by The Occasions present that the varsity had lengthy struggled with issues indirectly linked to the homeless presence.
For years, the academy operated as a Los Angeles Unified Faculty District constitution faculty, which meant it obtained funding from the California Division of Training however maintained a degree of autonomy over its operations. As a personal faculty, the varsity obtained funding by donors and tuition.
The academy had been scrutinized by LAUSD for failing to satisfy tutorial requirements as college students fell behind in topics akin to math and English. The varsity additionally did not do correct legal background clearances for academics and had seven completely different principals over a four-year interval, in response to LAUSD data.
“The constitution faculty’s present tutorial efficiency ranges are usually not assembly the tutorial wants of its college students,” the LAUSD’s Constitution Faculty Division wrote in a “discover of violation” report on the Academy of Media Arts in April 2023.
Whereas Hammond disputed the allegations, the varsity transformed from constitution to personal later that yr.
LAUSD officers didn’t reply to requests for touch upon the district’s former relationship with the academy.
Hammond didn’t instantly reply to The Occasions inquiry in regards to the discover of violation, sharing as a substitute a doc from 2020 that detailed how the academy would tackle considerations over instructor credentialing.
Within the lawsuit, Hammond claimed that the resort’s proprietor stated the homeless residents could be moved out quickly after the varsity moved in. However that didn’t occur.
The resort is owned by Chinese language billionaire Wei Huang, whose actual property firm, Shen Zhen New World I, was discovered responsible of fraud and bribery prices in reference to the corruption case involving disgraced former Councilmember José Huizar.
A choose fined Shen Zhen $4 million.
Huang was charged with bribery and fraud within the case. He fled the nation after the FBI started executing search warrants in 2018 and is thought of a fugitive by the U.S. lawyer’s workplace.
“Huang repeatedly made false and deceptive representations to recommend that the L.A. Grand Lodge would stop to be a homeless shelter within the close to future, although Huang had no intention of terminating the profitable settlement,” wrote legal professionals for Hammond and Dennis L. Smith, who hopes to open a nightclub on the roof of the resort and joined Hammond within the lawsuit.
Russ Cox, a consultant for Huang’s firm and himself a defendant within the case, declined to remark.
Dennis L. Smith is making an attempt to open the Rome Nightclub on the roof of the L.A. Grand Lodge downtown. He’s upset as a result of he has all the required permits, however there are delays.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Occasions)
Huang acquired the Grand in 2010, working it as a four-star, 14-story resort described on social media as an “city oasis.”
In 2021, the Grand turned a website for Venture Roomkey, a federally funded program that offered shelter to unhoused individuals on the top of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The town has paid Shen Zhen greater than $25 million for the reason that academy opened on the website in 2022, in response to metropolis data.
“The mayor’s workplace doesn’t condone the conduct of the fugitive proprietor of the Grand,” Karger, the mayor’s spokesperson, stated in a press release to The Occasions.
The town continued operations with L.A. Grand — and added extra residents — after Bass took workplace in late 2022, even with the academy already current on the constructing.
The town prolonged its lease to proceed working the shelter by the top of July. The extension will price $20 million, together with $13.9 million for the lease and meals and $6.8 million for companies, in response to town data.
The mayor’s workplace didn’t reply instantly when requested by The Occasions whether or not it’d search additional extensions past July 31. In a press release, Karger stated the L.A. Grand’s residents are anticipated to start transferring to the Mayfair Lodge in Could.
“The L.A. Grand has introduced a whole bunch of unhoused people inside from the powerful parts of residing on the streets. The work continues to avoid wasting lives day-after-day,” Karger stated.
Across the faculty the sidewalks are strewn with rubbish, empty liquor bottles and even discarded syringes. The signal welcoming guests to the Academy of Media Arts is graffitied over.
Graffiti, trash and an deserted scooter in entrance of the Academy of Media Arts faculty.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Occasions)
“We moved from the church to the resort, which I assumed was an exquisite thought earlier than I discovered in regards to the homeless shelter,” stated Mary Tascian Williams, who labored on the faculty from June 2022 till it shut down.
Williams stated she used to spend a lot of her day strolling the flooring ensuring nobody broke into the varsity.
On Jan. 10, an intruder broke into the varsity foyer simply minutes after college students had gone to lunch in a distinct a part of the campus.
When approached by the safety guard, the person stated, “They’re making an attempt to kill me,” in response to an faculty incident report.
It took quite a few LAPD officers to subdue him, the report stated.
Hammond stated the episode left college students afraid and him at a loss for learn how to defend the kids. On Jan. 12, Hammond and greater than a dozen college students went to a Metropolis Council assembly to discuss the issues.
Academy of Media Arts faculty principal Dana Hammond walks up a stairwell towards a homeless shelter in the identical constructing. Residents of the homeless shelter have triggered quite a few incidents, which led the varsity to quickly shut down.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Occasions)
He met with Councilmember Kevin de León, who spoke in regards to the situation on the assembly and toured the varsity that evening.
“The situation raised legit and critical considerations for college kids, college, and employees, particularly relating to breaches into the varsity by the residents of the Grand,” De León advised The Occasions in a press release. “It was my hope in assembly with dad and mom and directors that we may keep away from the varsity’s closure which has develop into an actual tragedy for Black and Brown college students and oldsters alike.”
On the listening to, De León questioned the mayor’s workplace on when it deliberate to exit the Grand and transfer Inside Secure contributors into the Mayfair Lodge. Officers didn’t present a timeline.
“When the mayor first took workplace in December 2022 we have been very a lot conscious there have been safety considerations, public security considerations,” Lourdes Castro Ramírez, the mayor’s chief housing and homelessness officer, stated on the council assembly. “There have been rapid actions taken to extend safety, usher in service suppliers. … I take their considerations very critically and plan to comply with as much as higher perceive learn how to resolve these points.”
Her feedback got here after three college students cried on the council assembly. Others spoke about how a lot they cherished the varsity and the way unhappy they might be to lose it.
A safety guard patrols the halls of the L.A. Grand Lodge’s Venture Roomkey homeless shelter housed in the identical constructing because the Academy of Media Arts on Jan. 30 in downtown Los Angeles.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Occasions)
“I’m not in opposition to the Inside Secure program. I need all of the homeless individuals to have a secure place to dwell. However they’ll’t be doing that whereas my schooling and the schooling of my friends are at stake,” scholar Alex Hernandez stated. “I really feel threatened as a result of that is very harmful.”
Occasions employees author David Zahniser contributed to this report.
