5 Reasons to Use General Relief for Transitional Housing in Los Angeles

If you receive General Relief, that money can put a roof over you this month. Here are five reasons to use it exactly that way.

Wellness Housing offers transitional housing in Los Angeles: a bed in a shared room in one of three South Los Angeles houses, rented by the month with no fixed end date, and General Relief pays for that bed in full.

Plenty of people on General Relief do not realize their benefit can cover a bed in a clean, quiet shared home. It can, and here it is normal: roughly half of our residents pay through General Relief or another form of third party assistance. So here is the case, in plain terms.

1. You get housed now and not after a waitlist

Voucher programs and subsidized apartments come with waitlists measured in years. Your General Relief works this month. Call to check openings, and if there is a bed, you can tour it this week and move in days later. When the alternative is a couch, a car or a motel, now beats eventually by a mile.

2. It takes housing off your mind for months at a stretch

When your rent is handled through your benefit, month after month, you stop spending your energy on where you will sleep. That is months of stability where your attention can go to work, health, family and getting your footing back. People underestimate how much of their day that worry was eating until it stops.

3. Your cash stays in your pocket for getting back on your feet

General Relief pays for your bed in full. The money you earn or receive elsewhere can go where it actually moves your life forward: a phone that works, bus fare and gas, work clothes, a license fee, savings. Housing is the biggest cost in Los Angeles. Solving it with your benefit frees everything else.

4. Utilities are included and there is no deposit

A bed in a shared room comes with power, water and gas included. No utility bills, no security deposit to save up and no credit check. Compare that with a weekly motel, or a private room that wants first month, last month and a deposit before you get a key.

To be clear about what we offer: we rent beds in shared rooms, not private rooms, and every bed is rented to one adult. That is exactly what lets General Relief pay for your bed in full, at any of the three houses.

5. Nobody treats you like a complication

Here, paying with General Relief is not a special arrangement. It is how a large share of the house pays, and nobody knows or asks who pays which way. It comes up once, at intake, with your caseworker in the loop if you have one, and then it never comes up again. How General Relief pays for a bed at Wellness Housing walks through that side in more detail.

What to do next

Call us and say you are on General Relief. We will tell you what is open, what your caseworker needs from us, and how soon you could move in. If you want to know what happens after that first call, how to apply lays out every step, and what sober living at Wellness Housing means covers the houses themselves.

Your benefit can be a key. Call and find out how fast.

Call 562-716-4568 or email [email protected].