All across the Academy of Media Arts, there are signs of an active campus life.
School projects are still plastered on the walls; books are strewn on tables; apples sit uneaten in the cafeteria.
What is missing are the students — some 50 ninth- through 12th-graders, many from low-income Black and Latino families, who were forced to scramble after the private high school in downtown Los Angeles abruptly shut its doors Jan. 15.
The school occupied the first three floors of the L.A. Grand Hotel, which since 2021 has been used as temporary housing for hundreds of homeless Angelenos. The school’s founder, Dana Hammond, filed a breach of contract lawsuit in January against the building’s owner, claiming that the presence of so many homeless people made the campus unsafe, forcing it to close.
A syringe on the ground outside the Academy of Media Arts school, housed in the L.A. Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
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