Oversight Board for the City of Riverside as Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Agency - Regular Meeting

Don't hesitate to contact us at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum. I'm always happy to to share where our progress is.

People ask me all the time, how do we put together CuriosityQuest? Well, if you wanna know how we do that, visit us on YouTube so you can check out some behind the scenes of how we put together CuriosityQuest and become part of the CQ Nation.

Omeo has located its international headquarters right here in Riverside to build cutting edge, autonomous shuttles that are used all over the world already. This is bringing high paying, green, sustainable jobs to our community.

Oh, look. We're really thrilled to be here. The Omeo journey is is quite a long one. We're not a new company. We've actually been in existence for twenty five years, But the message that we got way back 2022, 2023 was, if

you wanna do business in The United States, a, you've gotta be here, and b, you've gotta manufacture in The United States. And that's why, as of today, we'll be manufacturing these vehicles here in Riverside. It is heartwarming that a company coming from another country and establishing their headquarters recognizes what a wonderful place Riverside is. And it's about time we've been discovered by companies like Omeo.

Riverside is really kind of stepping to its own. You know, we are a big city. We are in a very, very well located area here in Southern California. We have the some of the lowest utility rates in the in the state. We have a world class education system, so it makes it an easy sell when we're talking to these companies that haven't come here to the city.

Their decision to locate here has resonated throughout, this sector of the economy, and we already have four other companies who have decided to locate here. So this is just the first ribbon cutting that we're gonna see in the next few months in Riverside as additional companies very similar to this company, and the green tech space have already bought facilities here, building facilities here, and it's a great trend.

When I think about Riverside and athletics and specifically with water polo, it's really our time. It all started with me covering a tournament out in Orange County for USA water polo for the organization. I got invited to come and travel with that particular team. It was a youth team at the time. One thing led to another, and so eventually

Hi. I'm chief Marine, and you're watching Riverside TV.

Good afternoon. We're gonna go ahead and get started. It is now 03:30. We're gonna call the meeting to order. We have our housing and homelessness committee. We're gonna start off with opening it up to public comment. For those who are commenting on any matters within the jurisdiction of the committee, you're invited to participate in person or call (951) 826-8686. Follow the prompts to access your language of preference and press 9 to be placed in the queue. Actually, I'm gonna pause. Are we live? I don't see the screen. Usually, it's on. Okay. Perfect. So we are live, just making sure.

Press star 9 to be placed in the queue to speak. Individuals in the queue will be prompted to mute by pressing star 6 when you are ready to speak. To participate via Zoom, please use the following Zoom link and select the raise hand function to request to speak. An on screen message prompt you to unmute. Do we have any callers in the queue for general public comment?

I do not see any comment cards in the audience. Okay, We are gonna go ahead and take our first caller that is Spanish, which will give them three minutes additional time for Spanish translation. Could we please have the members, translators, please let them know to give us an opportunity to pause in between for translation. Thank you. And if we could go ahead and turn on the speakers to hear the comments in the chambers.

Thank you. Go ahead speaker. No one's there?

No one's on the line.

Okay. Okay. So we'll go ahead and can we just check with IT really quick? No one and still no hand raised.

I

think their IT is checking in with the translators. Just a moment, folks. We may be having some technical difficulties, but just give them a minute.

Hello?

Yes. Go ahead.

Oh, well, I'm not able to hear the speaker.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Okay. Thank you. I can hear you.

Oh.

Yeah, we don't hear anything. Ready?

Like, what's the

I have

to unmute.

Star six. Thank you. Why am I blinking? Estrella. You're doing great. You should be I could switch. No one?

I don't have audio. That's They the

don't have access to the audio?

No. We're not listening.

We do have a couple more items on the agenda that will allow for public comment. If the committee's okay, do we want to move forward and we can allow for that person to speak even if they aren't speaking on the item? Okay. Yeah? Okay. I don't know. That's why I was wondering too. I think we're gonna we we know that IT is trying to connect with the person. It sounds like they're having some trouble with unmuting. So we're gonna go ahead and we will close public comment, but we will still allow for that individual, if we are able to get them through to comment.

Okay, so it looks like the caller's lowered their hands, so maybe they're not trying to comment anymore. So we're gonna go ahead and close public comment, but for the for the caller listening, if you are trying to speak, we will allow you to still comment on, another item. It's okay if it's if it's not related to the agenda. So thank you. Okay. So we are gonna go ahead and close public comment and move forward with our discussion calendar. We have several items to move forward with today. The first item, actually wanted to ask my colleagues. We were supposed to discuss the safe parking pilot program. I did wanna request if we could, continue this item to next month.

Our team's gonna look to see how we can reschedule because I know it's on Memorial Day originally. But we would like to be able to bring some more information attached to this report, specifically the site that's being discussed. It's located in Ward 2. Some more data from the city of San Diego, that inspired this this project. So just wanna be be sure we can have some more information for you before we have a full discussion. Good. K. Do we need to make a motion for that, city clerk? No? Okay. So we will move forward to continue this. I know we have a speaker card, so I'm gonna go ahead and take this. Is it okay, sir? Do you wanna come down and speak to us on the item and coming to the future meeting date? Come on down.

Okay. So public comment is open for us continuing this item for the safe parking pilot program. And we have mister Rob Jenkins, here to speak.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Rob Jenkins. I attend Saint George Episcopal Church here in Riverside. We are excited about the possibility of having safe parking here in the city of Riverside, but also just within the Inland Empire. We had the opportunity to tour Safe Parking LA. It was amazing. My eyes opened on the possibilities and what services can happen. The great thing is it gets people off the streets and into a safe parking lot. We have a large parking lot. We're a small but mighty congregation.

So we are excited that the city is thinking about this. I just wanted you guys to know that there is and our people out in city Of Riverside who are excited about this. So thank you, and I look forward to next month's meeting.

Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate you coming

down. Gotcha.

Thank you. And then do we have any other comments? Not seeing any others in the chambers for this, for the item to be continued. Looking online. None? Okay. Wonderful. I don't think we need to take a formal vote. So looks like we're good. We'll bring this back and reschedule that for another later future date. Thank you, Megan, for being available, though, to present just in case. The next item we have up is the number three. This is to conceptually approve modifying our supplemental senior rental assistance program, and I'm gonna turn it over to Michelle Davis. Thank you, Michelle. And then we'll open up public comment after the presentation.

Good afternoon, housing and homelessness community members. Wow. Audio is good today. I'm in front of you this afternoon with a request to modify the supplemental rental assistance program and reprogram a $100,000 from the homeless outreach program. On 04/23/2024, city council approved the supplemental senior rental assistance program that it would assist seniors who were on the Riverside County section eight wait list, who were also at least 70 years old and had an household income that did not exceed 50% of area median income, which for a one person household is 35,900.

The program was allocated 900,000 in funding. Staff marked the program or marketed the program to 346 seniors who met the eligibility requirements. In November 2024, staff reduced the age limit to seniors at or over the age of 62 and mailed out 1,535 postcards to seniors who met the eligibility requirements. To date, the city has been able to assist 36 seniors through the program totaling $226,446 and $28 in expenditures and encumbrances, leaving a balance of $673,553.72 On 04/08/2025, the finance department presented to City Council on the fiscal year twenty four-twenty five second quarter finance update and requested City Council to approve the proposed midyear budget adjustments to address the projected deficit. Two programs that were going to be impacted by the budget adjustment was the supplemental rental assistance program as well as, which would reduce the program by 500,000 and reducing the homeless outreach program by a 100,000.

City Council removed the senior rental assistance program and homeless outreach program from the mid year budget adjustment and requested staff to present recommendations on modifying the supplemental senior rental assistance program to serve more seniors and the homeless outreach program. To assist more seniors through the supplemental senior rental assistance program, staff is requesting to modify the program to remove the requirement that seniors must be on the section eight wait list and fund the program at 250,000, assist mobile home, owners in the city of Riverside with space rent for households with incomes between 50% of area median income, which are for a one person household is they can't make more than 35,900. And 80 percent of area median income would be the maximum income, is 57,400 for a one person household who are paying more than 40% of their household expenses on rent. The recommending funding for this program would be $173,553.72. The MET rental assistance program currently does assist mobile home park owners who have incomes at or below 50% and are spending more than 40% of their household expenses on rent.

So we wanted to make sure we weren't duplicating a program, but also augmenting an existing program. And then also assist our seniors at or over the age of 62 that are in our Riverside emergency shelter or bridge housing program with up to twelve months of rental assistance, and they will be provided with up to twelve months of case management as well. And we're looking to allocate 250,000 towards that program. So after six months, staff would also like to have the ability to move funding around these three programs based on the programming needs. Under the homeless outreach program, staff is recommending allocating a 100,000 of the Measure Z funds from the public safety and engagement team professional services to improving the Riverside Access Center exterior with a new mural and paint and add exterior signage to the Riverside Access Center and the bridge housing program at 2881 Hewlett Place to create a friendly and accessible environment.

The city has currently invested approximately 1,300,000.0 of community development block grant funds and a $178,155 of Measure Z funds to improve the interior of the Riverside Access Center. I believe the proposed project will help create a welcoming environment for our vulnerable population and will result in more individuals wanting to go to the Riverside Access Center and accept the services being offered. So at this time, staff is asking the Housing and Homeless Committee to conceptually approve modifying the supplemental rental assistance program to remove the Section eight waitlist participants requirement, assist mobile home park owners with space rental assistance that have incomes between the income levels of 50% to 80% of area main income, and assist seniors in shelters with rental assistance, And to conceptually approve reprogramming the $100,000 from the homeless outreach program to Riverside Access Center and Bridge Housing Exterior Improvements. This concludes my presentation and I'm available to answer any questions.

Thank you so much. Just checking to see if we have any public cards on this item. Do we have any callers in the queue? We have a caller for a Spanish speaker. We're gonna go ahead and let's try this again.

Let's go ahead and take the caller please. Caller, go ahead. Okay. It looks like she lowered her hand again. Okay.

We're gonna go ahead and close public comment. We're gonna come back to committee, looking over to my vice chair. Go ahead, council member Mill, and then we'll go to council member Robillard.

Thank you, chair. One, first, very happy to see that we're gonna, potentially add the mobile home folks into this. Our seniors are the ones that are very vulnerable, and seniors in our mobile home parks are kind of even closer. So I'm I'm I'm excited to see that that potentially is, happening. My one question is, in regards to the $100,000, does it have to be earmarked to that?

Because I would rather see a $100,000 go to and I don't know whether this money could be earmarked for that or directed toward it. But I would rather see a $100,000 go to helping prevent people from being homeless. Now is this funding something that we that has to go towards a mural and and building improvement? Because for me, I would rather see, you know, when I when I go out and talk to the people in the community that I'm spending money to help people from ending up on the street. I'd rather see us spending a $100,000 in in a rental assistance program than a mural in a building.

That's, you know, I again, that's nice, and it's all well and good. But at the end of the day, I'd rather see that money go to help our residents.

Great question. We do have a homeless prevention program currently that is funded through our, housing homeless and assistance prevention program through the HAP through the state, which we do have funded at 300,000. So that program is currently in existence and we haven't exhausted our funding yet.

So what I'm saying is is couldn't we use an additional $100,000 to help with or isn't there, I mean, I continually hear about this great need out in the community. And for me, again, while I love a I love a good mural, I also love to make sure we can help more people. And if this money could go towards helping more people, if there's a need for that money now, if there's not a need for that additional $100,000, then great.

There Isn't But because we do have a HAP five round coming from the state and then we actually have another 10,000,000 coming from the state in HAP six. And so this was like a one time We haven't done any improvements to the exterior of the building, so there's no signage. It's not very inviting. Even the residents and the folks that come to the building are like, oh, you're gonna improve the interior, but what about the exterior? And so we were hoping at this one time funding opportunity would represent itself where we could do the actual exterior as well.

Now if you're telling me we we we don't need that extra $100,000 to help people that are potentially in trouble, then then I don't have a pump. But, again, I'm

And I would love to, at a future committee meeting, give an update on the homeless prevention program to talk about the funding, future allocations that are going towards that program, and how many households we've been able to assist through that program. So you can kinda see what the need is.

And lastly, thanks for the quick turnaround, because I know we just barely talked about this. I appreciate your staff getting the turnaround on the money for the folks in the mobile home park. Because it's very important to me that we can help those folks as well. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you, chair. Yes. I I I fully support, giving some more rental assistance and opening up the, access for our seniors a little bit easier. Recently presented over at the center and was approached by several seniors, some of which were homeless, who are on the verge of being homeless and they're asking for help. So this is a huge way to definitely those seniors. Again, preventing homelessness in the first place. Because once you drop off, once you lose your house, then it's

It's more expensive. Yeah.

It's really bad really quickly. And so, yeah, I'd love to see that. And, you know, the marketing, I know that we have the the direct mail marketing, you know, maybe in was one of the things I'm gonna be doing is we're doing the quarterly meetings at the Gosky Center. And as from this last experience, it gave me a top of the list and I should invite you guys to be part of that just so you can answer questions and connect to the seniors with services because they're they're looking for help. They're not really sure where to look.

And so I think this would be a great opportunity for to advertise this and make more more residents aware that this assistance is available to them. And, yeah, as Sean said, the concern with the 100,000, I can see, you know, okay. It's a one time fund funding source, and hopefully, it goes to good use with redoing the outside and we'd love to see how we'll get an update on this. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll add to that and I'll say I concur as always we want to see every dollar we can have go towards preventative measures. I think when I see that 100,000, my thought is thinking of anyone from a child to a senior, when you walk up to a building and if the first thing your impression is is is this inviting? Is this somewhere I feel safe going into?

Is this somewhere that you know, even a you know, shame. There's some shame around people entering, going, but if it's so I I know we haven't even begun to venture into what this exterior improvements can look like in terms of the storytelling, the mural, the marketing, the words, but I do think that this could hopefully I think we know My thought was we know no matter what even that we're gonna continue to have As much as we're working, there's still gonna be folks to show up as we work on preventative measures. Hopefully as we keep serving those, those that are exiting, but those that are coming in that they will feel and have a sense of some type of whether it's belonging, warmth, or just a better feeling when they're coming into the space. And so I think that's where I hope that that that exterior improvements can make that difference. But I I do hear you and I I'm glad for the dialogue around it because every dollar is counting and obviously we're fighting for every dollar here.

So thank you. I will move to approve with that.

Second.

Great. Do we have a unanimous vote? Yes? Yes? Okay, great. Perfect. All three yeses. Wonderful. Okay. Do we need to do a vote? Okay. So yes?

Oh, perfect.

Motion carries unanimous.

Thank Thank you so much. Wonderful. And so we're now coming to the third item of our report. And so I see a couple cards on the audience. Please get your cards over up over here if you wish to comment on this item. This is a conceptual resolution. So no project is being decided today, but a conceptual resolution for submitting a joint application between the city of Riverside, Riverside Housing Development Corporation to the state of California department. This is for a potential Homekey pro program project that would be located in Ward 2. So I'm gonna turn it over now to to our city manager, Mike Fetrell. Thank you for being here today.

Oh, thank you, madam chair and members of the committee. I wanted to introduce this item before Michelle gave up the full staff report and say what we're doing here today. So, when you look at our, efforts to put people back onto a self sustaining path in housing, Starts with the shelter, then goes to temporary supportive housing, then permanent supportive housing, and then finally into real housing, either affordable housing or renting or or something as they become sustainable. We know about our shelter that we operate. Know that people can only stay there for ninety days and then after that they must leave and then they cannot come back for a year.

We are working with the county right now on a building next to our access center to convert a warehouse into temporary supportive housing so people could go from the shelter to temporary supportive housing. There is an acute need for that next step, permanent supportive housing. And right now, we have over 200 people on that waiting list. Some have been there for years waiting for that opportunity. So we have people who are ready to come off the street working through this system and this would plug a hole and allow us to help about a 100 people move through that and then continue on to real housing.

As to how it operates, first, all we're doing here today is asking you to move this to full council, and all we're really asking for is just permission to apply for a grant. The state has a grant for home key programs. I've talked to many city managers who have already do this in their city. It works well. The count the state pays for, the hotel, the conversion.

They pay for the wrap around services that are necessary to go. So in that sense, it's financially, a windfall from the state to to fill this hole, but we are just applying for a grant. They would still have to go to the full council to again get permission just to apply, then we would apply. We may or may not get the grant. This may be the last year they offer the grant, you know, the finances in Sacramento.

And then assuming we get the grant some time in the future, we still have to come back to counsel to accept the grant. So yet another opportunity to consider, do we wanna do this program? The way the program operates is we have great control over the individuals that are in the program. There are units specifically set aside for veterans. We will also emphasize seniors as a group that is really vulnerable, and is actually our fastest, demographic of people falling into homelessness and needing help.

There's also some units set aside for the disabled, people in wheelchairs and otherwise, because it's doubly difficult for them to find housing that is appropriate, built for their wheelchairs and other disabilities. It will have twenty four hour security. It will have an on-site manager. It will have an on-site maintenance person. It will have a fence around the property.

There's been discussion about the fence. It is not necessarily to protect the public from the people inside, but actually by history and other home key operations. It's the opposite. The people who live there feel more secure like a gated community, if that is the case. So, as to this location, the owner of this hotel has been attempting to sell the hotel for at least two years, the two years that I've been here.

My opinion and apparently the owners, it is not a well functioning or profitable hotel and he's looking to get out of that business and he has proactively for two years asked us to apply for Project Homekey at this location. So, again, what we're here today is to just give a brief. Let's move it to the full council. There has been public outreach and there is another public outreach, scheduled, specifically with the business community in this area to talk about how it would operate and the people who would live there and hopefully address their concerns that they may have at this location. But it is part of our continuum of care to move people to eventually a self sustaining lifestyle living in our community, working in our community.

The people at this housing do pay rent that is required. It may be subsidized with such genetic vouchers or otherwise, but there are on-site case managers to help them get a job, help them find the housing that they need. So it is a key piece of our effort to address homelessness. So just wanted to introduce some of that. Know that I've talked to city managers and other cities that have done this program specifically.

This is not like what they started during COVID, which is project room key disaster. And it was a debt disaster because all they did was give people a free hotel room and say, good luck. You're you're on it. This is not that at at all. So, Michelle, if you wanna walk us through. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. Just to give a little bit of background on HomeKey. On 11/26/2024, the California Housing and Community Development released the HomeKey, PLUS NOFA, which is funded through proposition one that was funded or approved by California voters in March 2024. Proposition one does include the Behavioral Health Services Act and the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Bond Act. Homekey is the permanent supportive housing component of the BHIBA program.

And 1,000,000 about 1,000,000,000 is being made available for veterans that are serving veterans serving projects in all of their target populations. We'll have 1,110,000,000.00 available for those developments. Eligible applicants include cities, counties, and state, and regional, and local public entities, and tribal entities. Eligible uses include acquisition and or rehabilitation of motels, hotels, apartments, assisted living residences, commercial spaces, and other buildings with existing uses that could be converted to permanent supportive housing. Projects must be completed within twelve months for the date of the grant award.

Homekey applications are due by 05/30/2025, and awards will be announced in, June 2025. As of today, the city of Riverside, like Mike had mentioned, has 219 individuals in the coordinated entry system, community waiting for a permanent supportive housing unit. Individuals were placed on the list after completing a vulnerability index service prioritization decision assistance tool, which is a tool used as a prescreening method to quickly assess an individual's health and social needs and match them with the appropriate support and housing interventions. Of the 219 individuals, we have nine individuals that have been on that list since 2023. 196 individuals have been on that list since 2024 and '14 and 2025.

There are 83 individuals that are at or over the age of 55 that are on that list. On 02/24/2025, the city of Riverside's Housing and Human Services did receive a proposal from Riverside Housing Development Corporation to acquire and rehabilitate the Quality Inn motel located at 1590 University Avenue that would be called the University Terrace Homes. The proposal included converting a 114 motel rooms into studio units. 94 of the rooms would be the home key units, which are permanent supportive housing units for households earning at or below 30% of area median income. For one person household, that's 21,550.

And 20 of the units would be affordable with they would be not, home key restricted to households at or below 50% of area mean income. So for one person household, they can't make more than 35,900 annually. These units would remain affordable for a fifty five year period and would be monitored by the city's housing and human services department. 15 of the units I know the slide before you shows 10, but, we were able to increase it to 15, Will be reserved for veterans, and the reason why that number does kinda seem low is we currently only have 11, veterans on our wait list for permanent supportive housing, and we wanna make sure that we're not requesting more than we can fill. And 18 units will be reserved for individuals with mobility disabilities.

Tenants will be required to sign a twelve month lease. The property will be gated, like Mike had said, have on-site security, a social service coordinator, and four case managers who will be on-site and only serving the residents on-site. The property manager and maintenance staff will also be living on-site. On 03/25/2025, the City Council did approve a subrecipient agreement for the HHAP round three with RHDC to provide 250,000 to cover the project's predevelopment cost. The appraisal recently came in at 12,400,000.0, so the estimated development cost is at 26,700,000.0 and the operating cost at 5,000,000, bringing the total estimated project cost to $31,000,710.96 To cover the project cost, developer is requesting to jointly apply with the city for up to $35,000,000 in HomeKey funding the request.

The reason why we do ask for more is right now the state is giving a match of 200,000 per unit for acquisition and rehab, but there are times where they'll come back and provide some additional funding. So we wanna make sure we can ask for more than they are allowing us to. And then request funding from the city of Riverside of $2,496,927.94 in state homeless housing assistance and prevention HHAP round three. Another $4,253,072.06 in HHAP round four funding. 1,000,000 in our federal home investment partnerships programming funding and $1,234,890.09 in our community development block grant funds, which is unprogrammed funds that we have remaining.

The Riverside Housing Development Corporation city staff have attended several meetings, community meetings which Mike had mentioned. On 03/28/2025, the team did meet with individuals with lived experience at the Riverside Access Center to receive input on the proposed community where there were approximately 50 individuals in attendance. Attendants were in full support of the project and wanted to ensure the project community would be gated, have security, include ADA units, substance abuse counseling, case management, a community a computer center, residential social events, cooking classes, and a grass area for their pets. On 04/03/2025, the team presented the proposed project to Lincoln Park Community Group, and then on April 10 to the University Neighborhood Association, and then April 23, they presented to the Board Well Park Advisory Committee. At these meetings, attendees did ask questions on the residents' eligibility criteria, safety, curfew, and visitors and the responses.

Staff explained that the project would have both a perimeter fence and on-site security to prevent any loitering. No curfew or visitor restrictions will be put in place as these are apartment units, that the residents will be required to sign a twelve month lease and adhere to the terms of the lease. On-site management will require tenants to respect the house rules regarding after hour noise, complaints, unrelieved visitor behavior. Behavioral issues like these would be addressed through written warnings just like a market rate development and document documented just like any other apartment community would enforce. Tenants and their case managers would be advised of any lease violations and encouraged to find cooperative voluntary solutions and behavioral modifications.

The team is currently working with Councilman Cervantes and Melanie Bruns to schedule a meeting with the surrounding business community and residential property managers to give additional information on the proposed community. This project does align with Envision Riverside 2025 strategic plan priority number two, community well-being goal number two point one and two point two. At this time, staff is requesting that the Housing and Homeless Committee conceptually approve a resolution authorizing the city manager or designate to submit a joint application between the city of Riverside and Riverside Housing Development Corporation to the state of California Department of Housing Community Development for up to 35,000,000 of HomeKey plus program funds for the acquisition and conversion of 114 rooms into studio units located at 1590 University And direct the city attorney's office to draft a memorandum of understanding with Riverside Housing Development Corporation for soft costs commitments of 6,750,000 of HHAP round three and four for the homeless housing and assistance round three and four grants. And then $1,234,890.09 of community development block grants and 1,000,000 of home investment partnership program grants to carry out the project. And that concludes my presentation.

I do have Bruce Culpa in the audience with Riverside Housing Development Corporation that will is also available for questions.

Thank you so much. And I also I do not know how you say all of those numbers so fast. I cannot. So very impressive.

That's why I'm in my happy world when I go do accounting and budgets. Amazing.

I would have been an estimate of roughly one point. Very impressive, Michelle. Thank you. We're gonna move to public comment and we'll come back to committee for discussion. Did want to call up. We have Beverly Bailey and then Austin Zimmerick and then we have Jamal Lilly. You have three minutes, and then we'll see if we have any callers in the queue. Come on down, miss Bailey. Good to see you.

Hi. Hi, everybody. Hi, council people, city attorney, city clerk, everybody. I'm here to speak about the this current project that we're talking about. Last week was the first time I ever heard of it, that this could be a possibility, And I was notified twenty minutes before the the meeting occurred.

And so at that time, I didn't have any chance to react or notify the business community. I am the founder owner of the Farmhouse Collective in Riverside, California on 1393 University Avenue. We're pretty much catty corner from the Quality Inn, know where that project is. And then I find out just a few hours ago that it was going before city council as a proposal. And so I stopped what I was doing, which was actually looking at the May calendar for the farmhouse to see how we could bring economic development to more economic development to our community.

I'd like to remind the council, and I know a lot of you guys weren't here, and, you know, listening, but three years ago, this started to become a, an issue for our homeless and where to place them. But our project actually came before the city in 2018 as an economic development project. And that when our proposal was accepted, the city was embraced it because they said they didn't need more housing in that area that, you know, the area was so dilapidated at the time that we need to bring economic life back to it. So our family invested and took that very seriously. We said, okay.

We're gonna put in a proposal for economic development. We have this great idea for a mixed use retail eatery, live entertainment, and just had this vision that we, proposed to the city. And at the time, the council bought off on it. And so in good faith, we acted, and we invested millions of dollars into this part of Riverside. And so here we are twenty nine days later.

A lot of you attended the grand opening, which was beautiful. It was so received by the community. And we're talking about a community of seniors, of homeless, of veterans, of people that, you know, work in the community, all sorts have been embraced and welcomed to the farmhouse collective. And in twenty nine days, we have seen this major influx of people, families coming back to that part of Riverside, which became so dilapidated. My family has history and roots here since for fifty years now, and I've seen what's happened to that area.

And it's just it it this came as a surprise. I don't think that it's going to help our economic development. I have more tenants that are coming online. We just had a gelato place come online Saturday. The line was out the door. More economic development for our city. And so I would like to

ask you Bailey, it's past the time, but with again, we yes. Thank you. And I look forward to my office will be reaching out to schedule one on one time with you. Thank you so much. And we have Austin as well. Please come on down. And then following that, we have Jamal. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Austin Zimmerick. Thank you guys for having me, allowing me to speak today. Again, as miss Beverly was just saying, this was brought to my attention as well. I just wanna say that, you know, I have a long history here in Riverside. My family does. And, you know, we love this place. So wanting to provide a safe place, a safe family place for, you know, Riverside especially as a father, is something very important to me. So, after, you know, careful examination of what's going on and after working at Farmhouse Collective and being a local member of society, the homeless is pretty bad up there.

I will agree. But what I'm confused about and I know understand that this is just a proposal, but how will this exactly, fix the homelessness issue? I understand that we wanna put them off the streets and put them into housing, but as from my understanding, this is only temporary. Right? So even after the ninety days, they go back out into the streets?

We'll have someone address that. Go ahead. Finish

your comments. Well,

my I guess my point is is, you know, the reason why we put so much money into the Farmhouse Collective is to bring life back to University Avenue. And so I just don't necessarily see this bringing life back into University Avenue if the homelessness are still out in that area. Right? So I do agree with the concept and I do like the idea of it because I'm a believer in helping the homeless. However, I just don't know if this specific location is necessarily going to adequate adequately fix the situation. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you sir. And when we get back to feedback and asking questions, we will ask the questions of your answer. We can get an answer for you.

Okay, cool.

Thank you. Thank you. And then we have Jamal. And I'm just gonna put a last call out for public comments before I close-up. I saw a few people walk in the chambers, and then we'll check the online queue. Jamal?

Okay. Thanks. I too am a long time born and raised resident of Riverside. I first, thank you for the opportunity to speak. What I see is that people are equating homelessness with vagrancy, and they're not the same thing.

What your project sounds like it's gonna do is curtail the vagrancy and actually give these people a a place to be where they can be stable, productive, and have a stepping stone. I wanted to make the body aware of what our organization may be able to bring to the table in terms of supportive services. Because when you're talking about homelessness, houselessness, whatever, you know, one of those components is health and wellness. Our organization, Inland Empire Conservation Corps, Riverside Food Systems Alliance, and b one Sustainable Farmers Association, We have experience going back twenty five years supporting projects like this with locally grown produce, locally produced meat, dairy products, eggs, those kinds of things. We know we have food for less up there.

We're able to provide the same or better quality at lower prices. We also are able to offer it through something called MarketMatch, which is a component of SNAP, where the people get two to one, sometimes three to one on their money. These this demographic is perfect for that. So we just wanna let you guys know I have I represent at least 12 farmers in Riverside and probably about 20 in the surrounding areas that stand ready to provide those kinds of nutritional supportive services for health and wellness aspects that could be something that would enhance your application or at least enhance the ability of the project to be produced or to be approved. The other thing is the Farmhouse Collective.

You know, that is a perfect location. We have a mobile truck. We have a refrigerated truck. We can bring this stuff right out on-site. I'm not saying it needs to be at the Farmhouse Collective, but it's called the Farmhouse Canuck Collective. Hello? So, you know, we might be able to dovetail in a way that's constructive. I'm not saying that I have all the answers. I just wanna make the the committee aware that that is also available, and we've been doing this in San Bernardino. We've worked with Riverside School District for twenty five years. Rodney Taylor going all the way back before Rodney Taylor. So we know how to provide that kind of service for this kind of project. Just so you're aware that that's also a component that's on deck.

Thank you so much, Jamal. If you could make sure you connect with my field rep, Bill, that's in the office audience, would love to get some time together. Thank you. Do we have any other callers on the queue? No other common cards in the audience? Did you want to speak? You may, if you just fill out a common card afterwards. There's no hands? Three hands? Okay. While she makes her way down, do you mind just grabbing a common card? And then I will take a caller on the queue while you do it. Perfect. Let's go ahead and take our first caller. Caller, go ahead.

Good afternoon, committee members. My name is May, and I'm representing the Courtyard by Marriott Riverside located near the proposed Quality Inn Riverside conversion. Wanted to note that we have submitted a formal letter to respectfully urge that additional time be provided for a broader stakeholder input and a sincere engagement with the community prior to any additional actions that involve moving this project forward. We believe that the local businesses, the local residents, the local institutions along the University Avenue corridor deserve the opportunity to be able to engage meaningfully on a project of this scale. And we thank you all for your time and your consideration.

Thank you so much. Can we take our next caller? And then we'll come right back to the chambers. Thank you.

Hello?

Yes, go ahead.

Everyone. Maribel Nunez with the Inland Equity Community Land Trust in the Riverside Tenant Union. And we are in support of this item, Project Homekey. And I think that this is a very good project that could help the residents. I know we want to prevent homelessness, but these are the pathways, right? We set the project to prevent homelessness. And I think

it definitely complements very well with the farmhouse collective. So, think it's not eitheror. I think it's we need economic development, we need housing, we need to have holistic approaches. And so, I want

to thank the city for putting this on the agenda and just keep up the good work. Thanks so much.

Thank you, miss Nunez. We have and then we're gonna come back to Council Chambers, and we'll finish up with our caller. We have Grace. Gracie? Please go ahead. You have three minutes.

Okay.

Hi. My name is Grace Kidd. I'm a senior at Ontario Christian High School. Thank you so much for letting me speak. I was, I guess, just coming to talk about kind of like my views on temporary housing for homelessness.

I'm someone who I used to be like more of like an avid supporter. I believe that one of the ways to solve homelessness was to put them in the temporary housing, was letting them stay for a certain amount of time and then like just like that was the solution and then afterwards they can just go out and become stable. But I guess now I've realized about more of the main risks with that and the main issues and I feel like that outweighs the positives that can come with temporary housing. I feel like temporary housing actually causes a lack of stability and permanence for people. I understand that it can cause temporary relief for a certain amount of time, but one of the things that they mentioned was that after 90, you're essentially kind of kicked out of the shelter and you can't come back after a year.

I feel like that would put a lot of mental stress,

let's

just say on a young family where they're looking to get back on their feet and to afford housing. If they have the stress that in ninety days, they're gonna get kicked out and they have to find a job to, I guess, give them stability beforehand. I feel like that's a lot of stress and pressure and could actually even turn away someone from coming to a shelter because it is, especially in this economy nowadays, it's not super easy to just quickly get a job in a short amount of time and also sustain that job by getting your paycheck, setting up all the things you need to do in order to get your housing. Another thing as well, community integration. I feel like temporary housing lacks a sense of community as residents will not have the opportunity to build connection with their neighbors if your neighbor next door is about to leave in five days and then you have to meet new people all again.

And a lack of community definitely can be hard for someone like single mothers who are trying their best to move on to the next stage of life. And I feel like temporary housing doesn't allow for that sense of community, for that sense of support, again, with the idea of just like everybody has to leave within a certain amount of time. Same with access to resources. I'm not too sure about this temporary housing, but a lot of temporary housing doesn't provide a lot of adequate resources for families. For example, like transition to permanent housing, what would that look like?

And let's just say a family is now leaving to go to permanent housing, how's that family gonna able to survive in the real world? It's like I talked about getting a job within ninety days, keeping that job, sustaining that job, and most likely that job is not going to afford a house in California, especially here in Southern California. So I guess I was kind of missing that clear transition of what does it look like because a lot of studies have shown that when people do end up going to shelters and do do the temporary housing.

You. Thank you. Minutes. Appreciate that. And when we get back to asking some questions, I hope we can clear up some of the items that you spoke to. And just a reminder, this is not a shelter. This is not it would not be $30.90 days. It'd be there's a lease. So get some more clarity on that when we come back for discussion. Last caller in the queue.

And closed public comment. And if I could with my committee members, I'm gonna make a couple comments, then I'll turn it over to for some more questions and deliberation. Do we have any other comments before I close public comment? Okay, we have one more hand. Caller, go ahead.

Hello. Hi. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can hear you. Go ahead.

I'm a I'm the owner of Eco now. It's a farmhouse collective, and I just was notified of this this project, this potential home area. And I just wanted to state that as a business owner across the street, this is something that is very concerning for me and my business. It's a new development. People are really excited about the area.

And should this move forward, I am afraid that people would see the area at the place that they do not want to frequent. Whether it's the right thought or not of people thinking that, I have concern that it would cause disruption to these businesses that have put so much time and money into this new project and that people would be deterred to want to go into that area or support the businesses there and maybe even overlook it. So I would like to just express concern as a business owner, somebody who has invested lots of money to try to bring community together like the Bayley family was saying. So wanted to share that with you all today. I hope that you consider us across the street on how this might affect us.

And I'm seeing Thank you so much. Appreciate that. And do we have any other callers? We have one more caller with their hand up. Go ahead.

Hi. Good afternoon. Melissa McKee. So, Michelle uses the word grant, and I always think of the word tax because that grant money comes from someplace, either the federal government, the state, or from us. And the numbers that were outlined very quickly, but it sounds like at a minimum, and please correct me, Michelle, that Riverside would at least have to commit to about $2,500,000 on the front end of that $35,000,000 I also divided the $35,000,000 into a 100 units, and, you know, it comes out to 350,000.

I know that's maybe not a fair comparison, but we read so much about the amount of money that has been misused in homeless programs and has not been effective. I recognize that a lot of those articles come out of Los Angeles or were the result of COVID. But I am concerned when, you know, municipal employees start talking about spending money that it's not their money. And so even with the last item where I was like, well, we need a $100,000 mural, And the response to councilman Mill was, well, don't worry about it because we have the money or it's funded someplace else. And I, as a homeowner, if I I don't know that we really do have the money.

I don't know what's gonna happen at the federal level or the state level. And so I just throw that out because I would also have liked to have heard more about why this has been proven to be an effective program long term, and that it can try and and the cost benefit is there. And that's what I always worry about. You know? Is the cost benefit there when you're investing our measure z money, our general fund money?

Inevitably, when this hotel is converted, there's going to be operations associated with it that, again, sounded like it would come from one grant or another. But frequently, people come back and ask for additional supplemental budget at council meetings, seeking more money. And Riverside is a tremendously generous community when it comes to the homeless. We have a great attitude about it. It's something that the city wants to tackle, but we're also not financially so well off that we can't really make sure when we're making these investments.

And I understand we're just applying for a grant, so let's not worry about it. It's gonna come back to council two or three times. But inevitably, if we get the grant and it is well, there's all this money from the state, and we only have to come up with 3,000,000 or maybe 4 by then with inflation. And it's it's like a snowball. And we saw time in and time out with COVID, and those funds are going away, and now we have more of a drain on the general fund. And so I'm I'm totally neutral on what you guys do today. I'm confident you'll wanna apply for the grant, But, you know, it it is a bee one step to eternity sometimes. And, again, I don't

Thank you. Thank you for the comments. Okay. I think we are at the final comment, and we're gonna go ahead and close public comment. Just seeing if there's any other person online. No other comment cards in the audience that we have. Okay. Great. So I'm gonna go ahead and kick us off since this is in war two. I did wanna share an off off the cuff.

Wanna share that we did have a cup this item came when we came to council in closed session for us to ultimately decide whether we were gonna agendize and bring this to committee for discussion. It is here now before us today, again, as a conceptual resolution, and nothing has been decided. I wanna let my colleagues know here with us today that I would like to see us hopefully move this forward for a full discussion, but wanna make sure I add the caveat that when we did set up, we had a quick turnaround pretty much a month to schedule a handful community meetings. Of course, reached out to the neighboring communities. We have University Neighborhood Association.

We have Lincoln Park Neighborhood Group, we have a member in the audience. We did have at both those meetings, Marriott came out to join us and a couple other businesses and from some of the around the location of the site did come out to join us in those meetings. I do actually wanna formally apologize to though, the business community that my office didn't offer up to the team, which we just didn't think ahead of this. But we do have actually a safety security business meeting, which many of you join. It's the second Thursday of the month at 10AM, and we often have our code on there.

We have different different departments. My office is on there, and we discuss safety and security of University Avenue, specifically from Cranford going to Iowa. So I apologize that this was I was under the impression that we were gonna have an update or see we can solicit input from folks then, but it wasn't actually on that agenda. I would have loved, of course, if that could have been an opportunity for us to make sure we had heard and given proper notice to some of our surrounding businesses. So I just wanna take accountability for that because last thing I ever want is for folks to feel blindsided or don't feel, you know, informed of what's happening around them.

I did speak with our president of the Greater Chambers of Riverside and let him know that I absolutely vowed to meet individually with the businesses that have thus far reached out, come to some of the meetings to express some concerns, happy to coordinate with them to actually have and work with our department team to have a formal presentation for us to meet with you, answer any questions you might have about who, again, we will be serving here in the community. I will say that there is some misinformation that has been going out about who would be serviced here, and what what would, again, be, you know, the the the length of time people would be here. The whole overall project feels like there's just been some misinformation going out into the community from just different sources. So I just wanna share that we have been working to correct and make sure the facts are listed, so we will make sure we address many. Even in comments today, some of you heard you know, there were comments made that it's not factual to the project.

So I do really want Michelle to be able to speak to those on our team that's here with us today, Bruce and anyone else. But I wanna share that this project has been for discussion for a long time. It has been years since I've been in the council. This site has been on the table as a possibility. And so I I wanna recognize that while we we know that there is, of course, we have apartments adjacent to where this is.

We have businesses. We have commercial. We have a mixed use apartment, that market rate that will be coming down the line that will also be adjacent. So we are definitely thinking about the whole big picture of this part of the ward. And so I I do believe that this will be a great added piece, and there are some things that we're willing to work with the community on.

And one thing I wanna share, Marriott came to speak at a meeting and said, if this serves seniors, we are we will be in full support of this. And so I will be meeting with them separately to have a discussion again on who that population demographic is, and I wanna work with our business community to make sure that, again, you know, ultimately, this project is gonna be a win win for everyone. And we know that's not always easy, but I I'm committed to seeing how we can make that happen, and there the need is there. End of story. No matter what demographic we wanna pull up, there's a need.

So I'm I trust we can figure this out together as a committee, and then, hopefully, we can get this through to council as well. But I will turn it over to my colleagues who I know have some questions, but I just wanted to lay that foundation down. Council member Mill, do you wanna kick it off?

Thank you, chair. First of all, thank you for for taking ownership of that because for me, the fact I I I have the map right here in front of me, and this is a very commercial area. I mean, this project is surrounded by our businesses. And to have four community meetings, including with neighborhood groups that are pretty far away, compared to the business owners, is a little disappointing. I mean, the optics of this is not, to me, good, but but I appreciate the fact that that you're gonna take ownership of it.

But my question for for staff would be, and let me just, let me go back. You know, couple weeks back, maybe a couple weeks to a month, I'm times everything's kinda getting going quick. We were out at at a at a grand opening out on on university for the Farmhouse Collective. And we were talking about where there's all there's a buzz in the air and excitement and, you know, thank you to the to the Bailey's for for the millions of dollars in investment in in in University Avenue. And there was a lot of discussion there amongst people about this is about the the economic revitalization of University Avenue.

So my question for you is when and and council member, you made mention that this has been talked about for years. Well, I can say this is the first time ever been on my agenda. It's the first time I've ever had an opportunity to talk about this. I was also disappointed that, in our agenda, there was no no report or no no access to the to to the more specifics. There was just very vague information in the in the agenda packet.

So I'm learning the same information that these folks are learning as as I'm here today. It's disappointing that that that Steven and I, council member Obler and I, probably, it's the first time we've ever had this discussion. Yet, we've talked about this for years, but we weren't included in the conversation. So it's disappointing. So but my question to you is, we're talking about the economic revitalization of University Avenue.

Does the Housing and Human Services Department have any coordination with Community Economic Development? Did you guys did you guys have a conversation about this? Were they aware? Because I know they have they're always talking with our business community. Because I would think if we're gonna focus on the economic revitalization of of University Avenue, it would be important to have two city departments communicate. So do you communicate with community economic development, or did you communicate with them?

No. We actually had reached out to the council member's office to see which groups were already meeting in that community to make sure we didn't miss anybody. And we'll also make sure that we reach out to the chamber to make sure we're incorporating those conversations. Because a lot of the residents that live in are whether it's affordable housing or permanent supportive housing have employment opportunity needs. And so being able to tap into those businesses in the local community to provide that is a great opportunity, and we want to have those discussions.

Okay. So I'll go back to my question.

Can I actually put if I could add to that, because we have our War II meetings? So to speak to that answer to your question is, yes, we have real property services that we have conversations with as we look at sites. And this has been again, it's not been something, like I say, for years. It's because the owner has gone back and forth on interests or not. It's just been on our so it has been on our city team's radar. But again, there's never been any action that we could take behind it, which is why it's until now we're at this point. But to answer a question that, yes, our community development team, from my experience in our meetings, is aware that this is a thing that this is

a In planning staff as well.

Yes. Yeah. Again, let me just ask. I'll make it as clear crystal clear. Did we have a conversation with Jennifer Lilly and Miranda Evans about this coming because they're going out trying to bring businesses and trying to revitalize the University Avenue area. Was there a conversation between the housing and human services department and those folks? Because I think that's kind of important information for them to know as they're going out. They're selling Riverside. They're going out around the nation trying to attract businesses to come to Riverside. I think this is important information, and I think the left hand sometimes needs to know what the right hand is doing.

So my question again, very specific, was there conversations between and I'll just break it down to Jennifer Lilly, who who runs our economic development team, and Moriahna Evans, and the housing and human services department about this project? Were they aware as well? Because I think it's important for them to know about projects like this.

Absolutely. And it wasn't with them individually. So our executive leadership team meets once a month, and we do provide updates on the projects we're working on, and this is one of the projects that was discussed in that meeting.

So when when do we expect to have those meetings with our commercial now I'm not again, it's fine if if the council member wants to have individual meetings, but I think it's important for all of us to to hear from this. So when are we expecting to have meetings with with our business community about this? And what how are we gonna go about doing outreach to them?

So we're facilitating through the council member Cervantes' office on scheduling that, and then I'm also having a follow-up conversation with Nick at the chamber on that those meetings.

So my last question would be, I'm comfortable with having this discussion to the full with the full council because I I wanna hear from from all seven of us up here as to what they think. But I'm not comfortable, today saying, I'm gonna put my my stamp on this. I'm I'm I'm comfortable with saying, let the whole council talk about it. So I don't know what direction you're wanting from me, but I will not support moving it making recommendations to do anything until I hear from the business community. So in the interim, I'm wondering what do you what do you want from us today?

Because, again, I'm more than happy to say, let's have the discussion amongst the whole council, but I'm not happy to say, put put my stamp of approval on on this until I hear from the business community.

If I could if you looking at the recommendations, it is only moving forward to draft essentially a resolution and draft an MOU. That would then go to the full council for then the full discussion. Correct, Michelle?

Well this one says to conceptually approve the resolution. So you would say to direct To City Council

draft the resolution?

It's already drafted, it's attached to your staff report. So I would just move that direction for City Council to consider. So, The

any other comments or questions, council member Mill?

No.

Okay, council member Oblare.

Thank you. Yeah, the, you know, I was, when I heard when I was looking at this project and I was looking okay. So we have the quality in that's probably not doing well right now, and that's why we're looking to sell. And that's why we're looking at this project in the first place. It's not really a great market for these kind of motels in this kind conditions, kind of that middle ground where it's not in really bad condition.

You can just tear it down and it's not really good condition where they're making money. And I was thinking, okay. Well, what's what what are the alternatives to it? And so I put my developer brain on, and it was so funny when I I got asked about two dozen times how much the Bailey's spent on the farmhouse, and I have no idea until today. And I I said, looked around like 15,000,000. And I talked to one of the Bailey's today, and I was like, he he just he just mentioned that. And I was like, wow. I was right on the money. $15,000,000. So I I I was just looking at that $15,000,000 of investment right there across the street.

And the reason why the Quality Inn is not doing well is because the area wasn't great. You know, one wanted to stay down there. The the the the it was too far away from UCR for, parents and students, and it wasn't nice enough for them to be feel comfortable, bringing their families here. And now you had the farmhouse going in, and I was there this this past weekend with my family. We brought in friends from, Yucaipa to come watch the stagecoach, watch party there.

We sat through the rain, and it was a great, great, great time. The parking lot was packed. It's full of life, full of people, and that's the kind of activity that is gonna draw residents or or people who are staying at that Quality Inn. And the viability of the Quality Inn, I think, changes. That that calculation changes when you have great acts coming from across the country to come perform there.

And there's people that are gonna come out of the come out from out of the area to stay and visit and watch those shows and those concerts. And so I think this revitalization of the area is finally happening as miss Bailey missus Bailey was saying about, you know, they started this in 2018. And everything around there has just been slowly, slowly kind of crawling back, and you have this first milestone of a huge investment in the area that is starting to bring life back into the area. And so I think the calculation of the quality in might change over the coming years with the success of the of the farmhouse, and I don't want to disrupt that success. And I know with the the UCR housing component of it next door on that vacant lot, you know, I was looking at the project on CoStar with the, you know, resident, restaurants, retail, education study area, again, bringing more life to that area.

I just have some serious concerns about this project location. I think the idea is great. I think the ability to convert a motel or or a small hotel into units like this is a great especially if it's the state paying for it. But, you know, realistically, you know, what kind of timeline are we looking at? Even if so say everything got approved, we won the grant. What kind of planning, so to go through permitting, you know, what kind of timeline are we looking at for even this to get off the ground?

So it goes through a ministerial process. So the NOFA through the state allows you to do it by right. And so there's a faster track. So you're looking at twelve months once you get the grant award that you have to have the project completed. So it's fast. It's really fast. That's why new construction projects don't really work unless you've already have your entitlements.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I I share Sean, customer Mills, with sentiments that, you know, I'm willing to hear the rest of the council on this, but I I have some serious questions to the business community because I think while this idea in theory could be a a potential good for the area, I don't think the businesses see that. And we need to do a better outreach to the businesses because if you want good if you want good neighbors and you want because a lot of this depends on collaboration. As we said, you know, there's potential job opportunities and all that and all that stuff.

I don't think the business community sees that potential right now. And and and for me, I have a lot of questions left that, you know, I don't see the you know, there's a lot of details I think we need to figure out. And I I think that I understand there's a timeline correct for this application, which is May 30. And so I understand why we're moving so fast on this. But I think within those thirty days, hopefully, the business community can wrap their hands around this. And because these are ones that are be, you know, really effective. This is a commercial corridor, and we just started to have a a glimpse of success, and we don't wanna do anything that could squander that moving forward. But that's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you both my colleagues for your comments, and I appreciate the willingness to move it forward so we could have a full council discussion. I really, from the bottom of my heart, appreciate that. At least that will, knowing there's some, of course, some, opposition and concern from some of our friends and neighbors in the community and even support. You know, we have heard from some folks that are in favor of this too, but I'm gonna ask a couple questions.

And I do just wanna build on and share no. I I have to start with acknowledging my predecessor, former councilman Andy Melendrez, and even before him, council member Emile Moore and Johnny Sotelo because the work to and and even, I'll say council member Clark, the work to transform University Avenue has been taking place for decades. And it has been over twenty, thirty years, and it's been multiple hotels, liquor stores that were acquired, some demolished. And we've seen some sites be able to turn into amazing new ventures that are serving our community. Some are still empty today.

You know, we still have some empty sites that we're looking to get on the market and build some type of whether it's mixed use housing or storefronts. And so I just wanna take a moment to say in a credit and and I wanna thank my previous council member, Hendi Melendrez, because I feel inherited the ward and how it is today. You know, there is so much that has transformed. And so just because we're talking about the history and of what we've seen over the trajectory of time that's brought University Avenue to be where it is an economic revitalization that is booming, that is thriving. We're seeing that also in Park Avenue.

And so that is, I feel, a testament to a major investments that have been put in place by not just through the city, by our business partners, with working in tandem with our chamber. All that takes the collective. Right? It takes community efforts. And even working with the neighborhood, because even though it's mentioned there's a neighborhood that's not right there, you know, there's an apartment place right behind the farm house collective. On Iowa, there are a senior complex. There's another apartment gated complex just less than half a mile down. You have the full East Side neighborhood. Less than a quarter of a mile up, you have university. So, you know, this getting the buy in from those neighbors, of course, residents was something that we always want to make sure that we're not forgetting.

But again, I acknowledge my comments in that we definitely need to do better, we're going to make it an absolute priority to hopefully figure out how we can earn the support and buy in from the rest of our community that have raised concerns. And I think the last thing I want to do before we close here today is just really actually get to the bottom of who this would serve. Because I think there's again, let's clear some misinformation here today, Michelle, if we can. Can you please give a breakdown for us on who would again be the population occupying some of these spaces? And we also, as a council, have the ability to determine if we want to shift who potentially some of the demographics that are served here. But right now, I know when we were getting the breakdown, can you please speak to the students and to the other folks that would occupy these units, please?

So you're looking at 15 individuals will be veterans. And then the rest are pulled from the permanent supportive housing list. So there are, I said, over 83 seniors that are on that wait list.

Mhmm.

So looking at how we can whether we can prioritize those seniors Yes. Is what we're looking to as well.

Wonderful. And I know that and this is where there's some concern from folks because I think let's just lay on the table that who we were looking to serve originally were some folks that would have potentially some mental health, but what does that mean? What does it mean if someone has essentially a designation of mental health on their profile?

It could be somebody that has anxiety. You could have depression, and that could be anybody in our current you might have an uncle, cousin, employee that has those conditions, and you're able to still work and do the things that anybody else can do. So it's just making sure that we're getting folks that have those conditions stably housed, providing the wraparound services based on what they need. We do have some folks that have physical disabilities that can't work. So we're gonna be working with the Social Security Office to try and get them linked to to income. And then the ones that can be employed will be working with Goodwill and Riverside County Workforce Solutions. And hopefully, lot of the businesses in the area already linked up with those agencies to provide and linkage for employment opportunities.

Okay. And if we as a council because I do know that there's and when we speak again about the case managers on-site, there'd be four case managers. And just when we think of the spectrum of behavioral health, the individuals that we're looking to potentially be here on-site, do we feel that it is folks that would essentially need more care and attention? Or are these folks on maybe a little bit of a I don't want say lower scope, because anxiety, depression, it ranges for everyone. But I guess I'm asking, where do how do we identify where these folks fall? Because I think, again, folks wanna know who is gonna be coming in here and what is that gonna look like.

Yeah. These are individuals that have been in our shelters. They're ready to go into housing. They can live independently, or they need some case management. But some of these folks, again, you can only be in shelter for ninety days. And once you're exited out, our affordable housing waitlist, you're two to three years out. And so there's no way for these individuals, if there was no rental assistance, dollars to help them with security deposits and rent, they end up back on the streets. And so there's not that long term permanent supportive housing to get them stably housed. It's not like transitional housing where it's up to eighteen months. It's it's permanent for so ever how long they need it, and then eventually they'll graduate into affordable housing and hopefully into market rate and homeownership.

So this is, again, permanent supportive housing. So these individuals sign a lease. Yes. Do we have Correct. And is there a certain length lease lengths for them?

They originally signed a twelve month lease just like you do in the market, and then it it turns into a month to month lease. So as long as you're following your lease terms, you're paying your rent on time, you can continue to to lease and live there.

What would, like, average rent cost for potentially one of these individuals be?

Well, it depends on your so if it's a section eight project based voucher, they'll pay the voucher will pay the market rate rent and then the individual will pay 30% of their income. So whatever the difference is, the section eight voucher covers that.

Okay.

But it could range anywhere from 5 to $700.

Okay. And and again, I know so the demographic we originally were looking to serve, which I just wanna share, this is a this is a group in need. Right? These are, again, anyone who could arrange from what ages 15 to I'd say not seniors, 15 to 62. So anywhere in that range.

And I think I just want to take a moment to share that I think this is where stigma around mental health is very hard for us to combat. When we think about, you know, there's, I think unfortunately, a picture comes to our mind often when we think and say the word mental health and unhoused. And these individuals who are looking to move into this space, would you say are individuals that are already in a place that they have are working, unless, again, they can't, but are in a stable, like, again, they just need this as the next stepping stone so that they can have a supportive place to lay their head and have a have a home?

That's correct.

Okay. And but we as a council have the power if we decide we wanted to, let's say, have this be solely for or seniors and veterans and disabled. That's something we could choose to do. That's a direction that we felt we could we wanted to move towards.

Yeah. Well, we'd have to reach out to the state just to make sure that we can prioritize seniors because right now Prioritize. Yeah. Okay. On the NOFA, it's currently youth and veterans, but we don't wanna mix our youth in with our single adults and seniors.

Okay. Wonderful. And just and I know councilor, you had a question I'll get to right now. Just a couple last questions. Is this a site where people can come know, what happens if, let's say, someone has a guest and then they don't wanna leave? What happens if you have a squatting situation?

That's when they call in the security to assist.

Okay.

So They're removing that individual.

Okay. So there are measures in place so that if someone came in not supposed to be there, we can get them removed. And then how would it work with visitation if they had, let's say, friends or family that wanted to come see them?

I'll let Bruce answer that question and he's the property management

expert.

Because I think that I get, again, I just want to ask questions I think people want to hear or know I have information on because I think sometimes there's a thought that there's going to be a bunch of people coming in and out of the property, and that there's going to be no control over what's happening. But I think we also want to sometimes look at these living spaces like your standard apartment place, that people have visitors. They come and go. But I do want to acknowledge that there are concerns probably. Bruce, could you speak to what that looks for visitation for folks?

Sure. Thank you for letting me speak. I'm Bruce Culpa, chief executive officer for Riverside Housing Development Corporation. We are a nonprofit that does affordable housing throughout Riverside County. We have, approximately 1,300 units of affordable housing throughout the county that we currently manage. And this is I I wanna address, if I I could, I'll answer your question, but a couple of things. This is not a shelter. It's not a temporary shelter. It is permanent, as the word would suggest. It is the final step in the rungs of the ladder that we've been missing for a long time.

We have emergency shelters. We have temporary shelters. We have group homes. We have case management to address issues for people. But what we've been lacking is graduating people back into the mainstream, back into their own apartment.

And that's exactly what this is, is getting people What you're doing is, what you have right now is sort of a stagnant situation. Is that there's lots of people at the bottom rung who want to get into getting help, but they can't because there's no upward movement and up and out graduating. And this will graduate 114 individuals or or more approximately, out of the group homes. Freeze that up for people to move up. Everything.

That's what you need to have a good system is movement. So that there's opportunity for people to move up and out. And the other thing is these folks that we're talking about that will live here have been taking the steps, doing the things that are required to step up each of the rungs of the ladder to get to where they are, and they're stuck. They have nowhere to go. They're in a group home indefinitely forever.

So Bruce, just to allow so this is these are not individuals that, right, are currently unhoused. If we were to go ask them if they wanted to go in here, we're not asking those

Not at all. Not at all. And that's that's the point is that someone who's sleeping under the bridge or on the sidewalk or whatever starts at the bottom rung and shows their dedication that they are wanting and willing to get back into mainstream living, having their own place. Let me tell you, we have and we manage other permanent supportive housing units like these in other locations. And people The majority of the people I'm I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's a 100% perfect.

You know, you get some people in. But that's true of market rate or anywhere else. That there's behavioral issues or whatever. They don't pay their rent. You have to address those issues as a property manager and and deal with it.

But the majority of people, if you've spent any time sleeping in the cold or outside, and you get an opportunity like this, especially if you've been working for it, working your way up the ladder, you value this. You're going to grab on with both hands and want this, and do everything you can to keep that. Because that's what we see with most of the people. Once they get housed again, they really value. I think, you know, maybe those of us who have never been unhoused, we take it for granted.

You know, you have a warm bed. You have a roof over your head, etcetera. They have experienced life for a period of time without those givens that we all have. And so the people who come here to this type of a project value what is being offered here, and they want it. And what we're hearing from the early discussions with the people is they want a sense of community. They want to have movie night. They want to have cooking classes. They want to have a little dog park there for their animals. This is no different than any other market rate apartments. And as you've mentioned, there are mixed use apartments above retail along University Avenue.

There's other apartments around the corner on Iowa and other locations right there. Realistically, as you've talked about renewing the area, you need to have a mixture. You can't have all business without people who are going you know, come and eat, buy goods, and you know, or work at the locations there. You're going to need employees. Typically, are lower end minimum wage jobs.

Those people are gonna have difficulty finding housing. So they need projects like this in proximity. A lot of times, they don't have a car or easy access to transportation. Well, you've got 114 units of potential workers right there for all the businesses up and down University Avenue. So I'm sorry. I kinda got off on a rabbit

You answered, I think, in your sharing. So thank you for that. And I do have Fiona Stake. Know both my colleagues have asked questions. Council member Roblaard and council.

Thank you, chair. Yeah. So as as someone who's dealt with a lot of Section 8 housing and properties that our family owns, a lot of times, you know, especially there's actually a lot of veterans. What we experienced was the, you know, the they were formerly homeless. They got section eight housing, and the adjustment to living back in a normal house was a is a tough one for them.

We often found a lot of these guys who were trying to help. These are veterans that served our country and were trying to do the best to help them and, you know, a lot of dealing with PTSD and and other other issues. And so adjusting to, that normal life, as you say, is quite difficult for them. You know, we found them not using the bathroom just because they just didn't like to use the bathroom or the toilet. You know, they they wanted to use a bucket instead. Or they didn't have furniture. They're just sleeping on the floor in in the living room because that's what they were comfortable with. And so there's a a ton of casework that has to go along with these. Even though they're doing all these right steps, they're, you know, mostly function in society. There's a lot of trauma there that just it just doesn't go away.

You know? And so I care for these people, and and they definitely need help in that. And that's when you have that adjacent to a bunch of families visiting a location for the first time, I see a lot of potential issues there. When it when the question was asked by the council member about, you know, these are they signed in a long term lease, and do they qualify for all the same tenant rights that everyone else qualifies for? So we know how that goes.

You know, there's a there's a lot of issues there. We see that every day with people abusing those those standards and also just maintaining, what kind of security do you have as far as three months on the road, is there any kind of looking at the apartment? Are they maintaining it? Are they keeping it clean? Are they not trashing? Is there anything that goes on with that?

So case management visits happen in the unit and not in an office. So that you can see when signs are starting to happen. Is the food going stale in the refrigerator? Do they not have enough food? What's going on? And that's each case manager is going to meet with every individual person, create individual service plans, start setting up SMART goals and keeping a track on those and kind of seeing if they're digressing in their plan, what's going on and trying to address those as well.

And is this application tied to the property itself? Does it we we say we get a word of that grant, can it if we decide to go with a different property, is that a possibility?

Oh, if we look at a different property to acquire? Well, right now we're proposing this because this one was on the market previously for a HomeKey previous. One, that one fell out of escrow and then another youth provider was also looking at this one. They were going to open escrow and then decided to go into single family properties instead of getting a motel.

Okay. Because the reason why I'm asking is, you know, like I said, potentially the idea is a is a correct one. I just think location is not the greatest. And I know we have a lot of hotels that are in very, very similar situations all across the city right now. And I think there's a lot of property owners who may not know this exists or are looking for a way out because I went on CoStar. There's not a single hotel on the market right now in CoStar at least. And it's a very niche, kind of property type. And a lot of times, don't advertise them for sale. It's kind of just word-of-mouth. And and that's how these and that's kinda how we got this right as a word-of-mouth.

We they came to us, that's what we found out about it. So I wonder if there is potentially other locations that could fit this criteria perfectly that just may not be in a economic development corridor. Because we're trying to do two things at the same time, and I understand there a lot of upside potentially to this. I just see a lot of ways they can get off the rails. And, if it was in a different location, I think it might have a potential, for a little bit better success rate. And so that that's that's my biggest concern on on this right now is there could be a lot of ways to get off the rails if these don't go correctly. But those are my concerns. Thank you.

Council member Mill.

There we go. Thank you, chair. You know, Bruce Bruce made a a comment, and you're gonna have issues whether it's market rate or or or sectioning. I agree 100%. And and to the economic level of of of a community doesn't necessarily mean they're gonna be good tenants or bad tenants because there's a lot of folks that are well off that are horrible tenants, and there's folks that don't have two nickels rubbed together that are great tenants. So I I agree 100% with you. It does I mean, you're gonna the problems you're gonna have, they happen no matter where you're at. The key is property management.

Mhmm.

So is it your group that manages the property?

Yes, sir.

Okay. So can you help me explain can you let let's compare situation. How would this compare to like the project at St. Michael's?

So St. Michael's is a little different. That's a permanent local housing allocation project that is administered by behavioral health. And so they don't have physical case managers on-site. That's not where their offices are. They go to different properties, and so you don't

have that

dedicated facility there for them And to provide that case we made sure that at this property, that we are not overwhelming case managers, so that they have enough case managers to provide the support they need for the residents there.

Because again, my my greatest concern is because I remember when when the Saint Michael's project came before us and everybody told us that, oh, you guys are are out of your mind with all of your your opposition. You don't know what you're talking about. Now, I'm dealing with the issues that I said were gonna come to fruition five years ago. And, you know, hate to be one of those guys that said, I told you so, but I told you so. And I'm just I'm just wanna be clear that we're not gonna have the same type. This is a totally different city.

No. That that location, you also have the church next door, which is not fenced. It's open. There's different programming that happens in that church that's kinda impacting that area as well. And I know we've been talking about the folks that have parked across the street that get moved out of the park, and now they're in the community, so trying to address that with our PCET and our law enforcement as well.

So you guys manage all of your properties? Your team is in Yes, charge sir. Okay.

And they manage the city's housing authority units as well.

We also manage the county affordable housing portfolio. Again, have over 1,300 units of affordable housing we manage throughout Riverside County. So, we're very experienced.

Does the manager live on-site?

Yes, sir.

They do. Okay.

We have on-site manager living there and on-site maintenance staff living there.

The services that will be offered on-site would include, Are there services on-site at here?

Yeah, there'll be services on-site that will be provided, but then depending on individual needs, if there's certain things that can't be provided on-site, the case manager will provide transportation to take them to referrals to the other agencies that provide those resources. We also are gonna be contracting with a life skills provider that will come on-site to provide those life skills trainings that

we I was gonna say we have Yeah. Teach I mean, it's easy to say get a job, but if you can't you gotta teach people how to fill out an application. I mean, are skills that, you know, I mean, I haven't filled out an application in a year. I probably need help help myself.

Yep. And interview skills as well.

Exactly. So, those are the type of sort of if we're gonna In order to get these folks that that And that they're not here ten years from now. Mean, we have to teach them those those skills. And and I do appreciate, your your comments that you're folks living here probably make great employees for a lot of the local businesses. So I I appreciate you. And and I would I would hope that, you know, if if when we do have those community meetings with the businesses, that that's a that that is something they're always looking for for good employees and

Absolutely. And I would love to also include Riverside County Workforce Development or Solutions because they also have grants to provide to business owners. So if you hire somebody from the low income community, they can offset some of that hourly rate and cover some that cost. So that's an added benefit, I think we can bring to the table as well.

And ideally, you know, again, the folks probably are transportation is probably tough and it's right along a transportation corridor or Walkable. Walkable.

Walkable. So, you've got bank groceries there. You gotta have a new library further down university. It's be awesome. So, great resources there.

And and again, all these facility forgive me for my naivety, nativity. Non smoking, right? We can't have folks just hanging out smoking, because that's one of the things that drives me crazy about the St. Michael's project is that the folks hang out and they're smoking. And, again, it's it's a nuisance for the entire community. So all of our

people I think we're a smoke free community, aren't we?

Okay. So there'll be no So

there we're a smoke free community, so we'll be enforcing I

I I know I know we're a smoke free community, but that doesn't mean that they don't

It's true.

They don't loiter and and smoke. And I

I Well, again, that comes back to property management. When you see something that's happening, I mean, you need to address it on the spot because otherwise, it can, you know, spill over and

Typically, if I may, we will have, like, no smoking in the units, but might have an area outside where people, like where there's picnic tables. And like we said, we're gonna have like a dog park here. They can probably smoke outside away from the other residents. I'm talking about tobacco.

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty soon they'll be able to purchase other things right in the area. But real quick, and I lost my train of thought thinking about smoking weed.

Well, I was gonna introduce you guys probably know Mulberry, which was our cottages that opened up on 10th Street or sorry, on Mulberry in downtown. Our HTC managed that as well. We had moved everybody in, in January 2024. Was it 2023? 2024. No one's moved out. We've got a long wait list. Folks at the shelter keep asking, hey, can I get into that property? And I'm like, no, people love it there. They're paying their rent. I would say probably 86% are employed. They did participate in the Riverside at Work program, where it's the Riverside on the job training. So they're at the access center trying to help other folks that were in their shoes to get off the streets and show them there is a path. I've been there before and I can help you get on that. Help you on your journey.

And the and the units are

single Fully furnished, so they're not

They're in single single resident unit? Each one is single resident, you're

Two people. They're gonna be couples.

Could be couples. Okay. Yeah. One or two people.

And children or no children? No. Okay. Alright. Because

We have other communities for that. That's Could say it meant

to be in youths potentially? No. No? Okay.

No. We're trying to keep youth separated. Okay. And for example, we have this fire project that just opened up, 32 units in downtown. Beautiful project. We had CBS came out and they kept going to the other corner. And I said, where are going? The project's right here. And he's like, this is beautiful. And I said, well affordable housing doesn't have to look cheap. He's like, I expected to see something like this in Newport Beach.

Again, I'll just circle back that property management is the key component.

And we'll be watching Bruce.

Don't don't know what type We of

do our monitoring.

I'm I'm big on on having very little tolerance for shenanigans. You you may know, know CNC Development out of out of Orange County. They're they're amazing. And when you talk about, you know, you get to these projects and you look, you're like, the projects they build, people show up trying to market rate, and it's like it's affordable, and they're they're blown away. But the key to that is that they have very little tolerance for any, you know, and I hate to do that, but, you know, this is a privilege to get to and and, you know, again, property management, you you gotta have a heavy hand because, again, the other people that live there, deserve better, and the surrounding community needs to deserve it.

And I wish our market rate you know, I'm I I have the same kind of views when it comes to other, you know, wish they would have the same, but it's not our it's not taxpayer money going behind them, so I can't. So, again, property management is the key to to it all. So I'm glad to hear you guys are the ones handling it.

Thank you. Thank you both for your comments and added con I appreciate that dialogue. And I think the last thing I'll just close with saying is, you know, when we look at this site, I very much, you know, when we walk when you drive to university, you don't see enough people walking, don't see enough people really out that is moving. We're starting to see that walking and that buzz happen, of course, at the farmhouse. People move going up, trying to find parking because their parking lot's always full.

And so I know between the new market rate coming down the way when that's online with this, with UCR, the University Village, this corridor could be thriving with individuals going to and from work, going to go eat and have entertainment. You know, I feel like this is actually, you know, get on the bus line, go walk down to the new library, or go down to what's gonna be a new community center. I mean, I feel like this is this is what everyone's worthy Right? This type of built environment that we fight we we have fought and worked so hard to build this built environment, and I want everyone to thrive. And I especially want for our residents to have access to all the great amenities that have been invested into the community, And so I just will appreciate having to keep an open dialogue, and I think that's where I'm trying to be very mindful of and respectful, of course, of and I do agree, and I think one thing I'd love for us when this comes back is to discuss what do good neighbor guidelines look like, and is there gonna be Michelle, is there ever, like, could we do a no funny business, you know, contract where they have to sign, you know, even kind of, like, community rules or good neighbor guidelines?

Do you guys ever do that? Or no tolerance for certain things that they have to also agree to?

Yeah. That's in a standard contract that their behavioral house rules, so to speak.

Yes. Okay. Fantastic. Great. Well, I'll make a motion, and I'm gonna motion to what I believe my colleague had spoke to, which is the Housing Homelessness Committee move forward the resolution for discussion and the draft memorandum to counsel for consideration.

Second.

Thank you. Okay. And we'll take a vote.

Motion carries unanimous. Thank

you all. Thank you for everyone who came down to speak, several of the audience. I look forward to meeting with you so we can have good conversations and figure out a pathway forward before we have our next meeting. And we certainly will also invite the council members for any meetings with the chamber, so if they would like to attend. So we'll figure out how that could work. But, thank you. And the last item we have is, let's go ahead and move to housing authority project updates. We have Agrippina, and then we'll move to communications.

Alright, good afternoon honorable members of the committee, city staff, and as many members of the public who have decided to stay. My name is Agrippina Neubauer. I'm the project manager for the housing authority here with the housing authority projects update. We currently have four seventy six affordable housing units in the pipeline. Of those 169 are permanent supportive housing.

As of right now, we have 32 units completed year to date. We'll talk about that in a second. We are expecting another 90 units to come online by the 2025 and then a further three twelve units by the 2026. So those 32 units are at the Aspire. You might have remembered Michelle mentioned them.

So this is our project right there on 3rd Street partnered with Innovative Housing Opportunities. And it is 32 units of permanent supportive housing for homeless youth. It has been fully leased up since the January. We did give them some extra funding to cover the last bit of construction gap financing that they had. So we are fully complete with this project and we are going to have a grand opening event on May 29 at 9AM.

So if you have not received an invitation, they will be coming out soon but block out the time on your calendar. Alright. Also in Ward 1, we have the place. This is our partnership at Hewlett Place with the county where they will be providing behavioral health services. So we will be rehabilitating what's basically a very open space right now into 31 permanent housing units, permanent supportive housing units.

So these are kind of like mini dormitory style so that people who are graduating up through those steps can go have their own space and receive on-site services. So we have just approved a lease to extend the term to thirty years. The county will be in there for quite some time and we are in the process now of getting all of the paperwork done so we can start that rehabilitation. Also we have the access center. This is 2880 Hewland Place.

This is the homeless drop in center. We are in the process of rehabilitating the interior space and replacing the HVAC system. This is with 178,000 in Measure Z funds and 1,300,000.0 in CDBG. So this contract has been executed and we are currently working with an architect to design the floor space. Ward 1, we also have Mulberry Gardens.

This is a two phase project. The 59 unit senior housing is currently under construction and we are in the final steps of securing the financing for the 150 multifamily affordable housing units. So we have recently gone and got the PIP $1,000,000 This went back in March. We will be coming back with some further amendments to these projects for Oh, for this one, we are doing the ASIC and the home funds. So you'll be seeing those hopefully very soon because as soon as all of those funding agreements are signed, they can move forward and begin construction.

On 14th Street, this is a property that we are working on with Path of Life Ministries. They are currently updating project budget so we can know what the funding gap is and we can see what the feasibility is for that project. The University Avenue Duplex, we are going to be going to council next month for a contractor who will demolish this building. I know that seems crazy that the housing authority is trying to get rid of units, but this housing is not in good shape and it is full of asbestos. So they're going to demolish it, remediate the asbestos and then we will come back later with a new project where we'll be able to get three units on in place of the two units that are currently there.

So this is another project that we are hopeful for. The Grapevine project, is on Mission Inn. This is in partnership with the successor agency. The housing authority has a site and the successor agency has a site. And we are currently working with the developer to update the project budget for the DDA.

So this will be kind of a mixed use project altogether. There will be 74 units and 12 of those will be our affordable housing units. The Crest Community Church on Mount Vernon, this is going to be transitional housing for families and transitional aged youth. So right now the church is looking for donors and investors. We're needing about 3,800,000.0.

We have provided a TUMPF exemption later. Basically a lot of projects that are affordable housing are exempt from certain requirements and certain fees. So that's what that was for. And they are currently requesting 285,431 to cover their permit fees. And on April 10, so just a couple weeks ago, the Planning Commission approved their conditional use permit.

So this project is rolling forward. The Quality Inn motel conversion, this is what we have just been talking about. So this would be the potential conversion of the Quality Inn at five thousand ninety University. So the idea is to convert the motel into 114 studio units. Last month, we did approve some HHAP three funding to cover pre development costs. And that way we could have the information we needed to move forward with the potential application for HomeKey Plus funding and further rounds of HHAP three and four.

Just for clarification on this slide, City Council we're going May 20 and not the sixth.

We were able to talk about that, so now we can plan an actual date. The garden home ownership project, this is a newer project to this committee. This is in partnership with Habitat for Humanity on Garden Street. They have submitted a proposal to develop 13 single family houses with eight ADUs. And so on March 11, City Council approved a resolution authorizing us to submit a Cal Home grant application request for $10,000,000 for the state for the development of this project and funding under the home ownership super NOFA.

So we are hopeful that we will be able be awarded under those and we can move forward with a home ownership project. Ward 7 Sunrise At Bogart, this is another project that is in the final stages of getting its funding together. This is going to be 22 permanent supportive housing units at Bogart Avenue. We have entered into an agreement for 1,400,000.0 in PIP monies and $380,000 in PLHA funds. We will be coming back to council with some slight amendments.

The other funding partners have asked for some terms to be changed so that everything is in line with the loan documents that they have. So that's gonna be basically just some changes to some of the terms. And we will also be coming to counsel with agreements for home and local affordable housing trust fund loan agreements. Those are in their final drafting stages right now. As soon as they are approved by all the other funding partners, we will bring them to council for approval.

This project has also submitted a HomeKey Plus application for GAAP financing. So the requirements for them on HomeKey Plus are a little bit different. Basically they were able to say, hey, have most of the way there. Can we get the little extra bit that's gonna get us over the finish line? And the requirements for that are a little bit more stringent, but hopefully we will have a positive response from the state by June.

The transformative climate communities grant, so far we have completed our goal 1,000 trees planted. We have 29 solar installations. We want to get to 100. We are looking for eligible households that we can do this with. Same with our xeriscape installations.

We have 14 completed of 35, again looking for eligible households. And we have more than 50 trainees have gone through our workforce development construction program. And I want to say that we have just started a new cohort now in April. So we will be getting a bigger number hopefully very soon. This update aligns with the strategic plan goal number two for community well-being. And we recommend that the Housing and Homelessness Committee receive this update on our housing authority housing projects.

Thank you very much.

Speed run.

And the chair the chair had to to scoot out, so I'll take over from here. So I we we don't there's no action on that. We we receive and file it. Correct?

Yep. Just

If you have any questions.

Nice to see finally see something from Ward 5.

We're still working on the senior housing. Now that the city's website city owned property has been released, we'll start looking in your ward to see if we can find any vacant sites.

Do you have anything?

Do you

have any preferences for Alright.

Thank you. We have a legislative update? I'm gonna go with no.

I'll take Yeah. That as a

Homeless housing assistance and prevention round six.

We're getting approximately $10,000,000 from the state of California. Applications are due in August. We already presented to the nonprofit collaboration two weeks ago, got their input. We're also gonna be going out to individuals with lived experience, as well as maybe putting a community survey together that we can put out to the community on how we should prioritize that $10,000,000.

Okay. Thank you for that. Outreach worker update.

We are looking to We're in the process of filling one vacant position on our P Set team, that we'll have a pair and one individual is in place at the access center until we get that pair.

Okay.

I'm gonna wrap in the point in time count into outreach worker, if I can get away with that. The county did send us an email today, they're looking to schedule a meeting with Mike and I for the week of May 12, we can finally get what those numbers are. And then I guess the county board of supervisors will announce it the May.

Alright. So Thank you. Do you have anything you for future items? I have nothing. Look how efficient it is when the coat when the vice chair takes over. With that, meeting is adjourned.

Thanks.

Hello. My name is Kevin Walker. I work for Public Works as a senior maintenance worker hazmat. Generally, we go around, we pick up illegal dumps. Sometimes we pick up hazardous waste spills. It could be glass in the street. We kinda deal with anything that's miscellaneous. Typically, me and my partner Tony pick up about 25 illegal dumps each a day. Hi. I'm Tony Saragosa.

I work for Public Works, senior street maintenance, hazmat for the city of Riverside. Illegal dump would be anybody that's out there dumping along the city couches, mattresses, refrigerators, bulky items, if you will. So a typical illegal dump can consist of furniture, mattresses. It could also have trash, waste, sometimes dead animals as well. It could be blood involved, needles, drugs. Sometimes we may even find weapons. Because the city is so large, people just feel it's easier just to dump and not pay the fees at the landfill. It