Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by repealing Chapter 8.97, relating to Tenant Relocation Assistance; declaring the urgency thereof; and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect at 12:00 a.m. on January 1, 2020, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Okay, we're going to do item 23, please, Madam Clerk. 23. Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance repealing chapter relating to tenant relocation assistance. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of City Council for final reading, declaring the urgency thereof and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect at midnight on January 1st, 2020, citywide. Thank you. I do have three public speakers, if I can, because, Mr. Emerson, you make sure the full council is out here really quick. Thank you. Okay. If Norberto Lopez, Liana Noble and Marlene Alvarado could please come forward. Norberto Lopez led a noble and Merlene Alvarado could please come forward. Please. Go ahead, sir. All right. Um, so my name is. I work with Libra, the project director there currently. And once again, you know, we stand behind Long Beach amounts. There's a lot of misinformation that has been going out in the media saying that the state amount is higher than the Long Beach amount. We're still saying the Long Beach amounts are higher than the state amounts. And the fact that the average rents in 2019 were approximately 1400 dollars here in Long Beach. And so currently the way that the ten and below policy works in the city of Long Beach is if you live in a studio, you get 27 or six and then it goes up to 4500, depending on the amount of bedrooms. Where we would like is for a policy that comes back hopefully soon, sooner rather than later, that just implements everything from HB 1482 and just substitutes the relocation amounts from the state policy to the Long Beach amounts in order to help protect some tenants from going homeless. Average moving amount right now for a lot of people that we work with is around $6,000. Even then, with the current Long Beach amount, that isn't enough for people to move out but is definitely a big lift and helping them find a new home. So we're hoping that you can revisit this item and, you know, hopefully maintain the Long Beach amounts one way or another. I'm pretty sure you could find some way of maintaining these amounts for their Long Beach residents. And hopefully you can find, um, you know, the perfect policy, which I know is going to be hard, but nonetheless it's doable. I also ask that you take a closer look at how are you going to repeal something? And I have another substitute ready to go. I don't think that the senior and disabled program will be ready to go by the time that the repealing of the tenant relocation policy is done with. Thank you. Thank you so much. Liana Noble and Marlene Alvarado, please. My name is Liana Noble. I live in downtown and been active in our North Pine Neighborhood Alliance. There's several points of I'd like to make tonight. I appreciate that. There we have members of the council who have been consistent and clear advocates on affordable housing. However, what I am seeing now is a resident is that while you have your your intention of, as you put it, I think previously of clarifying what's going on and making it clear to landlords as well as to tenants what is applicable here in Long Beach in terms of the extreme housing crisis that we have. What I'm experiencing is somebody that pays a lot of attention to City Hall is that this is a critically important issue and yet it's being dealt with in a piecemeal basis. So my experience is that you are approaching a critically important problem that affects more than 60% of those of us who live here in Long Beach. And you are doing it piecemeal. That in and of itself is creating confusion. I would ask, therefore, that you not proceed with this sanction of relocation. If you rescind this, then you're adding to the confusion. You've made a made it public that you want to put together a program for seniors and disabled. And yet that is currently up in the air. In my neighborhood, we have. Three. Section eight senior housing towers, which doesn't begin to address the needs of the disabled and seniors literally living in our neighborhood. So if you look at the whole town and all of the other districts, this is a serious problem. And again, instead of coming to us with a package, you're doing it piecemeal. The other concern I have and the reason why I believe it is important that we have a Long Beach ordinance, is that the burden for enforcing these laws is falling on individual tenants. This is completely unacceptable as a tenant. We have we're in no shape to take on the corporate landlords. Or landlords that own. Properties here. If we have a local ordinance, you and our city staff can play a role in enforcing that ordinance. And as we know, the relocation ordinance here in Long Beach hasn't been implemented. It's not been enforced. We know of way too many tenants who aren't receiving the relocation benefit. Thank you so much. Thank you. Marlene Alvarado. Please. I'm only Alvarado. I'm in the first district. Quickly. I. I own a property. Not here, but. My tenants barely are able to pay rent, housing and everything else. I can't imagine anybody who is a landlord and takes out poor people and then expects them to pay for first and last month's rent. The state is not enough money for them to do that, especially here in Long Beach. It's really important that we continue the amount of money that we have already passed this law, which is more than what the state has. Gee, I can't. I can't. It breaks my heart to see so much greed here. I mean, this is Christmas, and I make a decent living charging reasonable rents. Why? I wouldn't want to kick out my tenants. They're really good people. They're hardworking people. And that's what's happening with most poor people who do this to the poor. It's tragic. Thank you. Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Members, please cast your votes. I know we're having some delays with the motion carries. Okay. Thank you. We are moving on to item 20, please.