Recommendation to request City Manager to work with Long Beach Continuum of Care Partners and all appropriate departments to study the feasibility of acquiring land and funds to support the expansion of the Health and Human Services Department’s Tiny Home Shelters for individuals experiencing homelessness, and report back within 60 days.
Thank you. We're going to move on to the next item, please, Madam Clerk, that's going to be item 18. Communication from Councilman Austin. Recommendation to request city manager to work with Long Beach, Continuum of Care partners and all appropriate departments to study acquiring land and funds to support the expansion of the Health and Human Services Department's tiny home shelters and report back within 60 days. Austin. You're on mute. Councilman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, counsel, for the indulgence of a brought this item forward after many conversations with my homeless service advisory committee. Designee Mr. Jim how you know others in the communities on the ground working with Gibbons in the clear care closet and having conversations with our unhoused neighbors, asking what we could do as a city to better serve and work on this issue of homelessness. For many years, obviously, California has battled increasing rates of homelessness among its population, which is no different at a last point count. Over 2000 individuals were experiencing homelessness in our city, and 78% of those individuals were unsheltered. This is a problem that continues to negatively impact our city and our most vulnerable populations. The ongoing COVID 19 pandemic and its effects on shelter capacity has exacerbated the challenges that individuals experiencing homelessness face daily. And while we continue to address these challenges, is evidence that an innovative approach is necessary to properly mitigate homelessness at this critical time. Critical time, I would just say several innovative approaches needed expanded transitional housing opportunities, particularly tiny home shelters because many of the qualities needed to serve our unhoused. Tony Owen. Soldiers also offer adequate isolation for socially distanced privacy for occupants, quality dwellings that can be built quickly in small areas. And also they provide a bevy of benefits, benefits for both residents and staff. I'd like to take a moment to really acknowledge and commend our health department currently plan to construct and operate 25 to 50 tiny home structures on their site. And what I saw was, I think this is commendable and necessary. Their diligent work will help the pandemic, along with the work of our continuum of care product partners and the possibility of even more funding coming to Sacramento gives me great confidence that an expanded townhome program is really possible in our city. So with this item, I aim to find avenues to support our Health Department's current initiative and activate our continuum of care network in the process, but also challenge us to figure out ways and innovative ways for this item to expand that to community partners, nonprofits, faith based organizations, to expand our capacity to develop tiny homes, shelter throughout the City of Orange. If this is an innovative approach that requires our attention today, obviously I think that that this is not the panacea. This is not the only answer to dealing with our homeless crisis, but is the most immediate solution we have at our disposal. And it's not as expensive to building structures. So with this, I would ask the city council have a robust discussion on this. I think it's imperative that we begin this process now so we may serve sooner, so serve those in need. With that, I ask for your support on this. I thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I love this item, Councilman Austin. This is awesome. When we're talking about innovative ways to address some of the biggest issues facing our city, including available housing, especially housing for the unhoused. I think this is a fantastic step in the right direction. And I look forward to reading staff's report on this and working with the community on any outreach. There should be definitely some outreach that gets done and hopefully that's part of the process. But at a high level, this is a fantastic idea and a great, great item. So I'm proud to support it tonight. Thank you. Now Truman's in the house. Thank you, Mayor, and huge thanks to Councilmember Austin for bringing this item forward. This is a very important especially right now while we're dealing with the health crisis that we're in, when we talk about housing our shelter, it is critical that we emphasize that we are talking about habitable, inhumane conditions of living. This item brings into conversation the need to discuss and address the conditions of the shelters. We as a city offer are individuals experiencing homelessness. How many homes shelters are you hearing there to build and provide a level of space and privacy that is needed during a health emergency, such as the ones that we're living today in L.A. with these tiny houses. Shelters have provided it's not only needed shelter, but also a safe community for people experiencing homelessness with connections to place management that help them get documents, document ready so that they have all the paperwork that they need when they apply to programs and jobs, which is very, very important to feel supported and to feel like somebody's actually cheering for you to succeed. I am hoping that the report will provide more details on how those how many tiny houses we would be able to build in Long Beach and where as well as how often would they need to be remodeled or replaced. In addition, I look I look forward to receiving more information on what the process for qualifying for a tiny home house would potentially look like, and the stats of the already existing tiny houses project in cities like me. There are so many more questions, right? But I am certainly motivated by this innovative approach to addressing homelessness and I'm very much looking forward to receiving this report and seeing what the feasibility would be of expanding such a program here into the city of Long Beach. Again, thank you, Councilmember Austin, for bringing this very important item forward. Thank you. Next up is council member. Councilor Customer Austin again. Thank you. I do have other I have another councilmember cued up. Did you want to go now or at the end? It's okay. Are you okay? Let me go to the other members that are cued up. I have Vice Mayor Richardson and Councilwoman Allen. Thank you. Thank you to my colleagues, councilman. Awesome bringing this forward. And we've talked about tiny homes for some time. Just a couple questions for staff. I thought there was a proposal that will allow springs at some point to explore. Do we evaluate something that will allow springs for tiny homes? Who's going to self-report on this? Hoosier. So we have our Health and Human Services Director here. I don't recall something specifically for four Willow Springs, but we can look into that discussion on a few locations just and would like an update on where they are. It was like, well, spring. I know we talked about Inside the warehouse, which was a feasible warehouse at the ABC shelter and some other efforts. Can we just speak to that? Councilmember. Can you hear me there? You hear me? I can hear you. Okay. So we have not looked at sites like springs. We looked at some sites. We are currently looking at the MSI. We'll continue to be looking for other sites that the Willow Springs is not originally inside the camp. Mm hmm. And the MSI, you know, I know there was a talk about the warehouse and site once we acquired the warehouse outside of the ABC. Where did that discussion go? That discussion has not continued at that stage because we're looking at what the possibility of that overall site will look like. The infiltrating homes. So in the funding courses that we're currently aware of, there's a 15 year commitment to the tiny homes. So we would need to be able to carry those forward to either the site we originally land them on or into the future. So we're looking for longer term sites going forward. And the ABC site did not was not a fit for those criteria. Okay. And I know there was a conversation that everyone at home and some exploration of state dollars. What are the state dollars is the idea roomkey is that we're talking about switching from what i just want to roomkey opportunities. We are looking to apply for roomkey, but we're also looking to explore for. I mean, we're actually putting in a proposal for tiny homes for the masses. So we are putting forward in this round one, round two for the Multi-Service Center for 10 to 20 or 30, 20, 25 sites at the Mercy. And then through this item, we would also be looking at additional sites for residents. Now, the last question is really about the development of tiny homes. So I you know, I've heard, you know, for years, you know, folks would have the ideas about tiny homes or container homes. And I know that in development services, we've had some challenges with establishing whatever standards that we need to have to make these things possible . What are we doing from a planning standpoint to prepare, let's say, a developer set in how to have a small parcel? And I want it developed for tiny homes, you know, as opposed to, you know, a commercial building, whatever it is. And we, you know, updated what our pathways are or regulations around tiny homes or modular, modular homes. So the container. Vice mayor. This is Christopher Coons from Development Services. So there's two. Parallel answers to that question. So we're we're working with the health department and the item in front of you, the health department administered tiny homes that specifically target homeless individuals through provisions of state law, were able to waive various provisions of our own rules, as well as state rules because of the crisis of unhoused persons and the shelter crisis in the city. So there's a very straightforward process for that. You're asking a different question, which is not the city, but Joe Philanthropy Street Developer walks in and says, I want to build four tiny homes. So we're still bound by various rules. The tiny homes need to be certified by the California Department of Housing and Community Development as a modular construction forum. The good news is that a lot of different models of modular housing have been approved over the last couple of years. There's a major manufacturer not in our city, but in the next city over. And and we our staff, our engineering staff and development services have done tours of the factory to help us better understand how the modular construction works. We still have to plan check aspects of those projects because they need utilities, they need water and they need electricity, and you want that to be done safely. So we have a process. We haven't seen a lot of interest from the development community in terms of tiny homes, which, you know, if you're thinking of what you see on HGTV and you know, this cute thing on wheels, but what we do see a lot of interest in is more modular type construction, whether that's in the form of an 80 unit backyard or a larger construction of an apartment building, if you think of it being put together and just like a Lego set . So that technology has come a long ways and we do permit those structures, but we're just starting to see them today. So we don't have a lot of examples yet, but when we talk in a year, we'll probably have more to report back. Oh, sorry. I just I just want to add from the different perspective, so tiny homes, modular housing as a shelter perspective also includes services. And so it's a place for at different sites is not our strongest proposal in terms of the ability to work with folks, provide the case management and other services to move these people into permanent homes . So I think there are multiple conversations here to look at. Look, I think we have to be as creative as we can. I certainly like making sure we pay our services. But if there's a private model out there, you know, because I'm hearing about things around tiny rooms and services, we just have to be open to make sure that, you know, whatever policies we have locally, we're able to explore. But, you know, I think this is certainly a step in the right direction. Look forward to the report. Thank you. Councilman Allen. I thank you, mayor. I also want to thank council member Austin ran this forward. I think it's an interesting and promising item, especially since there is state funding to support expanding shelter beds. So I'm happy to support more housing to get folks off the street and connected with that coordinated services. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Mr. Mayor, I want to defer to public comment at this point. Great. Let's go ahead and go to the public comment and we'll come back. Have comment and then to an awesome wrap up. If any members of the public would like to speak on this item, please press star nine or use the raise hand feature. Our first speakers Lee Charlie. Thank you, Councilman. Austin Today I spent 3 hours and got a self-guided tour at the West V.A., the West L.A. VA. They actually have 32 tiny homes that are in operation as of three or 4 hours ago. I learned a whole lot and I hope that maybe we can expand and improve on what I saw this afternoon and be a little bit more forward. First of all, accessibility and location is key. They must be near transportation where they can either get a bus line or a train. The whole goal and intent of a tiny home is to get permanent housing and get employment. So I think the report really should look at how close and how feasible the accessibility to the cost. I would encourage the city to look at these two echo cubes ranch which have solar panels pet friendly and have a mini garden. And fortunately, many tiny shelters and tiny homes do not accept pets. Also, there's a lot of unhoused and Lumbee that I speak to almost daily that are couples married and the tiny homes. Only the ones I saw only have one. So please think about that as well. Also, we need to have some kind of wraparound service, 24 hour emergency hospital or emergency service if there was a medical emergency. Also, I think that having some tiny homes, I know of three areas that would be very beneficial. And District one and district two where a large concentration of the unhoused are. And I know tomorrow and Thursday we're having our point of time training and then we're going to be counting and getting an accurate number for our city. Please look at where the highest concentration of unhoused are, and maybe we could put some tiny homes there. And then also, I learned today risk assessment and time frame. Well, and how a person have six months, a year or two years to find permanent housing, permanent employment. And then also the risk assessment really needs to be taken care of. There's LGBTQ youth that I spoke with yesterday. They're students living in cars. They're in a house. There's two pregnant women along the 710 that need help. An elderly man has cancer. There's a woman that was raped eight times the last three months. So what is the risk assessment priority of who gets these homes and not? And I would ask that all these reports, maybe questions be looked at. But I'm super excited about Tiny Homes and I personally will take anyone on city council, our staff and my car to go visit the West, L.A. West, L.A. VA. It's only a 25 minute drive if you go in the afternoon. It's quite enlightening. Thank you so much. Your next speaker is Brandon Washington. Sorry about that, folks. I want to thank you for having me again. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, city council members. Again, my name is Brandon Washington. I am a board member with the Long Beach Continuum of Care Board. I am the board member with lived experience of homelessness. So this issue is of particular note to me. Folks, there are a lot of questions around tiny homes, and I really want to thank Mr. Charlie. You kind of stole my thunder here. I am a licensed clinical social worker. Other than my board role at the West Los Angeles V.A. and the tiny home project that he was referring to is called Stress in S.T.A.R. Se. What we do is we combine these tiny homes with treatment and rehab rehabilitative services. It is a low barrier to entry outreach program. And what we do is we provide homeless veterans or unhoused veterans with a clean living area, regular access to medical care and, of course, behavioral health services. And like you mentioned, they are close to transportation. The same project could be undertaken here in Long Beach, and we could be using a model similar to what is being used in West L.A., since we have our own Health and Human Services as well as a V.A. hospital here. The project could start as a veteran based project and be expanded from that veteran based project to a all citizen wide project. I mean, make sure that you are aware that these aren't just thrown together projects. When I initially heard things about Tiny Homes, I thought it was just a way to divert funds away from traditional brick and mortar buildings. However, these shelters have an added benefit that people haven't really played into, and that is the social component of creating these very small communities. Those small communities actually help these folks along with those supportive services that they're receiving to lower the rate of reverse ism into homelessness. Now, these tiny shelters are completely equipped with beds, mattresses, their fire lined with safety equipment, air conditioning, heating. And of course, these shelters provide additional privacy and protection from the elements, making the participants more comfortable as they work with their case managers, licensed clinical social workers and MSW. Just like we have here in Long Beach, and especially with our wonderful, wonderful teaching and training institutions like Cal State that have a massive amount of social workers who could be utilizing the the service, offering their services via practicum, where they would be learning and helping our homeless population here in Long Beach. Now, there are also several organizations that have that can choose your time again. Our next speaker is Melissa Williams. Hello again. Thank you again for your time. Again, I'm here with a project, Dignity. Most of us. Started out as volunteers with AOC seven Neighborhood Group, and we've brought together a lot of local organizations who work with our unhoused neighbors for some mentorship and just to form a coalition. And we were here to. Support this idea of. The tiny home development. And furthermore, with one of our partners, we've identified one piece of land that seems unused. It's adjacent to the 710 Freeway. The address is 1325 to 1395 West Carson Street. One of our partner organizations. The Long Beach Hair. Closet, has been working with several members of the unhoused. Community who live at that location. And he's been working with them. To clean up trash and do outreach and bring supplies. And we identified that piece of land. And we really just hope that this tiny homes idea can continue to be explored and come to fruition in our city. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Tai Do. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you at a normal pace. I want to reiterate Melissa Williams's comments, but specifically with her project, Dignity. You know, I live in a housing project. It's called Beachwood Apartments. It's half of this. And Magnolia there in my lobby, there is a the size of a 32 inch television plaque applauding the city of Long Beach. The mayor, former Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez, as well as former city manager Patrick West for creating low and affordable housing. You know, you put yourself in the position of the person living here. Do you want literally every guest that comes to my home knows that I'm here? If you don't. Think about these items in construction, then you do not you cannot dignified people and lift them up to employment. I'm sorry, but literally things like that suggest that the city does not understand what it means to have dignity and to move from low income to high income. So I specifically with item 11 as well as these tiny home projects. Please assure me that any plaque that you may erect it to applaud yourself for. And I think you should be applauded. Right. But I think those things should be in resource rooms and not be available for public view for every guest that comes by. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mary Simmons. Good evening again, Mary Simmons with Project Dignity. I really want to encourage the council to support. The expansion of the Health and Human Services tiny home shelters. For individuals experiencing homelessness. Furthermore, our coalition has identified a. Property we feel that the city should consider for acquisition and development of tiny homes. The property is a large lot adjacent to the 710 Freeway. 1325 1395 West Carson Street. One of our project, Dignity Partner Organizations has worked with a large community of unhoused individuals near the location, and we had a chance to visit that location on Sunday. Tiny homes are an important transitional. Resource for unhoused individuals who. May not be able to go to traditional shelters tiny homes paired with crucial. Basic needs. And resources can help provide unhoused neighborhoods with dignity and support as well as. As well as work towards stability. So I live near the Anaheim Street corridor and I see the daily struggles and challenges and it's just heartbreaking. So I'm hoping that, you know, I think Councilman. Austin for bringing this forward and thank you, Kelly and Christopher, for bringing in the information. The data is important and thank you, Brendan, for sharing your experience as well. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Tarek Foll. Hello. I'm sorry. I was changing my costume. Whether it's actually Pam try to sway into a wrong zoom account. Sorry about that. Good evening and thank you for your time tonight. My name is Pam Tara. Like I said, I'm a 20 year resident here in Long Beach. I'm now in 32. I wasn't 54. I am a volunteer with 87 and with Project Dignity. And I just want to support my fellow community organizers here that I've already spoke and just say how crucial this project is needed for our our unhoused neighbors. And really preparing these tiny homes in a place, a clean place with basic needs, such as, you know, basic mental health care and medical care is very, very important. And as my colleague also mentioned, the place where we went that care closet took us to, they were saying that there was trash there for nine years that had been built up for that long. And it just makes me sad to think that it took organizing of people that were in house to actually do that work and just put that into your perspective. Thank you again, council member Austin, for bringing this word. And I really hope that we start seeing some action on this item. Thank you again. I think our next speaker is Russia. Good evening again. My name is Jose Torres and I'm also part of Project Dignity. Like the speakers before me, as I mentioned, we did go and have a tour this. Sunday. And it was very insightful. The property that we are is a large lot is adjacent to the 710 Freeway. The address is 1325 through 1395 West Carson. Our partner and project entity care closet Long Beach has been working with the large community about housing individuals near that location. Giving them a sense of purpose. It's really important for all of us to not just think about our own house neighbors. As a burden, but also they are our neighbors. So let's think as human beings and let's not wait a year or more to bring housing, more tiny home housing in Long Beach or tiny homes that can be found throughout L.A. County. Let's bring tiny home to Long Beach sooner than later. Homeless residents can't wait. And with those tiny homes, we bring critical resources. Everything in one location to uplift our neighborhoods. Thank you. Our next speaker tonight can be. Yes. Thank you for hearing me, Counsel. First, I want to thank the eighth District Council in Austin for bringing this item to the agenda tonight. I think that tiny homes are a great opportunity for us to draw people out of the streets and empower. And. Friendly with respect to placing them in housing. Situations that are agreeable to the reality of what it looks like in the end to find them in a scarcity model that we're facing here in California. With that said, I'd be curious to see what happens at entities that we can partner with. There was a reference by staff. Our next speaker is Jim Howitt. Good evening. Jim Howitt. I have been working with the homeless for probably about 30 years. And everything everybody has said before are all true. But one thing that I noticed in working, particularly with homeless individuals or unhoused individuals, you probably call them, is their sense of community they have among themselves. When I first heard about the tiny home concept, I visited a few of the villages in Seattle, and what I saw there were individuals helping each other, getting sober and getting dealing with all the problems and moving into permanent housing. In other words, they had become a community. And I think that's very important. Sometimes we forget that the unhoused do live in communities among themselves. And to me, that is one of the important things the tiny homes do that allows them to live in a community where they can support each other. It also provides stability. That you have a place to be where you can get services and everything that you need can be what you can work with it at that point. And another point that a few people have mentioned is dignity. There is a dignity in having a house and having a place to do what some might call your own. You know, the old saying is that home is where the heart is. It isn't necessarily a building or a house or whatever it is, but it's where you believe you belong. And that's what I think that we give people when we talk about the tiny homes that we give them a place that they can call their own and they can start that process of moving on, doesn't it? We don't know exactly how long it's going to take, but we can work with them and they can make those moves they need to do to transition into permanent housing. I really support this and I really think the councilman for bringing this up, if he knows I've been been somewhat of a passion of mine and. I think it is probably the best way would come about to work with individuals who are not how. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this item. Right. Thank you. Let me just add that I am absolutely a strong supporter of the tiny house concept. I think we've seen it work in other places. And so thank you to Councilman Austin for bringing this in front of the council and thank you to the staff. I know that I continue to explore new models to help folks that are unhoused and also really great to see so many community members also just coming forward to say that they welcome these types of opportunities for housing even in their neighborhood. And so that's it's really always encouraging to see so thank you talked to them and very supportive of of this and and Mr.. Mr.. Modica, I know that you had already been looking for some state money for projects like this for different types of, of solutions. Is that something you're still feeling pretty confident about? Yes. So besides the money that we've set aside in the Recovery Act, we'll certainly be looking at Project HOMEKEY as one of our top priorities, and it absolutely qualifies. And so we're going to be putting together a very strong application for that. Great. Thank you. And then the council in Austin is going to cause a stir. Yes. Again, I want to thank all of my colleagues. We are very encouraging words and for your support of this particular item. Again, I want to just lift up for Mr. Graham how it serves on our on the Service Advisory Committee. He's been advising me and talking to me about this particular issue of tiny homes for literally years now. And so I want to thank him for coming forward and speaking for all to all of our public speakers. I know that this is a passion for many in our community who want to see us resolve and get to immediate solutions on this issue of homelessness. I think the city council I mean, we're going to get a report back in 60 days, like the minute the instructions or the recommendation if if I might, just to include working with potential public private partnerships, community partners to try to. To construct and build and locate tiny home communities. That's okay, Senator of Motion. And I'd also like to just as a as a council, we should we should be not closed in it, but be very deliberate. And when this item comes back, I'd like to for us to set some some real goals in terms of what we'd like to accomplish, in terms of housing people in tiny homes and and building this into our every one home kind of strategic approach. And so with that, I would love to have your vote support on this. Thank you so much, everyone. Roll call vote, please. District one. Received District two. By. District three. I. District four. By. District five. District six. I. District seven. I. District eight. All right. District nine. All right. Motion is carried eight zero. Thank you. Let's take the next item please. Erm which I believe is the current presentation, I repeat the 1990.