Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), with the County of Los Angeles Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, to provide  Right-to-Counsel services for people facing eviction, in an amount of $250,000, for a period of one year, commencing upon the execution date, with the option to renew annually for up to three years, at the discretion of the City Manager.  (Citywide)
Thank you. We have item 11 that was pulled by Councilmember Supernova. And then I'm going to have some comments as well. Councilman Juvenile. Thank you, Mayor. I just have one question regarding one sentence in the discussion section of this item, so city staff could try to respond to this. My question is how the right to counsel, how the right to counsel program will result in more landlords accessing mortgage assistance, as stated in the Agenda Housing Memo. The purpose of the program is. To provide our right to counsel. But in any litigation, part of that litigation is attempting to settle that dispute outside of court. Part of what the legal counsel would provide is a potential solution with the tenant, as well as making sure the landlord is aware of all the resources that are available. That's something that we do here at the city, but the county in their program would be able to provide greater and better information as part of those dispute resolution measures that are always a precursor to the litigation hearing. Okay. Thank you. Christopher. Thank you. I'm going to make just some comments and then we're going to I think I have Councilmember Mungo cued up. So then we'll go to her and then go go to a vote. I just want to just be clear that this program was a. I was happy to include it in the budget proposal. The council also unanimously adopted the budget proposal and has already passed this item that is now in front of us. The staff has worked on how to bring forward and also just to me and I appreciate all the comments that folks said, the different opinions. But let's be clear what this program is. It's a right to counsel for tenants. It's an opportunity for for folks that need access to legal services to have those. These are people that are lower income that need assistance and free legal services. Is is a bedrock of of of of good justice programs within a community, myself included. I can I can recall moments when my own family has had to access free legal services because of not having the same resources to attorneys and to other programs. And so I think there was a comment about it's only going to help a certain amount of families. Every single family that will be helped by this program needs that help and support. And so I'm proud to support this program. I'm not sure. I'm obviously this is surprise to me that it's come up so this way. But I look forward to the program passing tonight and being implemented as well. And then with that, I'm going to turn this over to Councilman Mongo. Councilman Bongo. Thank you. I'm going to start my comments with letting everyone know that I do plan to vote yes on the item. But I think that there are some things that need to be outlined and discussed. So, first of all, my mom is someone who retired from providing free legal aid at the self-help center. I know and understand the components of how a lot of this works together. I've been present at and thankful for the many free workshops, limited legal services, full legal services that are available at these centers. They are critical to the community and I get all of that. What's difficult for me is that multiple times during our time on the council, we come up with an idea and we approve funding for it. And then luckily it's a great idea and other agencies are entities approved funding for it as well. Not just this item. I can speak to others. And then. We are not fully leveraging the regional resource before using the Long Beach funds. So I'll give you an example. When we did rental assistance up to $3,000, we had the ability to tap the L.A. CDA funding and see the funding put forward $100 million. They still haven't been able to spend all of that money by the end of December. They have 22 days, 23 days to finish spending that money to provide rental assistance throughout the region. As a part of that, we approved rental assistance and people were applying through us. And what we want to do is we want to make sure to leverage as much of that $100 million. And then the county of Los Angeles put forward $2 million of rental assistance. So then we want our residents to be eligible for that $2 million. And then anyone who didn't get part of the 100 million or the 2 million, then we want to use Long Beach funds to find the people who fell through the cracks. That is the most effective way to use resources. So when I called the County of Los Angeles Executive Office of Department of Business and Consumer Affairs today, I drew down a report from their website that showed that at the Long Beach Legal Center, they'd served 1800 people at the last report. And I said to him, Does it differentiate from a person or are they turned away if they're a Long Beach resident because we have our own program, are they counted differently? Are we going to then, bill all these people to our $250,000 first before the $8 million of Measure H funds and general funds that were set aside specifically for outreach on this specific thing through 17 agencies across the region. The workshops, the limited legal services. And in September, the Board of Supervisors approved another pot of money for the full blown legal services that this $250,000 is also going to provide. And so for me, what I want to make sure is that Mr. Koonce, is it Chris Coons, who's the staff on this, works with L.A. County to make these funds available once the other funds have been utilized. We don't want Measure H funds to be available for use for a Long Beach resident. And then instead of using that, this person's legal services gets pinged against our $250,000 and then our 250,000 dries up. The county money dries up and it's not available anymore. We should use the money in the most restrictive way, in the least restrictive way first. So the least restrictive resource is county wide funds, general fund and Measure H. Once they've expended their funds, we should release our funds to make sure that we can continue to provide those services to Long Beach residents. So I just think it's really important that from a strategy perspective of where money is coming from, going to and being utilized for. That the most money is being leveraged. So it did take some time to get a hold of the director. I only started trying to get hold of them today when someone had told me about the $8 million. And so I just think that it's really critical. And I know I only got to tell Linda today that staff go forward with this, not pigeonholing me presidents to only be able to access the $250,000, but to access the $250,000 once the other money dries up. Remember that some of these programs didn't even get into effect until March on the limited legal services and September on the full blown legal services. So I think that it's critical that those kinds of things are included. And I hope that there's no I mean, I'm open to hearing from my colleagues if they think that our money should be used first, but that actually limits how much money is accessible to let me president. So I hope that that these ideas are taken with the heart that is behind it. As I said, I'll be supporting item. Thank you, Councilwoman. There's a motion to approve by Councilmember Richardson and seconded by Councilmember Pearce. There are a couple other councilmembers on the list, but I don't know if they were cued up to speak or if they were cued up to make a motion. So customary ringer where you queued up to make a motion or to speak. But you'd have to make the motion. But I supported Councilwoman Pryce where you could actually make a motion or to speak. It was earlier to make a motion. There's a motion and a second. I see no other public comment. So the motion is as presented. Roll call vote, please. District one. District two. I District three. District three. I. Did you hear me? Yes. District four. By. District five. I District six. II. District seven. I. District eight. I. District nine. All right. Motion carries. Thank you. Now we have the next consent calendar item, please. And I think that that was pulled by Councilman Austin. I think the councilmember wanted a report from staff. Is that right? Councilmember. Correct. I just thought that this was a notable item.