As is often the case these days, the Council's regular Tuesday meeting this week will be dominated by issues surrounding homelessness and housing.

If you'd like more detail on anything summarized here, click the agenda, then click on the item. Over on the right side of the page, you'll see links to a staff report and other pieces of supporting material.

City Council -- Tuesday, Oct. 27

Tuesday's meeting officially starts at 9 a.m., when the Council will listen to public comment on any items on the closed-session agenda. Then they'll retreat to closed session and return to open session at 11 a.m. 

The open-session agenda includes one ceremonial proclamation and 11 consent items that are considered noncontroversial and won't be discussed unless a member of Council or a member of the public asks to have an item pulled out for conversation.

Highlighting the discussion agenda are these five items involving homelessness and affordable housing:

• Coordinated Street Outreach Program (Item 332): The City budget that the Council passed in June included $1.5 million to create a new outreach approach to unsheltered folks on the streets. Rather than having police officers serve as the first point of contact, this new approach will feature trained social workers as the leads. On Tuesday, the Council will be asked to approve an agreement with the nonprofit People Assisting the Homeless (PATH) to operate the Coordinated Street Outreach Program, which would be administered by the San Diego Housing Commission. The contract would be worth a bit more than $1 million for an initial eight months from this November through next June, at which time the Council could exercise a one-year option to renew for roughly $1.4 million.
• Affordable Housing Preservation (Item 334):  On June 2, the Council accepted a first-of-its-kind report, Preserving Affordable Housing in the City of San Diego, done by the San Diego Housing Commission (press conference pictured at right), that took inventory of all affordable housing in San Diego and made 10 recommendations for how to preserve as much of it as possible. On Sept. 17, the Council's Land Use and Housing Committee endorsed an implementation strategy that includes policy options for five of the report's 10 recommendations. Those are:
  • Redirect funds originally associated with the City's Redevelopment Agency and its dissolution to fund preservation ($46.9 million over five years).
  • Adopt a Preservation Ordinance to strengthen and expand the rights granted by state preservation notice law.
  • Offer incentives to owners of unrestricted properties in exchange for affordability restrictions.
  • Provide seed funding to create a public-private Affordable Housing Preservation Fund.
  • Create an interagency preservation working group.

On Tuesday, the Council will consider giving the Housing Commission the go-ahead to implement these strategies.

• Community Action Plan on Homelessness (Item 331): One year ago, the Council accepted the Community Action Plan on Homelessness, a comprehensive, 10-year plan that lays out short-term goals and serves as a guide for long-term action in addressing homelessness. On Tuesday, the Council will get a presentation that will highlight major milestones and accomplishments in the first year of the plan's implementation, key activities that have happened during the pandemic, and areas of focus for 2021.
• Homelessness Response Center (Item 333): The Housing Commission will ask the Council to approve an agreement to create a Homelessness Response Center at 1401 Imperial Ave. in East Village, where the City has been operating the Housing Navigation Center. Under the proposal, the Housing Commission would run the center. People Assisting the Homeless would offer housing and services navigation. The Regional Task Force on the Homeless would also have staff on-site. The annual cost would be $1.55 million.
• Ulric Street Apartments (Item 336): The Housing Commission will ask the Council to approve issuance of more than $23.8 million in tax-exempt multifamily housing revenue bonds to fund the development of Ulric Street Apartments, a 96-unit affordable housing development at 2645-2685 Ulric St. in Linda Vista.

The Council agenda is rounded out with these two additional items:

• Taxicab Permits (Item 335): The City contracts with San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) to regulate taxicabs but has a policy on the books that provides a framework for taxi permits. The local taxi industry is asking the City and MTS to remove and/or reduce regulations to maintain the economic viability of the taxi market. In all, there are 13 specific requests, ranging from security cameras and GPS requirements to vehicle age and drivers' commercial driving experience.
• Year-End Financial Performance Report (Item 330): How did the City actually do financially from July 1, 2019, through June 30, 2020, compared with how the Finance Department projected it would do? The Council will get a presentation on the report.

As often happens at these meetings, the Council will double as the San Diego Housing Authority, which must also act on three of the above items: the Coordinated Street Outreach Program, the Homelessness Response Center, and Ulric Street Apartments. In addition to those, the Housing Authority will take up this item:

• State CalHome Program Funds: The Housing Commission would like Housing Authority approval to apply for grant funding that has been made available by the state Housing and Community Development Department's CalHome Program for first-time homebuyers. The funding comes from the Affordable Housing Bond Act Trust Fund, which was created when voters approved Proposition 1, a $4-billion bond measure, in 2018.

The maximum grant amount is $5 million. Whatever San Diego gets would go into the Housing Commission's First-Time Homebuyers Program, which provides deferred home loans at 3-percent interest for households earning up to 80 percent of area median income. Program participants can get loans of up to 17 percent of the home's purchase price.

Members of the public can participate in the virtual meeting and make comments by dialing 619-541-6310 and entering the access code 877861 followed by # when the item you're interested in comes up (full call-in instructions). Watch the meeting on cable TV channel 24 or AT&T channel 99, or stream it online.

Next up will be a post on the policy committee meetings scheduled for this Wednesday -- Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods and Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations.

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