in oh [Music] [Music] w [Music] he he n I [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] afternoon everyone sorry to startle a few of you welcome like to call this order of the San Jose City Council to order for the afternoon of March 26 Tony can we take the RO Jimenez pres Torres Cohen Ortiz pres Davis here D president candelis here fley here vatra K here Mayhan here you have a corn great thank you now if you're able please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance stand one nation under God indiv
isible with liy and Justice all great thank you today's invocation will be given by Opera San Jose and Cali and council member Torres will tell us more great good afternoon everyone I'm thrilled to announce that our final invocation for March will be presented by Opera San Jose today is a special occasion as we'll be graced with performances by two incredibly talented artists from Opera San Jose Cesar Delgado and Melissa sndi they'll be treating us to a snippet from their upcoming show Florencia
in El amazonas which marks Opera San Jose's first Spanish language production it's an honor to have s Delgado making his debut with Opera San Jose in the role of arcadio we're also delighted to welcome Melissa Sandi who is serving as an artist in residence for the 2024 season and will be will be making three leading roles Florencia and La amas will be in production at Opera San Jose at California theater from April 20th to May 5th so let's show our support for this incredible opera house and it
s talented performers my staff has some flyers if anyone ised interested without further Ado let's enjoy their [Applause] performance hi my name is Alissa SII and I'm singing the role of Ros Sala hi my name is CES and I'm playing the role of arcadio INF frenal amazonus now we are going to sing the duet that this is happening in the ACT to do it in this part of the Opera is right after the storm a huge storm so these guys are a young couple that they just met at the boat they are part of uh they
are on board in a boat called El Dorado going through the Amazon to manow so in this part of the Opera After the Storm they realizes they they realized that they love each other but they cannot be together [Music] I call you r r [Music] [Music] r [Applause] [Music] foree is all this [Music] [Applause] [Music] foree [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] theee [Music] fore [Music] spee [Music] for [Music] speee [Music] fore [Music] for [Applause] [Music] speee [Music] foree fore
ign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign your on [Music] [Music] your wow thank you so so impressive just a reminder for everyone especially those who came in a little late you can join Opera San Jose for their first Spanish language production Florencia in Al amazonas from April 20th through May 5th I don't know about you but it's certain be easier for me to follow along in Spanish than it ever was in Italian so this will be helpful to many of us all right thank you again for sharing your
incredible Talent with us just muted myself we are on to ceremonial items and uh Council tez if you'll join me at the podium we will recognize and Proclaim Cesar Chavez Day yes please good afternoon everyone it's my great honor to Proclaim Sunday March 31st as Cesar Chavez Day where we recognize the birth and Legacy of the Civil Rights and labor movement of the activist Cesar Chavez as the representative for Ean Jose the legacy of Cesar Chavez as well as fellow Farm worker leaders theor wera La
rry it Leong and Philip verac Cruz means a great deal to our community isan Jose was the birthplace of a movement that changed our country forever Cesar first began his storyed career as an organizer with the community service organization mentored by father M uh Donald McDonald at Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Mayfair neighborhood years later he began his his first of many famous boycotts at a former Safeway supermarket around the corner where Mexican heritage Plaza now stands Cesar's organizing
campaigns of Farm Workers throughout the state under the banner of the national Farm Workers Association and later the United Farm Workers became a major inspiration to Latinos across the country taking inspiration from non-violent direct act action tactics by civil rights leaders at the time infused with Catholic Social teachings with which he was raised Cesar led many successful campaigns including the deleno grape boycott and the passage of the California agricultural Relations Act these vic
tories permanently shaped how this country viewed and treated our Farm Workers Latinos Filipino Americans and immigrants of all Stripes building a lasting foundation for the movements that continued to follow that Legacy is felt today by many of this City's great social justice movements and organizations that's why I'm grateful to be joined by one such organization Amigos deal Lupe who have been doing amazing work in advocacy for better conditions for working families and immigrant communities
in Santa clar County and now I'd like to pass the mic to Marita Mal Donado from Amigos to share some words thank you council member orti so this uh quote thank you uh this quote and picture actually has sat every place I've gone and it really speaks to the work that we do at Amigos once social change begins it cannot be reversed you cannot uneducate at the person who has learned to read you cannot humiliate the person who feels Pride you cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore we ha
ve seen the future and the future is ours Cesar Chavez my name is Marita Maldonado founder and executive director of Amigo Sada lupz Center for justice and empowerment and this is part of the team back here that does the real work I just Direct the band so uh Amigo straw is it its inspiration from the organizing Spirit underlining values of social justice nonviolent resistance that were Hallmarks to CAD Chavis and the Chavez family all who fought for justice and a just Society for people includi
ng the unserved and underserved people of Mayfair and isang hos in this Spirit we accept the proclamation on behalf of all those organizations that that continue to fight for a more just Society in isan Jose and Beyond as we celebrate cesa Chavez may we always remember all the organizers and Justice leaders who have worked tirelessly to create a more just and Equitable Society for all in the spirit of cep weather we urge the city council to V to vote Yes on tenant preference and I'd like you to
uh join me in the unity clap because for us uh it's a really important piece of Cesar Chavez so uh it begins slow and uh goes faster and I'll ask M to come up and he will lead you yes how are you uh the Unity Club is a club that CES Chavez used to use in the phone worker movement right to communicate with the Filipino workers you know and it starts as slow as the bit of your heart but it finishes strong as the fight we doing in east side San Jose and San Jose so if you can follow it we go slow [
Applause] [Music] [Applause] right may you got that okay we'll take my Coles would like to join always welcome [Music] thank you so much for being here good good good to see [Music] you all right next council member Davis will join me in recognizing margarite [Applause] Lee and I think we've got a bunch of supporters who should come down for the picture so that Margaret's not here by herself does the board want to come down come on Kirk you can come down too good afternoon I am pleased today to
recognize and celebrate margarite Lee for her exemplary dedication leadership and impactful contributions to our community margarite has served on the board of the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy for eight years including terms as both vice president and president during her time on the board she demonstrated her commitment to preserving and enhancing San Jose's natural spaces her leadership and advocacy led to the following milestones and there are many the construction and expansion of the ro
tary play Garden which as you probably know is an exclus an inclusive play area for individuals of all abilities the replanting of the historic Archer Orchard at Guadalupe River Park the renovation of the conserves visitor and education center the installation of over 20 new murals along the Guadalupe River Trail the growth and impact uh of the window on the River Park event which is an annual benefit that fundraises for the Guadalupe River Park and an increase in volunteers and grpc board membe
rship increasing Community stewardship of the park and the trail margarite continues to Champion and advocate for volunteer programs activation events and Environmental Education in the park Margaret's passion and dedication to our community also extends beyond the Guadalupe River Park in 2017 she and her partner Kirk faran who is here today they co-founded San Jose's first retail uh worker Co-op at A Slice of New York which is fantastic pizza if you haven't been there you should definitely go t
hrough this initiative she created opportunities for local workers to thrive contribute to the city's vibrant econ economy and also share in the profits that they create margarite's contributions have left a lasting and positive impact on the city of San Jose embodying the spirit of civic duty and making her a true asset to our community she is a neighbor and a friend in district 6 and I am happy to recognize her through this Commendation let's give her a round of applause and she doesn't want t
o speak so mayor if you could just give her the Commendation and we'll do a picture come a terrible politician thanks for everything you've done yeah [Applause] than you thank you so much [Music] all right and last but not least council member fley and council member Cohen if you join me at the podium we will recognize and Proclaim Earth month used to be a day used to be used to be a day but in District 9 it's a month could the representatives from hend come on down good afternoon I'm council me
mber Pam Foley today we are recognizing and proclaiming this April as Earth month in the city of San Jose I'm proud to be joined by council member Cohen who's not only LED previous Earth day proclamations but who has and continues to be a strong champion of a variety of environmental issues on city council this year we acknowledge the importance of not only Earth day but Earth month to raise awareness and Inspire action for Environmental Protection and Su sustainability the city of San Jose was
the first large city to set a goal of being carbon neutral by 2030 council member Cen was INSP was an inspirational leader in that we celebrate the progress we've made and reaffirm our commitment to protect the environment as we continue to strive to be carbon neutral we must preserve and protect our natural resources biodiversity and ecosystems to ensure a healthy and prosperous future for all Earth month is full of opportunities throughout this the Silicon Valley to come together and take acti
on to protect our planet including six events that my office is co-hosting throughout District 9 Earth Day is so big it needs a month at least I encourage everyone to set aside a moment this month to participate in an activity near them such as tree planting or cleanup initiatives such as the Great American litter pickup that are led by the beautify SJ team and the Mayors and city council offices to accept today's Proclamation we are joined by representatives from Henda science Elementary Magnet
School located in District 9 and my daughter's Elma moer I'd like to invite to introduce principal Todd Weber science teacher deina Kong Su science teacher assistants Joyce Pawn Dana ker Jean Yoshida and a representative from hips the jianda involved parent and staff Treasurer Francesca kapper Henda is dedicated to teaching students to explore the natural world around them and offers the unique opportunity for students to learn in their one acre Outdoor Classroom featuring California Native pon
ds and commun and pond communities and Redwood Trees the school takes Earth month to another level by fostering a culture of environmental responsibility and stewardship year around for their students and families as they say in Henda every day is birthday Henda students are learning to create a future for all generation and while today's environmental crisis existed long before them I can almost guarantee that these building blocks will be the reason they know the way toward a sustainable futur
e with that I now invi uh invite principal Todd Weber to come and say a few words before mayor Mayhan presents today's Proclamation Todd thank you council member Foley mayor Mayan all the council members and the city of San Jose for allowing San Jose Unified and Henda environmental science magnet to accept this Earth Monon Proclamation that is near and dear to our hearts in San Jose Unified we're focused on preparing today's students to be the thinkers leaders and creators of Tomorrow and at hai
an environmental science magnet we Foster this love of learning and curi curiosity through engaging students in Hands-On science as we seek to produce environmental stewards that will go on to protect Earth far beyond their Elementary years we are fortunate at Henda to have a dedicated science team standing behind me a hardworking and caring staff and a wonderful parent group hips that continue to Foster one of the most amazing learning environments around it doesn't hurt to also have a 1acre ou
tdoor science club classroom where our students get to explore different California biomes just outside their everyday classroom so to all my Hawks to all San Jose Unified students and all children working eagerly in their class right now which we all have to get back to continue to be curious and be thinkers leaders and creators that take care of our precious Planet not only now through the month of April with Earth month but each and every day thank you again council member fley for allowing u
s to accept this very important [Applause] Proclamation picture time AB okay we are on to orders of the day does anyone on the council have any changes to the printed agenda not aware of any okay moving on to the Clos session report thank you mayor we do not have a report out of closed session today great thank you Nora next is the consent calendar are there any items that Council would like to pull from the consent calendar I don't believe I was notified of any do I have a motion second thank y
ou Council Candela second by council member Foley let's go to public comment on the consent calendar I'm sorry mayor while we while we're waiting I had wanted to just pull 2.13 just for question and comment it can stay within the motion but I just want to yeah hi thank you Blair bman nice to be back uh Life's good in San Jose I mean San Diego nice to be here uh for myself for item 2.8 was about um uh ending emergency uh declarations that were created February 3rd about storm issues um as you end
ed your Zoom uh broadcasting to the community uh February 6 uh I hope it can be of concern to yourselves as important as uh to address the zoom issues were we had serious emergency issues going on we also had uh covid issues going on uh so there were storm issues and a slight rise in covid at the time that should have brought questions to yourselves um I don't doubt the sincerity of wanting to end the zoom I hope you can consider bringing it back this summer and in the future to if you're going
to Spring these ideas on us that you did as a kind of you know surprise so it can be quick and immediate I I hope you take a little more caution next time and a little more care and and maybe plan these things at the end of February instead of the beginning uh with my remaining time for item 2.8 uh is about measure te issues uh Bond issues uh just a reminder that um as measure te uh was rolled out uh an important concept of it was the concept of creating as as a public oversight board for these
new bonding uh Bond funding dollars good luck that uh you're you're it's a good program and I think we're en enjoying the fruits of uh the public oversight process for a few new uh items sales tax items and the like so good luck and continued good practices that we all feel towards public oversight ideas um it's a real helpful process and and to also note that um good luck in the sister city program that identifies concepts of Peace um it was dropped today and it should have been talked about uh
as orders of the day should have thank you your time is up back to council thank you Tony uh Council M Cohen go ahead yeah I just wanted to ask a question or of staff on uh item 2.13 so King Kelly is here is Kelly here or 2.13 no measure T it's a homeless yeah I just I just wanted to sort of Praise You for praise this our staff for continuing to find resources to bring in for our homelessness efforts and just ask a question about uh how you expect to allocate These funds in terms of um the the
$28 million that would bring in from the state on our homelessness program and what kinds of uh programs would be funded by it can you hear me yes thank you for the question council member I'm Kelly hmill I'm the division manager overseeing homelessness response in the housing department um for the fifth round of hap we expect to allocate our funding in a variety of ways one we are requ IR ired to set aside about 10% for youth homeless Youth and we will be continuing um the programs that you all
approved back in November for a guaranteed basic income for homeless and atrisk youth the remaining dollars will largely be um allocated for eih operations and Outreach and engagement and a few small other programs but those are the two big strategies that we're prioritizing great well thank you so much I just wanted to uh thank you for continuing to uh do the hard work to make sure we have the resources to address this big pressing need and um make sure that we uh all are aware about the the t
he incredible support that we're getting from the state thank you thank you great thanks council member I don't see other hands Tony let's vote motion passes unanimously great thank you okay we're on to a joint city of San Jose City Council Housing Authority agenda item this is support for the federal fiscal year 2025 moving to work annual plan and my my note said that Preston might be here to say a few words is that hey there he is Preston did you want to offer some opening comments I either is
fine I do have some comments great welcome thanks I'm happy to be here I just uh celebrated my 60th birthday so you know struggling with getting back into work well happy birthday thanks that's what I was really trying for Shameless promoter um let me pull it up real quick so thank you mayor Mayhan and council members I am Preston Prince I'm the executive director of the Santa Clara County Housing Authority Santa clar County Housing Authority administers Federal housing Choice voucher program f
or both the County Housing Authority and the City Housing Authority the housing authori uh is also affordable housing developer and owner we own 2800 housing units across 34 communities uh we have a th000 units in our pipeline 250 units under con construction and we're going to start construction on 100 unit development just down the street in the next few months alt together we serve 23,000 families uh uh both families and seniors uh 13,500 seniors 10,000 children 44,000 people Al together I'm
here today uh regarding our 2025 move to work plant the middle briefly let me summarize move to work uh moving to work was established by Congress in 1996 to allow housing authorities to develop Innovative local approaches uh to meeting the community needs both the city housing authority and the County Housing Authority were designated as move to work agencies in 2008 each year we propose new move to work activities in our move to work annual plan activities are ideas and proposals with some det
ail not a whole lot but some detail an activity also seeks one or all three of a waiver of held regulation single fund flexibility or local non-traditional assistance an activity is not strictly rental assistance last year uh in April we submitted the 2024 move to work plan on behalf of the City and County Housing Authorities that included an unprecedented number of activities that were approved last Fall by Hud and I say unprecedented because HUD staff told us last year as they were reviewing o
ur proposal that it was the most most ambitious plan that they had seen submitted by a move to work agency our move to work ideas in 2024 included uh ideas around home ownership interim housing a scholar house for parents obtaining post-secondary education and digital inclusion this year we're focusing on the planning and Implement implementation details for the 2024 activities that were approved so there's only one new activity that we're proposing for 2025 and it's small area fair market rents
that the council has read in the staff memo HUD is mandate HUD is mandating that we Implement fair market rents at the ZIP code level as opposed to the Historical Method of fair market rents being established at the county level with small area fmrs some inexpensive areas in the county much of which is in the city of San Jose would see rent subsidies decrease and more expensive areas would see rent subsidies increase the concept driving HUD is to provide financial assistance in the form of high
er Section 8 payments so families can choose to move to parts of the county that have been designated as high opportunity areas and correspondingly have higher highs have higher housing costs HUD is not proposing to provide additional funds uh to pay for these uh small area fmr increases um they believe that the program will be Revenue neutral by decreasing section 8ay payments to families in lower cost areas thereby keeping the requirement of adopting small area fmrs as Revenue neutral we know
that doesn't quite make sense we think that this could have serious impact on existing families in the low housing cost areas particularly for many of the families living in the city of San Jose so our move to work activity is to hold harmless those households and less expensive uh areas uh we want to hold them harmless from the unintended consequences of adopting small area fmrs as small area fmrs can be quite technical I'd be happy to answer questions you might have I do appreciate that a few
of you have reached out to us and we've met with you over the last few days to so you can learn a little bit more about small area fmrs I want to say I'm always happy for us to meet with you oneon-one and with that I want to thank you for considering the approval of the 2025 move to work plan thank you great thank you Preston and uh there may be some follow-up questions I appreciate that initial context let's go to public comment first if we have any CL hi Blair beakman Thank you a lot for this
item uh thank you for talking about fiscal year 2025 issues here um at this time uh I'm interested in how um this informative words uh thank you in the presentation I'm interested uh in in talking about working uh with zip code ideas uh by the year 2029 it's it's my understanding that mixed income ideas of housing have to be kind of more mandated here in California and we have to be practicing them more openly and clearly and um I I always have been a big proponent here that if we start talking
about those issues now of Cooperative housing uh Cooperative building in the future of our neighborhoods a more Cooperative process um it gets ourselves prepared in what to think about and expect and understand and uh what I think is a really interesting hopeful future and it does involve cooperation and patience and you know we have to start talking about it more at some point and and when we do I think it can give us a an array of important more uh flexibility in choices and how to build and h
ow to think of housing that can uh work for more people and and more people living together in areas and that can house more people and um I I I hope we can learn how to make a good start with that and and start talking about those things before the Mandate process I get the sense you guys don't want to talk about this till 2026 or 27 Why not start talking about it now and and and the ideas of working towards a holistic housing future that's that's really important to me too in learning about um
you know good holistic practices um Good Luck how you can do that prop one is an example recently pass let's stay on topic please okay I can make some brilliant uh comments but we'll we'll we'll set them aside for now thank you very much thank you back to council thank you Tony okay turning back to colleagues Council M dwan thank you mayor I foresee that this program will disportionately affect the lowincome resident in District 5 and district 7 especially when when more funding or funnel towar
d the highest rent area like pal Alto Sunnyvale copertino and My worry is that our lowincome residents already suffer as it is and every single dollar is that taken away from them to to move it to other area will will affect their lives I want to make sure that we ensure that the our igr team work diligently with the federal legislature um including congressman and senator for the next two cycle with HUD uh HUD cycle just to ensure that we're not going to this program is not going to reduce enou
gh income where it's going to displace a low income resident and possibly cause them to become unhoused residents and so I I just want to make it clear that the residents in D5 and D7 they already on the low income or extremely low income every single dollar that taken away from them of affects their family and how they live in D7 so therefore I I move for approval of the staff memorandum but also I want to direct our igr team to work with our federal elected official to ensure that a lowest inc
ome resident voucher are not reduced to ensure that they are not displaced or made homeless great um thank you for the motion including staff wre let me just turn to Lee any clarifying questions on the the second item actually uh two things if I can ask Zane to come down and bail me out um but also ask council member danan to clarify the motion so um obviously work um with Congress as well as HUD administrators but we're trying to make sure that this program still targets our most vulnerable res
idents is that what you're asking yes I'm asking so that way if you work with legislature and HUD to not reduce their voucher especially in residents who are in District five and seven okay uh what I think is a lot of that is covered under our existing legislative guidelines I would imagine especially around some of our housing and affordable housing so what I would suggest uh council memb is maybe we're supposed to come back the third or fourth week of April with our spring igr report and maybe
we include a few paragraphs of what that work looks like and a special call out because I think the council's already actually given us um kind of that leverage and flexibility and focus around some of those um desired outcomes I look forward to that and Council just just to clarify second I think we already have a second thank yeah councilor ratra seconded um just to make sure I'm clear that sounds like a good solution what I heard is the concern I just want to clarify if this is where you're
going with this is that the strategy around helping residents get to higher resource higher opportunity neighborhoods given the very high cost of living here could may not I think it needs further analysis be the best tradeoff overall because was the dollar value of helping one family afford the rent in paloalto for example just to use an example that may or may not be relevant here would um would be dollars that could help two or three families stay housed in district 7 for so the question is o
ne of tradeoffs I think is that I'm seeing everyone's head nod so I think we're on the same page about what we want to further explore and understand if there if it's if we should be doing some federal advocacy around is that correct thank you for that clarification yes okay yeah I think it's a very good question okay we've got the motion uh thank you councilor dwan councilor Bacher yes so when I reviewed the plan with the Santa Clara County uh Nathan uh my concerns were exactly the same that th
is was supposed to be obviously an improvement that's what they had is trying to do but it's likely to have an unended consequences because it's supposed to be budget neutral so taking money from one um District or one ZIP code to the other one so it increases or keeps the same cost but reduces the number of people who are going to be able to benefit and what we need to be looking at is the ways to increase the number of people we can help because the the numbers were 20,00 th000 people get help
ed by heart and there are about 100,000 more in Santa Clara County waiting to be helped so we cannot afford so I think we need to take the HUD did not take feedback from the people in this case who were of impacted and hence they may have looked at some other areas where it is suitable and may have missed an opportunity here so we need to take it back to HUD the feedback and work with them and use all of our government contacts to be able to improve the plan which is what their intention is and
not have this unintended consequences which are likely to come so that's why I support the move to get this further okay thank you great thank you Council Council Cohen just one want to add it is not only District five and seven because in District 10 you can look at my V half area would fall exactly in the same analogy as the district five and so it's a broadly Santa Clara County issue not just District Five or S yeah yeah absolutely uh counc M uh yeah just I don't to ask a clarifying question
um about the the overall resources the resources po stays the same and it's just a question of allocation in order to be able to provide resources to people to give them the option which I think is valuable of being able to have mobility and move into other parts of the county where they might not have otherwise been able to move um we've we've reduced the potential payout for people by as much as $500 a month in some of the lower rent areas um so I so on the igr question I mean I I fully suppor
t pursuing this but I think the real point is if we have the sub if we could get a supplement from the federal government to cover that $500 Gap so that people would not have to lose that 500 I think that's the real point because I actually think there's value in allowing people to have more mobility throughout the county and offer them the rental assistance for those areas but without affecting people in the areas where where they'd see a cut and so I think to provide that direction I assume th
at that's kind of in the spirit of the motion but I wanted to just add that to the conversation and I'm I do support the motion yeah good good point I agree with that presid I have a couple quick questions for you if you don't mind coming back down um I think even to that point Point council member con would be interesting to know the tradeoff of number of families we can help um just stay housed in San Jose and in lower income census tracks for example so I think it's interesting tradeoff to an
alyze Preston thanks for coming back down couple quick questions I was glad to see on page 22 of the plan the discussion of interim housing is an important part of the the overall system and the report notes predicting helping about um 36 60 households to be served are are any of those households that would be served at um interim housing sites that we've obviously made a big investment in this strategy as have other cities would any of those be in San Jose yes so uh we are having convers well o
ne you'll see a presentation on Thursday where we'll talk a little bit more about this but uh we are having conversations with City and uh County staff about how do we partner become a a partner within the overall inm Housing Programs uh I think the we're looking at modifying a contract we currently have with the county around interim housing that would then expand into interim housing opportunities or interim housing places in the city of San Jose okay so yes and the 360 though is that is that
just at uh Pedro Street in which is operated by the county or does that include sites in the city of San Jose that's a growth of sites into to the city of San Jose operated by that includes growth yes okay um and then as you look as we continue this conversation between Housing Authority County and City and look to be flexible and support other interim housing sites I would recommend that we not only look at the converted motels hotels like Pacific Motor in but also look at some of our um the th
e quick build eihs from our perspective they're both very valuable we have some dollars from the state to operate Pacific Motor in that we do not have for our other forms of interim housing and so I think from a budget standpoint we'd appreciate broadening that conversation to any of our interim units and just want to know if you would have any concerns about looking more broadly uh I I have concerns about it being called Section 8 uh because Section 8 has a number of rules that I think do not w
ork with the interim housing uh but if we call it local non-traditional which is one of the move to work strategies then yes we are exploring ways that we can provide some of those operating assistance uh to the city so we uh want to be at table you call it whatever you want Preston as long as you're going to help us operate them that's great right uh and of course we want it to like be in conformance with the community plant and homelessness that matches up with you know use of coordinated entr
y all of the things but it's yeah I think we all agree about that a creative way for us to be stepping in and being a partner with the city and county on a very important component of the Continuum yes yeah I know we'd certainly appreciate that thank you okay okay I think that's it I'm not seeing any other hands we have a motion to approve the staff recre with the um additional recommendation around exploring igr related to the maximum impact of the dollars uh Tony let's vote motion passes unani
mously great thank you okay uh we're back to our regular agenda we'll go on to item 3.1 report of the city manager thank you mayor I do have a quick report today I'm very pleased to share that the city of San Jose was awarded 3.7 million through Community Project funding requests or was otherwise known as earmarks from the federal government this funding furthers the city council's Focus areas of increasing Community safety reducing and sheltered home homelessness and cleaning up our neighborhoo
ds I would like to thank Congressman Jimmy Panetta for his assistance in securing a total of 2.35 million for the city of San Jose including 1 million for the rof Ferrari emergency interim housing Expansion Project 850,000 for the Lake Cunningham Park re revitalization project and 500,000 for the Blossom Hill senior affordable housing development project additionally Congressman Ro Kana secured 850,000 for the Jackson Avenue safety Improvement project and congresswoman Anna ESU for securing 500,
000 for the Monterey Ro Corridor safety and Transit Improvement project these earmarks are a result of Engagement with our members of Congress and I'd like to thank our Departments of Transportation parks recreation Neighborhood Services housing as well as the city manager's office Administration policy and inter-government relations and the mayor and council member candelis for their advocacy support thank you awesome thanks Jennifer that is definitely good news for our community thank you to o
ur Congressional Delegation for looking out for San Jose we are on to item 3.3 which is the status of open audit recommendations and Joe I know you have a presentation feel free to jump in whenever you're ready good afternoon joeoy City otor I'm here with Brittney Harvey from our office to present our report on the status of open audit recommendations as of December 31st 2023 the San Jose City Charter prescribes the duties of the city Otter's office including conducting city council assigned per
formance audits of City servicer program to determine whether resources are being used in an economical effective and efficient manner established objectives are being met and desired results are being achieved at the core of our work is conducting performance audits which include recommendations to correct efficiency strength and accountability and improve the efficiency Effectiveness and Equity of City programs over the past 10 years our office has made 669 Auto recommendations covering many a
spects of the city operations including public facing services such as those provide by the police department parks recreation Neighborhood Services planning building code enforcement and other departments we all conducted many audits related to support services proved by the finance department Public Works the information technology department and others we monitor progress toward implementing recommendations from past performance Audits and provide regular reports on the status of these recomm
endations and this report provides the most recent status update this report shows the progress on 191 Auto Rec recomendations 26 of which were from audits issued or accepted by the city council between July 1st and December 31st of 2023 since our last update 39 Auto recommendations were implemented or closed and currently another 112 have been partly implemented by departments as I noted earlier over the past 10 years our office has made 669 Auto recommendations of those recommendations 79% hav
e been implemented or closed and 64% made in the past 5 years have been imp implemented or closed to give a sense of the breadth of the work that's been done uh to implement recommendations in the past 6 months we just wanted to highlight a few the city finalized an agreement for tow administrator administrator services with an outside vendor for City generated toes the terms of the agreement address multiple recommendations from our 2018 audit of towing services including an escalating penalty
structure for contractors not completing toes requirements around Service delivery recordkeeping and other aspects of the program the city manager's office along with the city attorney's office and the office employer relations finalized a new open government policy within the city policy manual that creates more transparency around the city's Consolidated open government and ethics Provisions that was from our audit of open government in 2017 the police department reports taking steps to allow
trained call takers to focus on emergency and non-emergency calls in the Communication Center by Distributing a report taking responsibilities to officers on modified duty retire rehires and in part-time employees were possible that was a recommendation from our audit of 911 311 back in 2019 finance department worked with an outside vendor and online payment processor to allow utility customers to receive electronic billing statements online that came from an A mun water billing customer service
audit and lastly pbce or planning billing code enforcement implemented multiple recommendations from our 2022 audit of the squl review process including developing procedures that address communication with with stakeholders and expectations of different parties within the process and setting Baseline project review targets by type of project there are 152 recommendations still pending 112 of which are partly implemented as a as I said earlier as shown here in our online dashboard we classify r
ecommendations by intended outcome the intent of some recommendations is to improve transparency and accountability an example from a recent audit relates to revising updating performance measures in the housing department and audit we completed last fall we also have many recommendations designed to improve operational efficiency and overall Service delivery between July 1st and December 31st of last year we released audits of the Integrated Waste Management enforcement program an interim repor
t on the office of Retirement Services administrative policies and procedures and an audit of the residential building permit process we had multiple recommendations in those areas or in those audits to improve Service delivery and operational efficiency many of our recommendations are risk-based and are aimed at securing City assets examples here from past audits include updating the city's pecard policy better inventorying of assets City assets that is and similar types of recommendations last
ly some recommendations are intended to address Equity concerns an example from the residential building permit audit was for planning building code enforcement to take steps to address language accessibility by including additional translation options for SJ permit.org and its phone lines as well as developing a process to identify and prioritize vital documents for translation in accordance with the city's language Equity policy and guidelines in 2018 the city council direct the city manager t
o identify and prioritize work on 12 outstanding audit recommendations while continuing to make progress on addressing and working with the city auditor to close out other open audit recommendations I'll quickly run through the current 12 priority recommendations the three in the area of potential budgetary savings include improving overtime controls in the police department identifying uses and developing procedures for spending inlo fees for tree plantings and adding community service officers
to address lower priority police calls the three recommendation priorities in the area of operational efficiency include developing city-wide contract management management policies eliminating the construction and demolition diversion deposit and adopting City policies and procedures by Retirement Services progress has been made on each of these to varying degrees I do want to point out that one of these was fully implemented as noted in the slide the city manager's office in coordination with
the city attorney's office finalized a contract creation Administration and management Reser resource guide for use by City staff that covers various elements of contract monitoring and management the three priority recommendations in the area of Citywide Security risk mitigation include revising the city's pecard policy or procurement card policy developing city-wide administrative guidelines or procedures for managing federal grants and fully documenting covid related procurements for of food
distribution contracts and lastly the three priorities in the area of improved Service delivery include improving governance around Information Technology systems clarifying massage program roles and responsibilities between the police department and code enforcement and procuring a software solution and provide sufficient supervisory staff to support wage compliance review similar to The Pri prior slide these recommendations are in varying stages of implementation the out of Information Techno
logy noted in the slide had five recommendations around the governance of the city's Information Technology environment one of the recommendations was implemented in a prior reporting period and the remaining four were implemented during this reporting period more information about all open auto recommendations is available in the appendices of the report as well as in our online dashboard a screenshot of which you can see in the slide with that I'd like to thank all the city departments for the
ir efforts to implement Auto recommendations and for their assistance in compiling this report I'd also like to thank my staff for working with the Departments to document and verify the information in the report happy to answer any questions and ask you accept the report thank you great thank you Joe appreciate the update on open audit recommendations Tony do we have any public comment yes for 3.3 Blair I just couldn't find the card hi where bman it's good to be back um as as a person of the pu
blic uh it would have been nice to speak on uh Lake Cunningham issues from the city manager report hopefully the public can be involved in the city's manager report in the future uh hope we can work on that together hopefully uh for um this item uh thank you for it uh the city Auditors report yearly report and monthly reports is always a time that it's just got a ton of City projects in it and it gives uh community and yourselves just a lot of time to talk about issues within it um for myself uh
uh you have police staffing issues that have been really studied a lot and um you had your budget meeting uh a few weeks ago uh big public turnout on a lot of issues that uh included as as City Elders want to talk about uh the importance of of more policing Staffing more police and administration you know Community is really considering the concept of uh what can be mental health addressing of community issues and how to police and I hope that can be taken seriously and um really looked into an
d it could be time to really uh work towards those good goals and if if not this year it's it it will be coming around the corner and uh I I think it's creative and and hopeful and I think we're interested in it I hope we can learn how to talk more openly about it uh we we only may have uh you know at most 10 to uh new Patrol officers and and 50 Administration I that's my guess good luck um to really explore you know other uh ways of feature of community and policing and with that said um to als
o finally note uh as we uh honored Caesar Chavez and his work as uh towards towards nonviolence and peace good luck how we can do that here on our auditing Department I have 5 Seconds uh good luck how we can do that in our auditing department and our mute okay are we back to council thank you okay uh Council dwan you're up first thank you mayor thank you Joe and your team for you know doing a great work at auditing which help the efficiency of our city and provide better customer service one of
the item that I like to address is I I commend the effort that clarifying the massage program roles and responsibilities between the police department and code enforcement anything that we can do to streamline and crack down on the illicit illegal activity which have a huge effect of our on our community especially some of these massage parlors are front for human trafficking and prostitution and I you know I I ran out I ran across a constituent that reported a situation regarding human traffick
ing and and prostitution and I immediately you know had a conversation with Chief Ma um so we can take action and look into it and unfortunately district 7 especially on too there's from coffee shop to massage parlor to um as a front to to a lot of these illegal activity and and I hope a city as a whole um we put a lot of emphasize on stopping these illegal activity which not only talking about human trafficking sex trafficking uh wage theft um and oppression to Crime to drug and illegal gamblin
g in a lot of these places and I just want to say thank you for that and I just want to move takes up your uh report okay thank you councelor dwan councelor fley thank you thank you Joe and your team for always having uh really uh informative audit report and your pragmatic approach to what we see and what we should be doing and how we can improve the city city processes but I have a couple of questions in in looking at the the open audit there are a few things that have been open for a long tim
e years 10 plus years um one in particular is uh okay 10 I lied seven and a half years it's the construction and demolition diversion that was delayed for March 2017 there's another one um related to the software solutions for office of equality assurance that was initially delayed from 2018 and then the the longest one has to do with the procurement the PE cards as we call them it the precur cards that was scheduled for 2011 that all supposedly have Target dates in June 2024 so I'm a little con
cerned about the length of delays and then these numbers these dates that say these things are going to be complet completed how comfortable are you or maybe I should speak to the staff who's responsible for making sure they come to compliance how comfortable are you they're going to meet those time frames because these are long delays that must be costing us liability and money so and that's just three yeah thank you for the question so each one has a different story about it I I I'll work back
wards from the ones just giving it example so the procurement card policy we initially did an audit back in 2010 I believe it had a series of recommendations with that one we we added it to our work plan on a on a recurring basis and unfortunately what happened with the finance department is by the time they got done with the first set of recommendations we did another pecard policy and added some more recommendations and it kind of followed that cycle and things kind of got by backed up and thi
s is one that I'm comfortable with the current date that for June 2024 because I we've seen the most updated versions of it and um uh we think they're almost there council member FY it's on it's on my desk okay good so so this will not appear on your report next it will it will appear on report as completed and there's about eight or nine recommendations all related to it uh the construction demolition diversion piece uh spend spent a little bit of time uh a couple bodies of work were going on t
rying to in my understanding from looking backwards in the history is there was two pieces one was reaching out to uh people who had a deposit on uh to to see who could who needed to get a refund and then trying to figure out how that work would roll into a different into other bodies of work and so the current status and this is one that the administration asked us to put as a priority because it was on their are the list to try to get done in a in a in a short within the next whatever number o
f months uh and they're going to roll it into kind of a how they're going to be implementing some Cal green uh program work um and and I think so I'm comfortable with that one the the procurement of the software solution that one there was a few different pieces to that that that recommendation I think it was Parts a through C and parts um there's only one piece of it that's remaining and it was they they went through a couple different cycles of different software solutions they were looking at
so those are just three and that it sometimes it just takes a little time and there's a matter of prioritization so each one has its own little story and I and I hopefully I didn't Mis represent that story to the Departments out there but those are my memories uh thank you I I really appreciate that and I I highlight those because first of all you're you're reporting to us that they're still open or a portion of them is still open and I appreciate getting the report to see what is still availab
le and some of these may have High um uh dollars that could be refunded to us or that we expending in uh an inefficient system so as soon as we correct it or modify it we can save money and when we're talking about a structural deficit that's that's really important so I appreciate the explanation and and thank you for that and uh I look forward to always seeing these open auto reports and seeing the ones that have been completed and I know you do a lot of audits so every time you do an audit mo
re things get added to this and things come off the list so um we depend on you and your team to come forward with these audits that are really helpful in analyzing the organization and making sure that we're spending our tax dollars wisely efficiently and effectively for the benefit of our residents and our employees so I thank you for the work that you do and for this report and that's all my questions thank you thanks council member Jennifer yeah I would um thank you council member Foley I ju
st want to add that I really appreciate the Departments who've really St asked them all to step up and really concentrate on the closing out of the audit uh recommendations and Joe knows that it's I I really value the check and balance approach that we have and uh They Are all uh really doing their good work on this and that's why you're seeing the Improvement in the the closing of the recommendation so thanks to all the senior staff and and their staff in within the Departments thanks Jennifer
councilor Herz yeah thank you my question was around sort of the same theme I noticed that some were you know delayed um and I'm curious I guess a question I have for you Joe sort of jokingly is do do you know the ins and outs of each one of these outstanding recommendations it's amazing to me that you can respond and I'm I have a question about one so I'm hoping you do but how how do you how do you manage the the sort of volume of information well we the way we work in in the office is we divid
e it up within the office to all the different Auditors who take on a a body of them part of my memory is that I have been in the office for 15 years and so I've touched all of these in some respects um my memory is um of them is is the the best within our office but I I also don't have the same depth of knowledge that this the off the staff in the Department's House are there any audit recommendations that have outlived you and have been around longer than you've been in the office there was on
e that I inherited in 2019 that went back to 2000 but we closed that one up okay well good I'm glad I'm glad so but I had one specific question so to because it seems like you you have a sensus to what's gone what the issues have been as it relates spe specific audits recommendations there was one I had a question about it's the one it's on page four potential budgetary savings Revenue generation it's the one adding community service officers to address lower priority calls and then uh at the en
d it says finally the department plans develop guidelines to distribute more csos more equitably across the city was recommended in the audit Target originally was um well the the target date is March 2025 but the it was delayed from June 2023 and I'm curious if you can speak to that one because that one's comes to I can speak to the the broad recommendation I can't speak specifically to the the lay piece of it so the the recommendation really was there was there was two recommendations was from
our police Staffing audit from 2021 and let just let give me one and I think there's someone coming down at yeah so the the recommendation are really two pieces one is looking at kind of the the calls that are uh available for that csos could be responding to and the other one was uh making sure that those calls that uh they are allowed to be uh um that they're being dispatched as appropriate to those calls so there was kind of two different pieces to it I think that that's the best way to desc
ribe it okay and then if you have anything to add that'd be great uh because I think I suspect I'm not the only one up here that had a question about it thank you council member uh Brian shab deputy chief with the police department thank you for the question um absolutely we are working on on that recommendation actively right now um we are hopefully we'll have uh an a report done a recommendation at the end of the year to look at expanding the duties of the csos that's obviously a meet and conf
er issue with both both unions both the POA and MEF uh but we are looking at that actively uh we hope to have that done by the by the end of the year both that as well as the the 911 audit report kind of touches on that as well um with with regard to recruiting for csos we're actively recruiting with csos um I can give you the numbers if if You' like in terms of how many we have right now we have 67 authorized csos on top of that six senior csos that work in the field with them and one supervisi
ng CSO of those 67 59 are currently filled um five of the seniors are currently filled um the supervisor position um he is due to retire next month so that will be vacant next month um so of those eight vacancies um for the Cs those we're actively recruiting uh we had uh hiring boards today as a matter of fact um and we're looking at uh seven applicants in the process right now so we hope to get some of those filled very quickly all right perfect and this by the way just you know this this recom
mendation or this audit sort of finding stood out to me just given that we I think we all acknowledge we don't have enough officers and CFOs play a very critical role to fill in some of those gaps and I know the officers really value them and some of the work that they do to freeze them up to actually go solve these crimes and suchu so thank you I appreciate it that's all I have if I could add really quick just going back to council M Foley's question that's another you know why does something g
et delayed if there's anything related to meet and confer or or some of these other processes it could be an RFB so some of those things kind of can delay uh uh implementation as well and deputy chief if you don't mind one more question council member you were done I I also wanted to ask about csos and council member Jimenez more or less covered my question but I I was wondering and we can follow up at a later time if you don't have this handy how are we doing in terms of just the recruitment si
de specifically I'm just curious to hear when we Havey each year how many slots do we have for csos versus how many are filled do we know how's the wash out rate I'm just curious about specifically are we able to attract and train and retain those candidates yeah recruiting is is ongoing every year for our vacancies like I said we have we currently have eight vacancies but we just did uh hiring boards today for with seven prospective applicants um but there's a whole another hiring pool that we
try to draw from so as we put uh police recruits through the academy and through the training program sometimes it becomes apparent that that that job specifically may not be for them so we'll look to try and focus them into the CSO role afterwards and conversely sometimes we'll try and draw from the CSO pool to build up prospective recruits so it's that pipeline tends to go both way ways um and so I'd say that the recruiting is ongoing um and and we're we're pretty close to being fully staffed
with the CSO program yeah okay thank you appreciate that thanks for highlighting that council member minutes all right I don't see any other hands and I believe did we have a motion to approve we did didn't we okay great Tony let's vote moot motion passes unanimously thank you all right I know we have a lot of a number of folks here for 8.2 we did agendize it for 3 pm so if we I think we can probably do 6.1 fairly quickly and then we'll move to uh item 8.2 so let's go to item 6.1 and there's I'm
sorry there is no staff presentation thank you Jennifer let's go to public comment Blair a move approval while Blair makes his way up here all right very sorry um in being from San Diego they working on uh Bond ideas for the future of uh environmental projects the sewer and waste system uh water system uh funding from federal agencies at this time has been a lot of help to California cities um to ask yourselves will will there need to be a future of bond measures for San Jose about climate chan
ge issues um I don't know if this sort of item is a time it seems relevant and appropriate this is a specific application if you have any comments on that understood but I I feel there was a certain relevance to mention that at this time uh thank you thank you back to the council thank you okay Council marbra and just to clarify I had a motion from councelor Jimenez second by Foley I believe okay go ahead council member I want to make comment about when this item came in front of the uh Communit
y Economic Development thing we made sure that there was a local preference to this one I think let me just make sure that we are on the right mayor are we on 8.2 we're on item 6.1 did you didn't move it to the 8.2 no I noted that it's agendized for 3 p.m. so we're going to just take up 6.1 now and then we'll move on okay I do not want to make any comments on this one so I take my hand down okay great I don't see any other hands Tony let's vote I'm still waiting on one there we go Motion passes
unanimously okay we still have a few minutes I I suspect the other outstanding items will take a bit of time I think we'll have discussion looks like there are staff presentations [Music] Nora how do you feel about starting or should we take a five minute recess should we is there a there's time certain minut we'll take a 5 minute recess [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music] we are coming back and we're on to item 8.2 anti-displacement tenant preference and neighborhood tenant preference for a full housing draft program status report it's a mouthful um just before the staff presentation due to the very high volume of speaker request cards which is a beautiful thing we are going to limit public comment to one minute per speaker we'll do that for the rest of the meeting we have to also get to a couple of other important items this evening but u
h let me turn to staff for the presentation Kristen or sorry Rachel whoever is kicking off apologies thank you uh Rachel vanderin assistant director of the housing department and we're very pleased to be here this afternoon with all of you and from the community and the mayor and Council so today we are here to present to you an anti-displacement tenant preference and neighborhood tenant preference um and I just want to say that this is just a really important policy for our community for our wo
rk for all of the investment that is made Citywide in affordable housing and so we're just very pleased to be here today this is an item that has was really born out of our anti-displacement um strategy and so again we're just proud to be here today I'm joined by Kristen Clemens our division manager of our policy group and Chris Alexander who has been an a very key partner in the attorney's office who has done an immense amount of work in in um crafting this for you today so with that I'll turn
it over to Kristen thank you Rachel and good afternoon mayor and city council I also want to thank first our retiring City attorney partner who started this work with me way back when Shasta green who has um so knowledgeable we're going to miss her presence so much at the city so I wanted to give her attribution today I'm we're here to present the proposed program for tenant preferences to help mitigate displacement we wanted to note this is a program specifically for restricted affordable housi
ng properties thanks we've been working on developing this program for quite a while Council voted to make this a priority in 2017 and staff started work on it in 2018 um staff also joined with three community- based organizations to join a national Learning Network um sponsored by policy link about displacement and how we could help fight it this work led to the community strategy report that's pictured in the lower left and ten of preferences were identified in that report as a priority for th
e community this was especially true as we saw the lease up of kettle Gardens which is the green property in the upper right it's a beautiful property sponsored by um rcd a nonprofit developer in the East Bay rcd worked really collaborative with Community stakeholders in the Mayfair neighborhood to get residents ready to apply to the property once it opened up and unfortunately it became the poster child for why we need a program like this um the project got 3,000 applications for 42 affordable
units available to the general public so there more than 70 to one demand and that was despite all of the efforts to help the local residents get in unfortunately 350 people applied from Mayfair but zero got in on the first lease up so this shows the need for us to think about a new approach to supporting San Jose's vulnerable residents to access affordable housing as Rachel noted also this work has been brought into the housing element it's strategy s20 and it's been informed by other cities pr
eferences including San Francisco's Oakland's and Berkeley and it is structured to be consistent with state and federal fair housing law we have several goals for doing this work we want to help prevent displacement of lower income renters from our city and increase the likelihood that they are able to stay here in San Jose so they can enjoy the benefits of the Investments as our community grows we want to make the best use of The Limited affordable housing stock that we have that we have put mo
ney into and we of course want to increase fair housing choices for our current residents um we're hoping that you know greater access to affordable housing can help relieve some overcrowding in our community and help lower income residents access rents that are a better fit for their incomes this is in the public interest to keep uh residents existing community-based safety nets while they are having their housing stabilized I'll just also note that this program enables us to affirmatively furt
her fair housing because it addresses displacement and affordable housing needs in the community and it advances fair housing choices for our lower income renters we wanted to include some data that reminds us that displacement risk due to high housing costs is not racially neutral it disproportionately affects Hispanic and black renters in San Jose this slide shows San Jose Census Data from 2016 to 2020 in a way that HUD pulls it specially the orange bars show the percent of renters from each r
acial group that experience cost burden or pay for more than spend more than 30% of their income on rent and the blue bar show severe housing cost burden for those paying more than 50% of their income for rent when you look at the Hispanic bars on the first set on the left you can see that a total of 50 3% of our Hispanic renters are either rent burdened or C or severely rent burdened and then the black non-hispanic bars the fourth one in from the left you they total 54% being rent burdened or s
everely rent burdened when you look at the last set to the right the Citywide all Races Citywide 46% of all renters are rent burdened or severely rent burdened which is a scary statistic and um but you could see that those two other groups are disproportionately high to the Citywide average and if this chart had room to disaggregate the Asian-American bars you'd also see that the Southeast Asian Community is comparable to the Black and Hispanic um numbers with uh with disproportionate burden thi
s data reminds us it's important for the city to help mitigate risks of displacement for lower income renters in order to promote greater racial equity in our city to create lawful tenant preferences to help mitigate displacement these are the steps we've taken first the city spons co-sponsored Senate Bill 649 at the state legislature which was signed by the governor in 2022 and took effect January 1st last year we sponsored this new law to recognize residents who were at risk of displacement as
a specific population um when you recognize the population like this it enables affordable housing properties that use bonds or tax credits for financing to to um implement this type of housing preferences so I wanted to thank um our attorney Chris for helping draft the legislation and also acknowledge the C pu Collective and the housing Action Coalition the Bill's other two co-sponsors staff created extensive quantitative analysis called dis disperate impact analysis using models that were des
igned by San Francisco and also used by the city of Oakland the purpose of the analysis is to ensure the preferences were designed to be consistent with fair housing laws and to make sure they don't unintentionally cause a disperate impact to any groups based on their protected status when we say protected classes we're referring to groups protected under federal and state fair housing laws our analysis revealed that the program as it's as it is designed is consistent with fair housing law staff
will periodically update its analysis to make sure the program is administered correctly and remains consistent with fair housing law and in addition we realized that we needed a technology solution to help implement this program um because data basing eligibility based on census track data um does not not match applicants addresses and so we needed a system to help us match those two things and make it easier for everyone to use the preferences so we worked with our consultant exog that create
d San Jose's affordable housing portal called Doorway to create a geolocation feature that does this matching between address and census track of course we need the city council's approval to run this program and and if approved we are going to seek State approval from the state Housing and Community Development Department um for their approval as a lender so that the these um these preferences can be implemented in state funded affordable housing along with funding from our own City that's okay
this diagram shows that the the first type of a of um eligibility criteria would be for residents and high displacement census tracts um this the first category of two would require 20% set aside um for residents that are prioritized as living in subject census tracts um the these tracks are colored from the urban displacement project um maps of San Jose that's out of the University of California Berkeley displacement risk here means that a census tract has characteristics according to the um t
he UDP model that are strongly correlated with greater low-income population loss than gain so in other words more or lower income households are leaving these areas than are moving in over time the census tracks in Orange are identified as definitively experiencing displacement of extremely low and and very low-income hous households the tracts in red are identified as a definitively experiencing displacement of extremely low very low and lower income households the pink areas are where people
are likely being displaced the urban displacement project says their data is a conservative estimate of low income loss and it's the residents living in these areas that we want to prioritize if they choose to apply as this diagram shows to affordable housing properties anywhere in the city for properties that are subject to the preferences next slide this is an inw what I just described for folks that are living in these high displacement census tracks uh we we would be asking 20% of um of unit
s set aside for applicants from these areas that are lower income and the goal here is to increase housing choices for lower inome residents who choose to seek housing near where they currently live or maybe in another neighborhood somewhere else in the city next Slide the second eligibility criteria for the preference program is for residents living in the same neighborhoods as a given affordable housing property excuse me we're defining neighborhood here to be a city council District we tested
different um geographies and proximities to our affordable housing pipeline but Council District was the only one that passed disperate impact analysis in all 10 council districts so this defines 15% of affordable apartments would be set aside for folks living in the same council districts and this is responding to the many voices in the community that said they strongly wish to remain in their current neighborhoods near friends and family while they stabilize their housing next slide here's a
diagram of all the things that folks would be able to keep in place um for their social networks their education for their children um their friends and family their daycare Arrangements if F if they were able to stay close to home where they live now um for applicability to properties there would be several that would be subject first we would be um applying to any City funded affordable housing project and this includes both new construction but also acquisition and Rehab we coordinate with pr
operty owners to apply the preferences to all projects that are in process as of the effective date of the resolution which is upon the city council's approval and preferences will also apply to existing City funded affordable properties in our portfolio if those properties come back to us on a deal-by-deal basis and ask for terms of the city loan to be altered and their documents can get updated at that point they would also apply to anything with a city negotiated development agreement and not
e that um because senior housing seniors is such a large population they would apply to senior housing but it does not apply to any other affordable units that house special needs populations it is just for those otherwise available to the general public we estimate that approximately 415 Apartments could be set aside for preferenced applicants in the next one to two years this is a visual of how the preference um components would work together if the blue circle is one affordable housing proper
ty 35% in aggregate would be set aside that's comprised of 15% for those living in the same Council district and 20 for those in high displacement areas note that we're also re requiring the set aside to have a what we call a commensurate mix of apartment types as the rest of the property because we don't want for instance all Studios to be the ones the units that are set aside we've done quite a bit of Engagement of both implementing stakeholders and then the general public um over the years we
engaged affordable property managers and owners and tenants and the tenants stakeholders and Incorporated their feedback in the design we actually started doing Outreach for this in 2018 and 19 and then had to go back as data got um updated and to recreate the preferences while we were working on legislation but we had we had worked with SOS Mayfair and C pu Collective to attend um their meetings and to get feedback from residents as to what they would find important as we administer these pref
erences and then of of course more recently we conducted uh Outreach between summer 2023 and 2020 and January 2024 we had over 240 attendees at all of the formal meetings in the recent past some of them may have attended more than one meeting and we did revise the framework based on their feedback we wanted to knowe one important P piece of feedback was that the program allow applicants to provide alternative documentation for where they live their current address and their income because not ev
erybody has a signed um a signed lease agreement or a utility bill so we're going to create a list of acceptable alternative documentation for the program per property managers requests as well they'd like it written down for them and we're they're going to go into the administrative guidelines that will take to the public for comment we're also requiring that property managers advertise that they take these um alternative documents ations because that in and of itself removes a barrier because
folks may not want to apply if they think they could not get accepted so that's also important um I just wanted to note also we took this proposal can you go back to commission last year um the commissioner supported the proposal and also we worked we have been working um for the last couple of months to test the geolocation feature in the doorway port um and we're doing that work together with Berkeley and Oakland and ex our consultant um we also wanted to note just that doorway is accessible i
n four different our top four languages if people prefer to apply on the system or prefer to have paper applications doorway is um flexible and we think one of the good points of putting forward the tenant preferences is that it will um create another incentive for all Property Owners to list the properties in doorway way it is not so much that they need to do it except for the preferences it's really for the public and reducing barriers for them to access affordable housing so for next steps to
implement the program we would immediately start to phase in the preferences um for current and future affordable housing transactions we have the pipeline list already we'll create it administrative guidelines we'll seek public comment on that finalize loan document language that enables properties to implement it and feel safe about that we create training and tools for affordable housing properties and also for City internal staff who will integrate the preference into new transactions and t
hen we'll monitor compliance we'll be starting to engage and educate the community this spring and then in the summer and Beyond and we'd like to do that work together with Community Partners particularly in higher displacement census TRS and also in neighborhoods where forthcoming affordable properties are coming forward and finally we'll be seeking the state's approval of the program as a lender so that any deal with State funding in it can still be using can be authorized to use the preferenc
es and with that we're happy to answer any questions thank you great thank you Kristen I I want to thank the housing department and everyone on City staff who's worked really hard over quite a few years now as you outlined to bring this local tenant preference um to to fruition I think it's going to be a a very valuable tool in our efforts to combat displacement keep working families in San Jose keep some of our most vulnerable children here in their schools and their daycare centers and keep ou
r community intact keep communities together so I know it's taken a lot of work on staff's part to to navigate the various components of this for how to implement it I also want to thank senator coresi who helped pave the way in Sacramento without whom I don't think we'd be hearing this item right now so many Partners came together including a number of tremendous Community Partners to get this going um I look forward to the council discussion Let's uh go to public comment again we're going to h
ave to limit to one minute I know there's going to be a lot of enthusiasm and excitement which is great so that speak so that we can hear from everyone and hear from everyone equally and so that folks can here when Tony calls you down I want to just encourage everybody to Signal your support quietly you can make you know wave your hands or hold up your signs but we need to be able to hear from Tony so I just ask that people refrain from cheering and making a lot of noise thank you very much Tony
go ahead okay when I call your name please come on down um first person to the mic go ahead and speak it's no particular order um for everybody else there are seats in the front row um that you can sit on while you wait so I have latia um Miss rayan Mendoza Tony Romero Gabriel manrique Magdalena and Hector Hernandez go ahead good afternoon my name is Leticia escorcia and I'm here to ask for your um support for this uh policy because um I have family who has been uh displaced and I still have tw
o two kids at home that soon they will get um you know the the Wings To Go and I don't want to be on those uh statistics on the and risk of display so please your vote Yes to the um preference tenant preference and also um the if the if um there can be uh some um um something for the the owners the managements or the stakeholders to honor the the points on thise uh tenant preference please thank you thank you thank you next speaker okay hi everybody my name is Magdalena Duran I'm part of Vos act
ivos I'm here again to support the tenant preference policy for years we have been waiting for council members and our mayor to sign a policy that benefits our community signing this policy will help our community to stay in the neighborhood where they have been living for years uh also it will help the kids to stay in the place where they they have been raised but overall um um or people won't be uh with the fear to be displaced at any moment so but it wouldn't be possible without your support
so please sign out or POS or position petition sorry okay thank you thank you next speaker good afterno mayor city council my name is m mosa I'm the welcoming manager at Amigos gual Lupe Center for justice and empowerment uh it's an honor to be here today uh we are here today to urge the mayor and the city council to unanimous pass the policy uh that we asking today tenant preference will be a huge step for addressing displacement in a city and it will have a significant impact in the Mayfair ne
ighborhood in the east side of San Jose our community that we serve uh we need to use all our resources and to us to stop displacement in our communities this is a call for all of us to um commit to continue to learn how to be better stewards of the land they inhabit thank you for your attention thank you next speaker good afternoon council members my name is Tony Romero I am with Latinos United for new America I am here to support the attendance preference policy encourage the the council to ad
opt this policy San Jose residents have been advocating to prevent further displacement of our communities the San Jose City Council has opportunity to address the root causes of our housing crisis by approving the tenant preference policy today this policy will allow us to prevent the displacement of low-income renters increase access to affordable housing and improve housing stability and cost also I encourage you to include language that directs property managers to accept alternative documen
ts uh as part of the application process uh documents such as it number school records medical uh documents uh that way uh more of our community uh can apply uh uh for these uh opportunities I believe we all share a common goal to create stable communities by allowing some households to stay in their Community thank you next speaker good afternoon uh council members my name is Gabriel manrique I'm a community organizer with uh Luna I'm this I'm here this afternoon to speak in support of the appr
oval of the tenant preference policy our community is continuously advocating for affordable housing to prevent the displacement over Working Families especially people of color in advancing the tenant preference policy it will benefit the people that historically have been disempowered powered by your system the tenant presence policy is the first step the city can take to improve housing stability and affordability to prevent families from being uprooted from San Jose the city they call home a
dditionally include language that directs property managers to upset alternative documents as part of the application processes such as the it number school records medical documents tax returns etc for this reasons we urge council members to support the approval of the tenant preference policy thank you for your time thank you next speaker um and while he makes his way to the microphone I'd like to call the next five um these speakers have indicated they need interpretation I have Carla koyok N
orma Chavez um so Del Ral Lena Marcel and it looks like a start of the Z zentis Z mun zida zenida Munoz okay go ahead hi hi my good afternoon council members my name is Hector Hernandez I'm a community leader with Luna I'm here this afternoon in support of the approval of the tenant preference uh policy the lack of affordable housing is forcing the workingclass communities to be displaced from their homes uh with the approval of the tenant preference policy the city of San Jose will increase opp
ortunities for low-income households to stay in their neighborhoods by allocating units for those most in need in addition also include the language that directs property managers to to accept uh alternative documents such as uh application process such as ITN numbers uh school records medical documents tax returns Etc so please don't postpone the tenant uh tenant preference policy any longer and please approve it uh council members thank you thank you next speaker good afternoon my name is Carl
a and I am a vol volunteer with Luna today is the day that we want to hear AAS for the anti-is displacement tenant preference so that the tenants with low incomes can have access to affordable housing improving their way of life and making sure that they're not afraid of losing their home allowed to reserve a some part of the units in um and the developments of affordable housing so that residents don't have the need to get out of their neighborhoods in which they have lived for a long time we a
sk um a yes for the policy and um so that everybody has a h has housing he yes to the tenant um rights thank you thank you next speaker good afternoon members of the council my name is Sena Munos I'm a me um a member of Luna [Music] residents in San Jose have advocated strongly against um the anti-is the displacement of our communities the city council of San Jose now has the opportunity so that every uh tenant can um secure a home for their own family and decrease the crisis of housing that now
we are facing um approving today the tenant preference policy this policy will prevent the displacement of tenants of low income lowi income tenants let's stop PR um prolonging the housing crisis we want to hear a yes to the tenant preference policy thank you next speaker good afternoon Chavez my name is Norma Chavez and I am a member of os activos of Mayer okay I am here to uh humbly ask you to please approve the tenant preference policy so that our uh our children families and our um friends
are not displayed so easily aside from that our children are affected emotionally every time that we are displaced and we have to be changing from one Community to [Music] another and so today I'm asking you to please pass the policy that so that we have we can have a more dignified secure and emotionally stable um environment for our children please pass the policy thank you thank you next speaker good afternoon uh honorable mayor uh council members members of the community that are here togeth
er [Music] today my name is Alina Marcela Rodriguez Cordova and I am a member of Amigos the the Justice Center Justice and empowerment [Music] C residents in s have been advocating to stop more displacements in our community that is the importance of the um anti-displacement then and preference and that's the reason why I'm here to request uh for your vote my husband my son and I live in um sorry live in a in a place provided by The Amigos the Guadalupe so that we can um sorry so that we can hav
e while we have an opportunity to have affordable housing we live day today with uncertainty afraid that perhaps one day we will be displaced for due to the lack of support from our own government we need a yes for the preference of the anti-displacement uh ten for the anti-displacement tant preference um because yes we can gracias thank you thank you next speaker um I'd also like to call the next set of dza gonzale um Fernando Fernandez Abigail Hudson and Emily Anne Ramos go ahead what's your n
ame oh you have 8.2 written down so that's okay we we'll change her to 8.3 oh no you do have 8.3 sorry vution good afternoon mayor and members of the city council my name is soita Del I'm an Community organizer at V I'm coming here to um to ask for your support for the tenant preference policy because having housing security is a right my community and I need to V live with dignity and where we belong thank you vote Yes yes we can thank you next speaker um since I called a couple people who got
misfiled in 8.2 again that's dza Gonzalez Emily an Ros um sitali Martinez Mari Maria Teresa Munoz and esmeral deis go ahead go great uh Mr Mayor Madame vice mayor and members of the city council Emily an Ramos on behalf of SB at home and our members in strong support of the tenant preference policy it has been a long journey to get here with the community and we send a letter that goes into more detail on the history and the Outreach but here are some points I want to out uh highlight so this is
an Innovative policy that creates a direct connection between the city's investment in affordable housing production sustained Community stability and targeted anti-displacement efforts in neighborhoods where displacement risk are the greatest because these targeted tools work by leveraging affordable housing production the city must continue to invest in affordable housing development to maximize the efficacy of this ordinance we also want to support proactive and affirmative commitments to en
suring access Outreach and opportunity for community members applying to affordable housing so that this program can meet its full intent and potential we appreciate the acknowledgement of this in the memorandum submitted by council members Ortiz Torres candelis and Co Cohen um thank you so much to the housing department staff Council and the community for your leadership now let's do this CA thank you next speaker good afternoon mayor and City Council Members my name is daa Gonzalez I am the um
organizing and policy manager with SOS Meer a District 4 um resident but I was also a district P residents for 20 years and I had to move because there's not lwi income housing available in our communities during that transition I was also homeless for for whole three months not because I couldn't afford it but because I couldn't find anything today you have in your hands the opportunity to bring housing to families members like myself and hundreds are sitting right now with us you have the opp
ortunity to bring a safe housing for our children to be able to grow and the opportunity for people like me to be able to say San Jose is still my home and I'm proud of it so I'm going to urge you today to vote Yes on tenant preference to bring a little pathway for future thank you next speaker um esala vas with destination home um a tenant preference policy will help Advance housing equity in our community at a time when lowincome households are under serious stress and risk of displacement we
commend the council for advocating for critical Community priorities such as reserving 35% of affordable units for local residents we also applaud the easing AB burant on on renters with the direction that property managers accept alternative documents for applications all of which could be lifechanging for those most affected in our communities uh this policy serves to advance fair housing goals by addressing displacement particularly among bip households by taking decisive action today you ack
nowledge the profound impact housing stability has on a person's overall well-being Advanced fair housing goals and bring us one step closer to making San Jose a city where everyone has access to dignified thank you next [Music] speaker I'm also going to call a few Nam while we while she makes her way down I have um and the following speakers have requested interpretation vento mayoral um yenia Diaz Yolanda casus rosaro vivano and Aurora sis go ahead thank you good afternoon council members my n
ame is Norma sitali Martinez Chavez and I am a member of the east side San Jose Community um I have experienced firsthand the Injustice of our housing system I am wary of the persistent inequity in our community my peer leaders and I are committed to fighting for change until we see our policies reflect the needs of its residents the tenant preference policy will serve as the safety blanket for our most bable San Jose residents it is crucial that office officials were closely with local nonprofi
ts to identify steady funding sources to support the long-term implementation of tenant preference program we ask you to work with us not against us thank you thank you next speaker good good afternoon my name is yusa Diaz I am the leader of the grou migrator which is the migration Justice group Amigos gual and we have lived here for the past four years in District 3 uh I've lived here for with my three children with my four children and unfortunately with the High Cost of Living for the rents u
h and the low salaries I have to have two I have to work two jobs in order to give my children affordable housing uh since I'm a a single mother I have applied for many apartments for low income but I've never received any news for that in regards to that uh but now that various organizations have been uh requesting and for you to listen to us we ask that you please pass the policy for the affordable housing and please uh pass the policy and please uh use your heart when you're thinking about do
ing this for the affordable housing okay uh we ask that you please listen to us and please pass the policy for affordable housing and I ask you please to pass the policy C yes you can we hope that you please listen to us and you give us the support that all the community and all the all the organizations that I'm with ask thank you very much thank you next speaker good afternoon members of the council my name is vienta mayal I am a member ofos activos and Luna I am here to support uh the tenant
preference so we so we will not continue to be displaced we want to continue to live here where our children our grandchildren and our grandparents were born that we have a safe and secure place and stable where we do not have to be afraid or that any time that we may not be able to pay for our housing we want you to uh pass the tenant preference policy because since it is a necessity and the rents are too high thank you thank you we hope that uh we touch your hearts because that way you can hel
p everybody and the community so they no longer can be displace thank you thank you next [Music] speaker uh hello good afternoon I come on behalf of VOS activos uh yes and I come here for uh in support for the anti-displacement tele uh tenant preference [Music] [Music] policy I I live in a mobile par Park and I live in a place where there are six uh people that live there in one room [Music] only and uh elderly people that they are afraid as well because of the possible housing displacement uh w
here many of the things that we have to have they're in bad State the light fixtures the I mean sorry the light posts the water the gas [Music] services and just like me there are many people like like myself please help us thank you thank you next speaker [Music] Hol uh good afternoon everyone my name is Yol kasas I am a community leader of Amigos the Guadalupe uh I am here asking that you support today the anti-displacement since I am a person that's being affected by it s Jose I was displaced
from this city San Jose and this affects me very much so in regards to my work and [Music] financially uh I'm in Another Place Another City and from there I bring my children to school and I would like that for today you say yes to no displacement please uh thank you thank you for your support and yes you can thank you next speaker I'd also like to call down Oscar I I can't read the last name Oscar Rachel Suba Carlos Jr Maria Martinez and Janelle Garcia thank you go ahead good afternoon council
members and mayor my name is Aurora Solis I am 70 years old I have my grandchildren and a son as a child I had to be moving around and I moved to San Jose in hopes that I wasn't going to be moving around like I did as a child my parents couldn't afford one house so we had to go to another one and another one and every time we moved we had to make new friends we have to meet new teachers and it is uncomfortable living in a way like that so San Jose needs a good place for all of our children and
that's the reason I am here I moved to San Jose in 1968 and I am a renter so it is your time is up thank you next speaker yes hello can you hear me yeah hello Council I wanted to read this chart to you it says obstacles of attaining permanent housing top responses in 2022 can afford rent 71% % that's for 2022 no job not enough income 53% no no money for moving costs 26 24% no housing available 23% and then the last one is no ID paperwork 16% it just goes to show that every year we talk about the
same things we talk about housing displacement we talk about accessibility we talk about people living in their cars kids moving all the time so when are we going to do something about it people took time off their job to be here today because we took away Zoom meeting comments the decision is not ours the decision is yours and we hear all the time to make these decisions so I hope you approve the tant preference policy and approve the uh measures that we need to do right thank you thank you Ra
chel you can you can speak from there you don't have to go up good afternoon mayor and city council my name is Rachel Suba I'm an SEIU 521 retire and I worked in the county for 30 years and now I'm an active retiree I'm here to support this legislation oh my God it's so long Inc coming I'm very proud proud of our city council and hopefully each and every one of you will vote for this this is something that's needed look look at everybody here wonderful I'm so so happy to be here and I hope we ge
t a yes vote from each and every one of you thank you thank you next speaker hello hello good afternoon honorable [Music] mayor and uh members of the council my name is gim Garcia and I'm a leader of Amigos de Guadalupe uh Center for justice an empowerment the residents have been in this struggle and this fight constant and uh per this this struggle that's pertinent and constant to avoid the displacement of families that for years who have they have maintained the Integrity of their community an
d for them we want to be heard and we request that the policy for the preference for tenants be approved thank you very much good afternoon thank you next speaker hi my name is Maria Martinez i h mayor in Council Members um I know someone I speaking with all you uh in different perspective but I'm here with thos Mayfair I'm working in the Family Resource Center as Cesar Chavez and I hear a thousand of families that be struggl to find affordable housing that why I am here I'm be here to asking yo
u please don't pform more the uh tenant preference policy we need now be a champion for that family that struggle every time to find a l income family uh houses so please uh leing their legacy to uh to making these decision today we need it now we need it now for this family uh we we need this the family they need a a safety place for the kid thank you your time next speaker hello my name is Janelle Garcia and I am with SOS Mayfair um San Jose residents have been advocating to prevent further di
splacement of our communities um in the San Jose City counc has opportunity to address the roots the root causes of our housing crisis by approving the tenant preference policy today this policy will allow us to prevent the displacement of lwi income renters increase access to affordable housing and improve housing stability and costs um please don't uh don't postpone the tenant preference policy any longer and vote Yes today thank you thank you next speaker to my right hand and all BR C council
members my name is Carlos Jr and I'm a resident of District 4 SOS Mayfair echoing the voices of many I am also voic my my support for the tenant preference policy and urge the policy be be adopted by the council per s State 2023 Silicon Valley Pain index the City San Jose is ranked number one in youth homelessness yet this is not not surprising when it takes a common working person 3.7 minimum wage jobs and a medium Brent of $4,000 also per the C value pain index Youth and their families are be
ing replaced at high levels by adopting tenant preference policy the the city can begin remedying the housing crisis that plagu San Jose and truly begin the process of San Jose being a true inclusive City for All workingclass Families in a certain few please pass turn tenant prefence policy and please allow for J of documentation to be accepted thank you thank you next speaker okay so I'm going to go ahead and call the next set of people um the last name is montedo first name starts with a J or
an S um but montedo is the last name um urina Guzman Maria Chavez and Anastasia abara and they have indicated um interpretation needs please and first person to the microphone go ahead good afternoon my name is Jan J monteo Gonzalez I am I am a leader of I am a resident of District Six in the district of I a resident of District Six in the city of San Jose I have been living there for almost two years and I live there together with my daughter and my husband because of the high rents we live in
a small studio apartment since I haven't been able to access an apartment because of the high rents and the low wages uh I support the anti-displacement tenant preference policy since for them to be able to help us to be able to act access a better apartment for our families and for all the rest of the families that are here in this place and for the ones that need it since uh there is uh there has been a high wave of people in this state that have presented themselves and they are displaced uh
and they do not have any housing and this uh this would help us to better our city thank you so much and thank you for your attention yes you can thank you next speaker good afternoon everyone my name is Anastasia and I'm a community leader um I am um Community leader and I participate in several committees in the um area of San Jose one of them is pasos at the community center of Sacred Heart the other one is Amigos de Guadalupe um Center for justice and empowerment and PP and PPT Etc okay [Mus
ic] I have been living in s for 18 years and right now I've been living three months in district 7 where which was previously already my residence and I have not been able to find a stable housing because with the low salaries in San Jose is they're not enough and the cost of living is too [Music] high and I have applied uh several times to low-income housing and in the apartments for low-income housing and as you know they charge um a lot for the application um fees and after that they tell us
that we don't qualify and that's an injust an injustice and many times we are discriminated because of the color of our skin or for uh or because we do not speak the language I am in a I support that the pal that the uh ten on preference policy passes today and I'm sure that if you pass this policy a lot of people in our community will benefit from it thank you that's your time muted vote Yes to the policy thank you and have a beautiful afternoon next speaker good afternoon uh members of the cit
y council my name is jurina Gman I'm a community organizer with Luna our communities especially those of color still aggressively face displacement without having the opportunity to Access lowincome housing being forced to leave their homes leaving their school their Schools jobs and sometimes even their families due to the housing crisis today today is the day when communities deserve to hear a yes to the tenant preference policy where it will allow them uh to access low-income housing to so re
sidents can remain in their communities and improve their living conditions every family deserves a decent home and not to live in fear of being displaced at at any moment yes to the tenant preference policy that will make San Jose an example of protection for its communities thank you again yes s today thank you thank you next speaker I'd also like to call down Jessica um from SOS Mayfair Elizabeth from SOS Mayfair Jessica tro Elizabeth kamama and Olivia Ortiz go [Music] ahead good afternoon my
name is Maria Chavez and I'm a uh leader of the migrant uh group uh justice group of Amigos de Guadalupe and I'm a resident in District 5 um I am a resident in the city of San Jose of the uh bar mayford a neighborhood mayford since more than 13 years ago along with my family my husband and my four children who were born and raised in the beautiful neighborhood of May and it is here where we have uh we have rooted ourselves and where we would like to continue raising our family unfortunately the
high rent the high cting rent and the low salaries have forced my husband and myself to have um countless nights thinking um how are we going to continue living here [Music] that's your time we live in a one bedroom apartment where the um the bedroom is for our smaller children and the living room is for my husband uh myself and our um youngest bab child thank you next speaker good afternoon my name is Olivia Ortiz I'm part of Vos activ with Tomos Mayfair first of all I want to thank the housin
g department for the work they've done all this in this long process also want to thank the council members that have made time to meet with us and listen to the community especially uh council member Ortiz thank you so much for your support uh as as it was mentioned and the presentation there were voices involved in this process in this long process but unfortunately those voices are not longer in a some of those voices are not longer in a community they had been displaced and those were great
voices for our community um I this is my question is why does this took so long why this took so many years I really hope that today you guys support this policy and moving forward work with the community to find solutions for this housing crisis we really need to focus on this housing crisis because we're just not talking about numbers we're talking about families human beans and I think it's time to all of us you know work together thank you that's your time next speaker J hello my name is Jes
sica mzuma and I'm with s Mayfair uh San Jose residents have been advocating to prevent future displacement of our communities uh this policy will allow us to prevent the displacement of low-income renters increase access to affordable housing and improve housing stability and cost uh I have lived here in San Jose for over 30 years and a year ago I was displaced so you know lucky me I'm one of the statistics San Jose was home San Jose was where I was raised San Jose was a part of my identity I h
ad to move because there's no afford housing here in San Jose so please approve the tenant policy today we need to stop prolonging the housing crisis our community our families our networks they should remain intact so thank you for your time thank you next speaker good afternoon City Council Members my name is jessicao it's almost Mayfair and I'm also a district three uh resident and we all know that there's a current housing crisis impacting many of us in negative ways right one of them being
um having to move out of the city or seeing our family members and communities um having to leave leave because of the high cost of living here and um you know San Jose residents have been advocating to prevent further displacement of our communities please please please approve um the tenant preference policy today um this policy will increase access to affordable housing and improve housing stability and costs um giving us break that we all need right now thank you thank you next speaker hi go
od afternoon my name is Elizabeth cada and I am here with s me I'm also a SOS District by Resident uh I live in a I live in an affordable housing complex and the benefits and the impact on my family have been enormous it has created stable Housing and Community for us he house allowed me to stay and live in San Jose paying affordable rent means I can stay home at least one of us can and watch my kids grow and volunteer at their school I can go on with all the benefits that has provided me living
in affordable housing but sadly not everyone has the same opportunity um when rents are high and and parents have to work two jobs to be able to make G meat so I urge our council members today to not postpone the to not postpone the T um the tenant preference policy we need affordable housing and San Jose families can't wait any longer you can be part of change and impact families thank you thank you next speaker hello my name is Elizabeth Kya I'm here on behalf of the NAACP uh the racial dispa
rities of who is at risk of displacement and subsequently unhoused is large in addition to the examples provided um by the housing departments in their presentation I want to share that while black people make up a small population in Santa Clara County 2.8% to be exact um when looking at the unhoused population 18% are African-Americans um everyone deserves housing this includes communities of color no one should have to face moving away from their families their homes their school at the risk
of becoming unhoused this policy will allow us to prevent the displacement of low income rors and increase access to affordable housing I stand with all the organizations here today in support of the tenant preference policy and I urge the council to approve this policy to ensure protections and housing for our communities I'd also um next speaker and Andrea Portillo Katherine Hedges lesie Diaz wascar Castro and Mauricio Gonzalez uh good afternoon I'm Katherine from Katherine Hedges District 3 m
ember of surge allied with SOS Mayfair um I strongly say Council to vote unanimously to approve the uh anti-displacement policy this has been years in the making long overdue we've heard from plenty of people affected by it directly uh but also we need to ensure that there is funding to build new affordable housing or that anti- displacement preference will be Hollow and meaningless we need to stop rating measure e affordable housing funding for housing production we need to find alternative ran
t funding for the interim housing thank you very much thank you next speaker hello my name is Andrea poro with s Mayfair um I just want to say that I support the memo put forward by council members Ortiz um Candelas Torres and Cohen to prioritize a robust community outreach plan with resources to roll out the the policy effectively I'm really excited to be here with community members housing Advocates housing departments staff and the thousands of tenants and renters who we hope this policy will
support it's been a really long time coming and this is really a win for the community and all of the time and effort that they've put hosting Community forums and workshops meeting with council members to develop this policy so really excited that the day is finally here tenant preferences is but a tool in our toolbox to fight against displacement we must continue to invest funding and resources to continue building affordable housing preserving existing housing and protecting tenants there's
a lot of work left to be done so let's keep the momentum going our communities can afford to wait thank you thank you next speaker good afternoon Council my name is Wesker Castro a working Partnerships USA I'd like to start off by stating our strong support uh for tenant preferences and to stand side stand alongside our Grassroots Community here who's worked tirelessly as previously mentioned through a variety of different ways to raise a support and really urge the need for uh policies such suc
h as these want to also just mention this has been a long time coming as many have said uh in a past life I've worked in in a district office alongside now Council M Torres um in really identifying uh what was once an affordable development and then looking at how we can look at setting aide units um to be prioritized for folks living in either areas at risk of displacement um or um Within These developments and now to be at this point is a really big accomplishment lastly we want to recognize t
hat in order for this policy to be truly effective we really need to prioritize the continued investment in new sources of affordable housing and we look forward to seeing that okay calling the next batch of speakers speaker uh Cesar Mariana haime Alysa and Deborah hello my name is lesie and I am a leader of groupo detia and Amigos gue we have lived in District 3 with my single mother and three siblings for the last four years unfortunately with the high cost of rent and low wages it has forced
my mom to get a morning job and night job to continue living in San Jose I have lost hope of one day having an affordable apartment for me and my family but then I realized that Amigos and some may um are working on the tenant preference policy I urge you to pass this policy as a tool to address our housing crisis so that families can have an opportunity to stay in neighborhoods they love thank you yes some moral support that's it good afternoon honorable mayor and members of San Jose City Counc
il my name is mauria Gonzalez Torres and I am a leader of Amigos deup Center for justice and empowerment San residents have been hesitating to prevent further displacement of our community my family and I were significantly affected by the displacement of families to the extent that we had to move to Myas and my mom has to drive 30 minutes in the morning and in the afternoon so that I can continue attending in the school in San Jose and in the [Music] fure be sitting on one of those chairs [Appl
ause] hello my name is Deborah Townley um I was displaced from from one ZIP code to another um uh after a car accident and disability um and becoming unhoused um after investing a lot of time and energy into my neighborhood and my local community and the schools and as an entrepreneur um I lost everything and had to find services in a different zip code um my kids uh lost their friends connections with their friends and you know everyday activities and things that uh were just a it was it was li
ke um it was like gentrification basically drove through my family um and separated us not just from my ex-husband um but also from um our neighbors and friends um and co-workers uh so please thank you next speaker uh my name is Cesar Navarro I'm here with ltina United for new America I was born and raised here in San Jose um I see the city pushing for multif family in mix housing which I think is a great strategy uh however the construction of new housing alone is not going to solve this issue
uh 96% of residential land is zone for single family homes so that leaves the other percent the other 4% where we will develop this in the very communities that are being impacted by displacement the most um so today we can see multiple development proposals in the 26 in wer neighborhood a neighborhood comprised primarily of low-income immigrant Latino and working-class resid residents a neighborhood which will drastically change in the next decade with a B extension and a new Urban Village comi
ng uh as as well as the current residents if Council doesn't act on this policy uh that's why I urge you to pass this policy with an increase of increasing the 20% of unit's Reserve to 35% for the program to accept attorney thank you next speaker also calling the next batch Sandy Victor John hello my name is wait sorry Hi everyone my name is Marana Mia with Luna as residents are Urgent City Council to approve the tenant prefer policies today to prefer to dis prefer uh displacement our communitie
s this Poli we support low-income renters increase affordable housing accessibility we support Cohen Ortiz uh Candelas uh Tes and Coen memo for a stronger community outreach plan please don't delay this decision any longer thank you good afternoon folks my name is H Alvarado with the alar Urban Village Advocates um first of all congratulations to everyone involved in this I mean literally hundreds of people from the community were involved in the development of this policy um we had staff who sl
ugged through it for years all of you who attended Community meetings this is what the Democratic process looks like this is how it's supposed to be done and I want to thank all of you everybody who was involved for making it happen in the way it did this policy addresses a a serious failure in current policy so yes yes yes please vote for this this is important and it's a win for everybody involved today is an important first step on the passing of this policy is an important first step and I w
ant to turn attention I mean let's get through that and then let's turn attention to the second step and that's approving the budget that supports this policy we cannot be rating measure dollars because it'll come at the de thank you next good afternoon uh mayor and council members uh my name is Sandy Perry I'm from South Bay Community Land Trust and uh I'm here today to support the local tenant preference policy but also point out as some other speakers have that without new affordable housing
there will be no local tenant preference policy 35% of zero is zero families uh will continue to be displaced and lowincome and people have color communities will continue to be torn apart and destroyed by gentrification even if we adopt this policy today if we don't allocate funds for affordable housing we call on the mayor and the council to listen to the voice of San Jose residents who chose affordable housing as one of their highest priorities and uh we are asking you to make when the budget
comes make the hard decisions and increase funds for affordable housing do not decrease them with without affordable housing thank you your time next speaker hello um well I support the uh anti-displacement tenant preference program they're glad to see something like this starting to be implemented but let's not forget 10,000 or so people already got displaced who we called the homeless so the increase of the budget for affordable and low-income housing has to be in big greatly increased too pe
ople who are fearful of losing their homes are just the tip of the iceberg of the homeless crisis and I think thinking outside the box also required like massively expanding use of closed buildings of All Sorts we see all over town awaiting developers future profits I think not allowing 10 thousand thousands of buildings to sit vacant would be another good thing to look into thank you good luck thank you next speaker good afternoon Victor Vasquez from SOS May Francis Collective we we've been fig
hting displacement for decades as residents and citizens and as well as as brown people indigenous people to this land it is outrageous that we're facing this housing crisis homeless almost near homeless in our homeland countless studies report that housing crisis impact impact black black and brown people or youth specifically where's the vote we urge the board to vote Yes on tenant preface today unanimously a yes vote is Al a vote for education to keep our kids in schools it's a yes vote on jo
bs and shorter commutes it's a yes vote on better mental health for our families and it's also a vote for more opportunities in our neighborhood we support the memo authored by council member Torres Ortiz Candelas and Coen as well we look forward to you to increase afford housing funding for our thank you next speaker okay I'm going to move on um the other people didn't come forward so I have Tamara Chavez sherro Lynn Amanda with SOS and Michael with SOS and Blair yes my name is shat Lin um I'm
a member of human agenda and the San Jose peace and Justice Center and both of these organizations are comprised of of largely of people who actually own their own homes but we support this tenant preference policy you remember the days when just a couple of years ago when San Jose was the 10th largest city in the country is Fallen to number 12 I I hear and that's because the number one reason is because people have been forced out of housing so it's really important that uh that we whether we a
re renters or we own our own houses that we support this policy and I I I thank the council for bringing it this far and uh you know this is the right thing to do thank you thank you next speaker my name is Amanda from survivors of the street I do not think this housing crisis is an impossible task I have seen a lot of injustices I've had to live in my van for 10 years and shelters and I'm uh have a gold star in job skills and and a degree and I'm a grandmother um I don't think displacing people
is a good idea and I support this tenant preference and anti-displacement uh I think we should solve more of the root problems I've heard uh that Social Security is being withdrawn from people that have been paying into it certain groups don't get their Social Security even though they've paid in that seems discriminatory um I give hope I want to give hope to the children that live here and I'd love to have houses and yards like where I was raised thank you next speaker I'm also gonna call down
Delma Hernandez um Matthew Reed sakuro Mont go ahead hello my name is name is Robert giri and um I'd like to say that we're quite aware of how many unhoused people we have living in the city and without an anti-displacement uh policy with the tenant preferences and neighborhood tenant preferences for affordable housing programs will end up with more and uh we don't need more we need fewer and we need more protections for the people that are living in their uh uh in their housing I'm also curiou
s why this timing light isn't on I have to look up anyway um I support this uh this policy and I suggest that everybody vote for it if you've never spent a night outdoors uh living along a creek or under a bridge or in a street or under in a tent you have no idea what that's like so I suggest you think about that when you place thank you next speaker good afternoon Matthew Reed Silicon Valley at home I want to thank housing department staff community members Community leaders for truly tenacious
commitment to this policy and this and prior councils for your support this is innovative and targeted policy we've gotten requests for details from around the state and within in the county already we are committed to to the next steps of making it work many of us who live in San Jose cannot actually afford to live here you've heard this today our lower lowest income families overwhelmingly pay more than half of their income for rent San Jose does not have enough housing that they can afford t
he impact of this lack of housing is tremendous instability possible work schedules poor school performance providing the housing addresses Community concern thank you your time is up next speaker I'm also going to call down letissia Alvarez yurita Torres Mendoza and sha go ahead hello my name is Soro and I'm with Latinos United for new America I live in District 5 San Jose resident have been advocating to prevent further displacement of our communities and today you have the opportunity to addr
ess our housing crisis by approving the tenant preference policy this policy will allow us to prevent the displacement of low-income renters increase access to affordable housing and improve housing stability and costs I was born and raised in San Jose three generations of my family have been raised here I can imagine a future here because my family owns a home bought before each house was at least a million dollar and yet many of my love loved ones friends classmates beautiful community members
can't dream longterm here because of housing costs what an incredible policy we have the opportunity to pass today with specific inclusions for our undocumented community that San Jose needs to continue flourishing I support council member Ortiz Candelas Torres and Cohen's memo to prioritize a robust community outreach plan with resources to roll out the policy thank you next speaker hi my name is Delma Hernandez and I'm an organizer with South B Comm land trust and a member of of Luna I'm also
a resident of D5 and I'm here to support my San Jose Community who has been working so hard to get the tenant preference policy passed as you heard from the community the lack of affordable housing is violently impacting our communities it impacts our community Health it traps others in abusive domestic violence relationships it ARs and it also abots our community out of their home and causes homelessness by embracing the proposed tenant preference policy San Jose's leadership demonstrates a co
mmitment to the long-term well-being of our Comm communities um it is a policy that really targets affordable housing investments to address Community stability displacement and homelessness however this solution is only going to work if if you continue to invest in affordable housing it needs continuous investment and steady funding for stream for a steam seamless thank you next speaker I'd also like to call down Pastor Baines hello city council members uh my name is Leticia Alvarez and I'm her
e from sakr heart community service and I just want to say that the people our people should have the preference to continue living in what they call Community um with your yes vote you can make this possible you have the power to maintain the community United Local tenant preference is the Hope for the community to continue being part of our beautiful San Jose please vote Yes on local tenant preference thank you next speaker I'd also like to announce that I have called all of the cards that we'
ve received so far good afternoon mayor city council and staff I'm Pastor Paul Baines I'm also a landlord that has tenants and I totally support something you already know that is a good thing um this issue is not new to you and so I'm just here to encourage you to let you know you have a community that's behind you that will help to support this great need as a person who serves over 6,000 people in the Bay Area in five counties and 22 cities we need more preferences just like this um throughou
t the whole Bay Area so we'll be in prayer with you and we'll uh do whatever we can to assist you thank you thank you you next speaker I just want to give a shout out to the community who did a damn good job of organizing and working on this for a really long time so I really want to make everybody clap for this so we'll just all imaginary clap for this um yeah go for it um and then uh I I want to Second what Sandy said that if we don't build more affordable housing you know this is just you kno
w that's what we need it's like we need this and we need this just like we need tiny homes and we need psh I like how the mayor doesn't look at me that's okay I'm used to it um I also just wanted to say that I too was priced out of here most of you know I lived a block from here I lived a block from here for 12 years and now I live one block out of Pam's District because I got priced out of San Jose too I kind of think that was personal but anyway um so I too got gentrified you know and maybe th
is would have helped me and kept me in thank you next speaker hello everybody my name is udit and I I am not with any organization but just here as a constituent um and I think uh basically what I wanted to say is San Jose residents have been advocating to prevent further displacements in our community and I being the generation that I am have seen so many of my friends and family have to leave San Jose in order to start their families just continue living on their own or find better opportuniti
es in housing and I think that is such a loss for our community here in San Jose to lose so much um of these people because of housing costs so I really urge you uh to uh not postpone the tenant preference policy any longer um the full city council must approve the ordinance today we need to stop prolonging the housing crisis the decision is yours and thank you for your time thank you next speaker hello my name is Alysa Serrano I'm an associate project manager at midpen housing um San Jose resid
ent and member of the South Bay CLT midpen housing is a regional nonprofit developer owner and manager of highquality affordable housing and on-site resident services um in our San Jose portfolio um we include 14 properties comprising of over 1,200 homes with one 203 unit project in our pipeline um there's a significant need for affordable housing in San Jose our property in the city are currently facing over 7,000 people on our wait lists for applications for uh these homes We Stand alongside o
ur partners and numerous community-based organizations and coalitions in support of this tenant preference policy being considered today we believe this policy will help San Jose residents stay in their communities and benefit those most vulnerable in the city the policy is a result of years of collaboration between U public and private stakeholders and is in line with a broader vision for a robust investment in the three PS protection preservation and production thank you for your time and for
thank you next speaker okay I have called all the cards for received for item 8.2 and nobody else is coming up so I will go back to you great thank thank you Tony and thank you all for participating not just just today though I I do really appreciate everyone's public comment but also as was noted this was really policy that grew out of community engagement going back many years and so once again thank you to everybody who's been working closely with us to get to this point obviously between a g
lobal pandemic and needing to work with our state legislature to make sure that we could comply with the law this has been a long and uh and winding road but I'm I'm really excited that we're we're finally at this point and I'm conf confident we'll be passing a policy that's going to help keep San Jose families and communities together here we have a number of speakers looks like just about everybody on the council wants to chime in we also have a memo um so let me turn it to uh Council Ortiz to
say a few words thank you mayor um I want to thank everyone who came here today to have your voice heard and of course our Mighty housing department for your tireless work um on this policy um as a lifelong resident of of San Jose and one of the few uh renters on this Council I personally experienced the city's housing crisis and the toll it takes on many of our workingclass families in recent years the housing costs have skyrocketed here in the city of San Jose forcing many people many people
with loved ones and history here to have to move um out of their home um and it's a sad reality that many of our friends family members and colleagues have had to relocate from the area due to this High Cost of Living although sad um it shouldn't come to us um as a shock as renters in San Jose must earn $45 an hour to afford the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment and a minimum minimum wage worker ear earning $17 and 55 cents an hour would have to work two and a half full-time jobs
to afford living in a w bedroom apartment here it's important to note that not all who are displaced are pushed out of the city many become homeless um and uh according to a Washington Post um uh publication increased homel homelessness is directly tied to increased rent with every $100 increase in median rent associated with a 9% increase in the estimated homeless rate in a city as we face Limited stock of affordable housing units it's frustrating to see that even those that do exist uh have no
t prioritized local families that is why the tenant preference policy is a critical step in the right direction for our community our Working Families especially those from communities of color um immigrant communities and workingclass families should not be at risk of being priced out of the neighborhoods that they have called home as San Jose develops more affordable housing this tenant preference policy will ensure that new units are prioritized for local residents who are most vulnerable to
that displacement by keeping our residents close to their friends families and communities we can help them continue to add to the vibrancy diversity and the inclusive City that we all have been able to call home that is why my colleagues council member Torres council member Cohen and council member candelis um and I co- authored our memo which requests staff to develop and Implement a robust Outreach strategy that proactively works with local orgs who are active in displaced census tracks to di
stribute information about the purpose of this policy and issue a manager's budget addendum which helps us understand the overall cost of this work we've done this because we are committed to ensure that this policy both passes but is actually implemented in effective way and and finally I just want to share my deepest gratitude to of course the CP we Collective SOS Mayfair other partners like Amigo Z Guadalupe Silicon Valley at home Luna South Bay Community Land Trust if I didn't mention you it
's nothing personal everybody here thank you for your work but it's because of your tireless advocacy and mobilization of our community that we've reached this point and I want to thank you all for leading this charge and ensuring that our families have a place they can all call home but I I just also want to mention that this this policy is great and it's been it's going to do wonders for our community but a tenant preference policy means nothing if we defund our affordable housing development
here in the city of San Jose we can't have just one and defund the other right and just be mindful when people rush to support this publicly but then also defund our affordable housing dollars that's nothing short of disingenuous so um thank you all again kudos to our housing department and with that I I move uh our Memo from council member Tores Cohen and candelis thank you all right thanks councilor councilor batra thank you um I was so excited about wanting to talk about this item that when w
e were in the previous section I raised my hand on that one because I thought this is the one we were going to talk about it because this is a so well out policy and the local first is so obvious because we need to be able to have people who built San Jose be living in San Jose living in the neighborhood they raised themselves in so when this thing was presented at the community and economic development I was very very very pleased to see how completely thought out this policy was uh doesn't onl
y say what it needs to achieve it talks about how exactly we're going to be able to do it because it's using some of the new principles there we're talking about neighborhood so you need to know who really qualifies in the neighborhood you made the tools available in order for it to be successful you're going to have to make the property managers be able to do something which they' have never done before having to look for the preferences from the neighborhood then looking at the documents so yo
u created the tools which will allow people to be able to implement this policy in a meaningful way which is what youve thought about it so based on those things I believe this is a great policy which we're going to support and we want to implement it and we want to see it successful I also want to point out that when you're communicating about this the greatness of this policy as has been pointed out that we are not going to have tons of apartments available for people to be able to move in so
we need to set the expectations right that in the next year or two not everybody who even walked down here today will be able to get one of these places in the their local preference because there aren't that many units coming and I think this one portion I'm going to make a comment this is not necessarily relevant to the local preference or to the apartments I think these people are low income we would need to invest our energies our resources so that they don't stay low income forever they low
income today we need to be able to get them the tools which will increase their income so that they're not dependent on the help which they get through as a low income for me that has been my life's work to make people be able to get the kind of tools the education if not for themselves for their next generation and provide that that's how the upward Mobility happens we need to help the ones who are not able to move up today with this low-income housing but we need to invest so that their child
ren their next generation is going to be upward mobile and will be actually helping others who need help not the ones receiving help so with that comment I'm going to say that I will support this policy and I'm excited to support this policy thank you great thanks council member Council candelis I believe council member Torres had his hand up before I I saw that's right council member Torres lost his spot do you want to that's that works you want to go only if I don't lose my place now now you'r
e at the end of the list sorry you're at the end of the list such a gentleman council member Candelas thank you so much I appreciate it I want to say uh thank you to our community for being out here today your your hard work means a lot and it's it's it's starting to show uh up here on the on the dis and so so I'm I'm happy to be here to support this policy and thank you to to our staff for the incredible work the past few years again in incredible an incredible policy uh to help out our local c
ommunity and most importantly uh obviously we need to say thank you to to the to the elected official who who made this happen and so she's no longer with us she is now retired but former council member Magdalena Carrasco this was a a priority for her in her first term in office and so major kudos to council member Carrasco who I worked with for uh when she first proposed this policy so myself and and wascar uh worked on this policy when we were working for her so so it's all it's great to see i
t come to fruition uh and so the reason why this policy was was created was when I worked for council member Carrasco we had an amazing beautiful affordable housing project Kile Gardens open up in the east side and it was very unfortunate that local East Side families were not chosen to live at and this is despite massive organizing from SOS Mayfair and Amigos Guadalupe and making sure that our community uh gets to stay in the community they they live in uh and so uh if we can go to slide number
six from the presentation I really want to let folks I want want folks to see the the massive displacement happening in council districts 3 five and 7 and I want to mention it because these are our historically workingclass neighborhoods 3 five and 7even our families in these council districts they built San Jose they make San Jose they are the heart of San Jose and so we're seeing massive displacement in this in in in these council districts and it's very very sad that we're seeing that we're
losing our our identity and we're losing our our culture and that's why I support uh the staff report on this and I hope that my colleagues can also support the memo that I that we we drafted council member Ortiz council member candales and and council member Cohen and and before I do end before I yield the rest of my time I do I'm going to try to say something in Spanish so I hopefully uh hopefully it works out I'm a but UMAS all right thank you thank you thank you council member Council celes
thank you mayor um I want to start off my comments by thanking staff for getting us to this point and your hard work uh over the last seven years on this um and next I I want to give a huge shout out to the community who came out um organized and has continuously made your voice heard on on the importance of this policy uh for our for our residents here in San Jose so I'm deeply appreciative of that obviously Senator Cortez's leadership and legisl over the last couple years to allow this bill to
happen and obviously if it wasn't for uh councilwoman a councilwoman Melena Carrasco we wouldn't wouldn't be here as well so so kudos to to all the the leaders beforehand who came came uh before to work on this and you know I'm especially honored to be a part of this Council to be able to to sit here today and help move this uh policy over the Finish Line um this policy will have a Major Impact uh on the lives of residents in our community Community as we can see here um as we deal with the hou
sing affordability crisis in our city it is imperative that we explore these innovative solutions uh to ensure that all residents have access to stable and affordable housing this policy represents a significant step forward towards achieving this goal of prioritizing the needs of our uh most vulnerable residents by giving preference to local residents that have deep roots in our community uh for those who work and contribute to our local economy and who have been disp disproportionately impacte
d uh by Rising housing costs we can ensure that affordable housing opportunities are given Priority Access to these residents uh more importantly this PO policy will help address issues of displacement and gentrification which have have as we heard disproportionately impacts low-income communities and uh uh communities of color here in San Jose I I urge us to continue to prioritize policies like this uh for our city and doing so will make meaningful progress towards creating a a more Equitable a
nd a more inclusive uh Community where all of our residents can can live and Thrive um I I do look forward to voting yes for this this uh policy as well and um uh like a lot of our speakers said today c um especially Macio who uh was one of our young people who came up here and says he wants to be on the council one day there's when when you get older here uh if you want an internship my office uh will be happy to have you okay Macio nice job [Music] um great thank you council member vice mayor
K thank you um I too want to thank all of the speakers that came here today as well as thanking the staff for your great work uh on this and um as was said earlier um it's about time it's about time um one of the things that I'm curious about is why isn't it more why isn't it 50% you know your attachment a gave us compar you know other cities and what they're doing and we have New York at 50 we have San Francisco at 40 uh Oakland is the only one that's less at 30 so I'm just sort of wondering wh
y that is because you know when you think about what is available in the affordable housing you know it's it's not that much to begin with right and if if we're able to uh afford more of those units to people who are our residents now you know you provide the affordability as well as the stability for them to remain so to me I would like to I'm just saying I would like to see it at 50% right if there are limitations because of financing or whatever you know the developers or well if they want ou
r funding then they need to do something more so to me I would like to push the envelope a little bit and and see how that could be possible thank you is a really good question and I know the community has also asked for more greater percentage we did lots of different um feasibility runs on our on our disperate impact analysis we tried actually to get the percentage up to 40% but the only way that that could work was to um to increase the um the number of units for uh folks in high displacement
tracks however once you get closer to 50% that's actually when New York City was sued um over the implementation of this policy it um it is not per best practices to take for instance all of a property over for a preferenced population because we want to have a reasonable amount still available for the general public so it's really for legal reasons that we chose the numbers that we have chosen and I don't know if my attorney would like to add to that thank you uh Chris Alexander senior Deputy
City attorney um so we we've looked at this for a number of years and we compared a lot of the jurisdictions who had existing tenant preference programs and New York City was one of the primary examples we had because they had um had uh ten of preference ordinance for a number of decades and at the time it was 2018 um we were aware that they were under a lawsuit for their their Community preference policy and so we had to take a close look at what it was about their policy that was problematic a
nd one of the things um that we became aware of over time is that there there fair housing requirements that we need to be sensitive towards when we Implement any sort of geographic preference policy because it ultimately um will benefit certain people and will not benefit other people so we had to be mindful of that when we were crafting this policy and considering what percentages could we maximize a tenant preference program without running a foul of fair housing law in particular the dispara
te impact potential risks that we Face the affirmatively furthering fair housing mandate for cities um and so we were trying to be mindful of those requirements being sensitive to what was being challenged in New York City and what other jurisdictions were doing across the bay area so we arrived at this number based on an analysis of all of those factors and we think that this is within um the reasonable approach that is a best practice for implementing tener preferences in the city of San Jose
taking uh the desparate impact analysis that was done here and applying it to this preference policy yeah and if I could add to what Chris just said um what I also should have said is our demographics and where um different race and ethnicities and other protected classes are located in San Jose is unique to San Jose right and so Oakland has a very different look San San Francisco very different look there disperate impact analysis actually could come out quite differently than ours so it is ver
y location specific um and I'll say one other thing which is that we promised the community and put into the proposal that we would reexamine in 18 to 24 months to make sure that we're still in um in accord with fair housing law but also to see if the numbers have changed enough that we could increase it just a little bit if my attorney was com able so um because this is a legal issue we want to make sure that the property owners are comfortable implementing it what we don't want to have is a pr
ogram that's really aggressive and then every and a deal by deal basis have some attorneys reject it on those properties it's important that it get wide acceptance because as you said there are so few units really that we need to to get to for the preference yeah and and that's my point you know because the thing is that I mean just just looking out in our audience you can see the tremendous need that there is and just doing onethird is I I just personally feel that's not sufficient right um I u
nderstand I understand the the the um the legal issues but you know I think that um don't wait two years to say oh well you know it looks like it's going well like within a year you know just just as you implement the first year how did it go what happened uh uh I because I think that if you could even go a little bit it it's tremendously helpful because I think that now we're going to roll out this campaign and let people know guess what you know you're able to apply it's wonderful it's it's a
better place than we have been in the past but at the same time it's it's not enough especially especially if the goal is to provide the affordable housing to those uh who are living in the city right now so I think that um while this is good I think it could be better uh and as we go along don't wait two years like within a year you should be able to see how did it roll out what happened how did it work and I guess I'm I'm not an attorney so I'm not as um uh cautious but I understand I totally
understand thank you thanks vice mayor appreciate you pushing and and totally agree it would be great to get the percentage up if we think we can do it legally and and avoid costly litigation uh let's go to council Foley thank you first I want to thank all the members of the public who are here to uh share with us their thoughts and concerns and and also uh and their support for the tenant preference I've met with many uh of you in the audience and I was uh pleased to bring this through CED my c
ommittee and to bring it here today for us to vote and in which I tend to support both the uh memo and the item itself um and I want to thank staff I know you worked really hard at looking at how to manage the tenant preference the the district to District the the zip code all of those issues were things that had to be worked out during uh postco that was uh really kind of put a pause on the normal city council work for a couple of years easily so I really appreciate you coming forward with a a
thoughtful proposal on anti-displacement and and tenant preferences I think it's really important I also want to point out that uh the fair housing laws are not just restricted to the N the the protected classes that you've indicated our policy does protect certain classes but under Fair Housing aren't there are a lot of other protected classes as well members of the LGBT community members of the disability Community others are protected classes and so we can't put Pitch pit one class against th
e other we need to make sure that all have access to affordable housing within the city of San Jose so I'm I'm really mindful of that and and uh glad that we're working on the various protective class and that we do have a carve out for fair housing that says we can have this carve out for this group and not include the others but we can't discriminate against the other groups either and who's at risk of that is the devel is the landlord if that they violate those other fair housing lies laws so
I'm really concerned and not concerned I'm mindful of that um also uh we need more affordable housing we definitely do and today city council is set to vote on two affordable housing projects and I will encourage my coun fellow council members to vote in support of them one happens to be in my district 191 units in District 9 that is a wonderful opportunity for people to move into the district that who want to either relocate from where they are or live in District N9 and affordable housing pro
ject those are what's uh you'll hear more about that project later but it's also a number of family units are in that project so uh very excited that that's coming forward today so when we talk about either or temporary housing or affordable housing C needs to make sure that we vote to approve both both temporary housing interim housing and then when affordable housing projects come to us that we support those as well because frankly affordable housing projects take four to five years to get bui
lt this one that we is coming in my district on CER we've been working on or the developers been working on for about four years so by the time it's finally occupied five plus so I I just want to make that comment um the other thing that is really important about this uh this proposal that you're bringing forth is the alternative documentation and I don't want to lose sight of that that's really important because a lot of the people who um may be displaced don't have documentation to say they li
ve where they live they're not the underlying holder of the lease they don't have uh the Utilities in their names they may be renting a room so they they have nothing other than they share a room with a family so allowing the alternative documentation is really important and providing a list of how income is generated not necessarily uh a W2 people earn income in different ways people can verify their their residency in different ways they have their children to the local school they have identi
fication of their children at that school or registration so I really um I I I love that that may be the piece that I like the most about this it's all good but the do the flexible documentation is really really important so how will the word get out about that and will you be coming back to us with the list or will that just be part of the education process when you go out with the list right and thank you for your support of alternative documentation you're going to love the housing element it
em that asks us to do that portfolio wide for existing properties too so we're going to talk about that later um we're going to be putting the list of documents that would be accepted a draft list together in the administrative guidelines it's that that would be approved by the city manager and um and of course we're again asking property managers when they put out notices advertising the fact that they do accept it but I was glad to hear the property managers wanted us to provide a list so that
they felt protected in accepting something that maybe they don't do every day well I think that's uh that's wise to go in that direction because they may be asking for something that is a confidential nature that they shouldn't be gaining access to medical record something like that so uh helping them with that list would would really be helpful and then uh so thank you thank you for that I'm I'm excited about that the other thing is that we have not just new projects coming along so I'm assumi
ng the projects we're voting on today if they pass that they will fall under this new tenant preference ordinance but what about the ones that are already in place how will they get grandfathered in to the tenant preference ordinance yes all new projects definitely will be subject subject um the existing projects that come back to us for to say I want to take out a new senior loan will you newly will you subordinate again for your Junior loan um anytime we update documents we're going to put thi
s stock language in the documents which gives them the um the comfort of implementing a you know for a different population um and so we're going to do that on a deal by deal basis um what we didn't want to do is to try to disrupt um the entire portfolio at the same time however we've been anticipating this and so our residential Development Division very wisely has been integrating kind of General language saying if when Council approves this we'll be implementing it here and also in case of a
natural disaster like the flood so that folks feel comfortable that they can Implement something different than the normal weight list procedure thank you this is getting a little wonky I understand but is there a provision within our our documents that allows for a modification uh that we can just require the developer or the owner of the property design or do we have to go to them for a subordinate it has to be in connection to a subordination or something else yeah sorry I'm getting really in
the weeds for but you know even we have updated documents in the past kind of anytime somebody came to us to discuss something if they were amenable okay um but it it can't be portfolio wide all at once necessarily okay um because it you know we'd be interfering with the existing contracts we'd have to talk to all the deal members right make sure everyone's comfortable okay council member Foley I also just want to add because we appreciate your concern we did include this language about the pot
ential of City Council passing this program um in our documents when we issued our new construction NOA last fall um so those uh developments and we've selected uh they're fully aware that they would be subject to this new ordinance wonderful thank you very much that I really am excited to be supporting in this and and voting on this and uh with that I'll conclude my comments thank you all great thank you councilor Council Cohen yeah thank you um first I want to thank staff for bringing this for
ward and and thank all the members of the community who not only showed up today but have been advocating for and educating about this for years and have gotten us to this point so I want to thank you for your involvement um I appreciate my colleagues and I was happy to sign on to the memo to make sure that we as do everything we can to make sure the policy is effective I do have one question uh for staff um 35% set aside 20% for people in specific um areas displacement areas and then the other
15% in council districts maybe this is too hypothetical and won't happen but let's assume that the 15 you have a project that's built in um District Four North San Jose or in District 9 or somewhere else where the count we might not get the full 15 applicants to fill the 15% with somebody from a district do those go back then to the general pool or were those 30 would they be able to be used to make sure that we still have 35% filled by San Jose residents who are in risk of displacement yes we c
an still reach 35% in aggregate um and so for instance if if the 15% uh runs short of those applying in council districts you could have a couple more from those High displacement tenses tracks you can't do it the other way around though we can't exceed 15% for the council districts because that's what the disperate impact analysis I mean that's fair enough but I I would hope that that we that the policy is written in a that says if it's it's 20 it's 15 up to 15 and one and and then up to 35 tot
al rather than 20 and 15 being separate Pockets that then would could reduce the total number yeah you said that very accurately thank you okay thank you that that was my only question appreciate that great thanks council member council member dwan thank you mayor thank you staff it's been too far and too long for a program like this to to not come to fruition it's important that we help our low-income renters stay right here in San Jose and and have a a choice in a sense especially in the publi
c housing so I do have a question for you how will SB 649 used to propose low-income tax credit program and tax exempt bonds to encourage development of affordable housing in San Jose thank you council member and um s SP 649 the legislation that we co-sponsored basically recognizes the population people at risk of displacement because they have never had a program per se kind of like seniors everyone has a seniors program there's funding behind it um and so this bill was necessary um and was pat
terned after a similar bill for Teacher housing a few years earlier um and so what we were told by our Council and maybe I should be letting Chris answer this um is just that the official policy and recognition of this group as worthy because of findings that were made lets Council give clean opinion as to why why would you restrict units available for the general public well you have to do that for a public policy purpose and that's what the bill articulates thank you and and um my two will sup
port this motion okay great that appears to have exhausted our questions and comments I want to thank my colleagues for their support thank you again to staff and to all of you really appreciate how hard the community has worked to get us to this point this is going to be a good thing for our community um I'll also just say just uh a comment that was made earlier I I do think we are at our best as a body when we assume good intentions from one another and I I fully believe that we're all support
ing this for the right reason I just encourage us to continue to discuss and debate vigorously on the merits of these policies and on and on the facts and and on um rational argument uh rather than assuming uh that any of us are acting disingenuously but appreciate everybody's comments and look forward to passing this important policy Tony let's vote motion passes unanimously awesome thank you all congratulations all right we are thank you we are on to item 8.4 which is related to Grant agreemen
ts for targeted Outreach and engagement a targeted Outreach and engagement program serving unsheltered individuals in San Jose I know we have a staff presentation we'll ask folks to leave as quietly as possible thank you in advance so we can get on to our next item thank you all for being here Rosalyn when you're ready we can jump in thank you so much mayor council Rosaline Huey Deputy city manager and uh acting housing director we are very pleased to bring this item to you this afternoon uh reg
arding agreements for targeted Outreach and to talk a little bit about um our redesign for outreach to our unsheltered residents so with that I'm going to turn the presentation over to Kelly and pill good evening mayor and Council Kell sorry hey folks uh just want to ask you to if if you're leaving to leave quietly feel free to celebrate outside the chamber but we got to get on to our next item thank you so much don't forget to validate your parking if you drove but please exit quietly so we can
hear from City staff thank you again go ahead Kelly all right so my name is Kelly Hill um I am the division manager overseeing homelessness response with the housing department okay where's okay so as you know there are approximately 4500 individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness in San Jose most of those individuals live on the streets in vehicles and of course in encampments according to beautify SJ there are approximately 200 encampments of varying sizes throughout San Jose current c
ity funded Outreach teams manage 16 sore encampment sites where case management trash pickup and basic hygiene resources are offered Outreach workers are deployed to respond to the most entrenched and vulnerable individuals those who are not accessing Services Outreach work workers or Street based case managers have the highest rate rate of getting people's personal information into our homeless management information system or hmis which is the source of referrals into permanent and Supportive
Housing Outreach workers have also been the ones placing people directly from encampments into our emergency interim housing projects out Outreach workers are the ones asked to go out in extreme weather conditions such as heat cold Smoke Filled air this thing that we had this pandemic there are often going where conditions are not always safe where it's slippery muddy contaminated air temperatures over 100° freezing temps our city funded Outreach teams transport are most vulnerable when they're
sick and they're the first to respond and they're saving lives unique to the city of San Jose these Outreach workers have the hardest job in the homeless service system I'm using Street based case managers and Outreach workers interchangeably I just want to make note of that so these Street based case managers are t t with breaking the mistrust of a failed system building that trust means they're consistently showing up they're following through on commitments they're getting answers to question
s and requests they're taking the time to listen and understand individual needs they're being people centered and working at the people's Pace the city and the county RI on the street based case managers to help these those people living outside gather updated documents needed to transition to Supportive Housing and this takes time takes research coordination making and keeping appointments Outreach requires cordination with multiple partners to successfully meet the varying needs of individual
s experiencing homeless the city has funded a variety of Outreach projects which require close collaboration with different specialized Partners one example we work with the County Office of Supportive Housing to ensure people are paired with the most appropriate housing option another example we work closely with the library the downtown association's social impact team and the nonprofit path to offer a full range of supportive strategies to address the crisis in the downtown Corp wanted to hig
hlight a case study in 2022 the housing department launched the safe encampment resolution program Outreach activities were critical in the program success 282 individuals were identified in the targeted encampment in downtown San Jose along the Guadalupe River Trail from wway to Julian Street the proactive consistent Outreach resulted in a by name list which was used to understand each individual's housing needs through hmis we coordinated closely with the county on Supportive Service placement
s and when combined with direct referrals to emergency interim housing the results for 142 individuals transitioning to permanent and temporary housing opportunities that's 50% of participants successfully exiting to successful destinations exceeding the regional performance Benchmark set at 40% we wanted to provide a little bit of um context about the difference between reactive and proactive Outreach the city has been prioritizing Outreach efforts since 2013 we've developed several programs ov
er the years and while all are intended to reach those experiencing unsheltered homelessness strategies have varied and most notably between reactive Outreach and proactive Outreach reactive Outreach as in our Citywide outreach program is complaint driven and often results in only one encounter Outreach teams are deployed to assess situations provide notifications of upcoming enforcement actions such as abatements reactive Outreach does not have positive outcomes to housing we're seeking approva
l to move forward with two proactive targeted Outreach and engagement contracts aside from the safe encampment resolution program sore is another example of proactive Outreach a proactive targeted Outreach model has been successful and it promotes coordination and collaboration with better performance outcomes the mayor's March budget message States in reference to the storm water permit that we must prioritize substantial investments in expanded alternatives to unmanaged en camp ments along wat
erways and additional capacity for outreach enhanced cleanups and encampment abatement in these areas without simply shifting encampments to nearby neighborhoods and this redesigned holistic Outreach model will do just that building on the lessons learned from the safe encampment resolution program we're proposing a one team model to reduce unsheltered homelessness and this model requires cross departmental and multi agency collaboration after Outreach becomes the provides the human centered ser
vices and transitions everyone out of the targeted encampments we rely on the expertise of other departments and partners to ensure the site is Abad activated and restored and then we move on to the next targeted encampment which will be selected collectively by multi multiple City departments by taking these encampments one at a time we can coordinate and isolate resources and demonstrate success the two 15-month targeted Outreach and engagement contracts will expand the safe encampment resolut
ion model to other areas in San Jose where the impacts of encampments are most costly and create unsafe conditions for all residents for the waterways commercial districts and and the environment the proposed Outreach contracts would focus on consistent engagement and build trust with the goal of transitioning each individual to successful destinations all while providing a variety of services along the way and this includes getting their identification access to employment resources food clothe
s Transportation health benefits financial assistance to re reunite with family and the list goes on once the encampment or Target area is clear of people the site will be cleaned kept cleaned and maintained and then Outreach will move on to the next Target area so this is a reminder of our recommendation and this concludes our presentation and we're open to questions I do want to say I want to give a big thank you to two members of my division uh Vanessa Beretta and Greg p were pivotal in this
presentation and this memo and in the development of these contracts great thank you for the thoughtful presentation all the work that's gone into it let's go to public comment okay um when I call your name please come down first person of the microphone just start you don't have to speak in any particular order I have Christopher Wes Kelly Vasquez Maggie Crowder um Andrea erto and Maria Ariano to start hello um I'm Christopher West I'm also an enrolled member of the msog Creek Nation and I'm al
so a resident at the arena Hotel um I've came I've came here to discuss the issue of uh home first and path in their outreach program um if you notice that the uh uh they're the only two providers up there that are that are doing the Outreach however if you look at your attachment a which is from the city which is the guidelines that that uh they're supposed to follow when they do their Outreach you'll notice that on page on page five it says that there are no convictions for arson meth manufact
uring and sex offenses are supposed to be allowed there we currently have sex offenders staying at our location and they're and they're in direct violation of state law because two of the two of the people that are staying there they're offenses are with miners your time next speaker good evening everyone my name is Andrea eron and I work at home first our ages since he has served this community for nearly 45 years our teams have worked tirelessly to provide needed services to unhoused and housi
ng insecure neighbors we have been called on to respond to saving lives in times of Crisis and public health emergencies because we are trusted partners with Adept teams at meeting people's needs yet despite our unwavering dedication and proven track record we find ourselves besieged by baseless rumors and ill-informed Whispers falsehoods spread like wildfire casting doubt on the in integrity and effectiveness of our work but let me be clear these rumors are just Shadows fleeting and insubstanti
al in the face of our enduring commitment to those we serve many of you have had the opportunity to see our staff in action as you vote today please think of them and their commitment to this work thank you thank you next speaker um and for those of you who weren't here earlier we U moved the public comment from 2 minutes to 1 minute due to the volume of speakers for the last time item thank you go ahead good afternoon honorable mayor and esteemed council members my name is Maggie Crowder I'm th
e director of our street based uh Services one of the most rewarding parts of this work is something we call family reunification similar to the home wordbound model program we help connect our unhoused neighbors with their restrained families and offer relocation assistance work closely with on securing transportation and facilitate facilitating repaired relationships once we have established trusts and there are other logistics to consider like replacing IDs and other documents um so in this p
ast quarter we have successfully rehoused five families back to other locations within different states or different cities so our Outreach is not a oniz fits all it's about taking steps along the journey with our clients and connecting them to resources most of align with their goals thank you thank you next speaker I'd also like to call down B Ramos Kelly Kate Samuel pz and Peter kamacho hello see members of the city council my name is mar Ariano the vice president of permanent housing at home
first being a first generation Mexican-American my journey with home first over the past 9 years has been deeply meaningful this organization has been my home away from home empowering me to make a real difference in our community at home first we don't just provide shelter we offer a Lifeline to those that need helping them rebuild their lives with dignity and purpose through our our rapid rehousing and services programs we restore hope and remind individuals of their potential and their resil
ience together we're not just addressing homelessness we're fostering a community of support and empowerment I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of this journey where every day we inspire positive change and create brighter futures for those we serve thank you for your valuable time thank you next speaker my name is Kelly Vasquez and I'm home first Chief program officer our organization provides a full spectrum of services to help people find a home improve their lives and stay housed O
utreach is a critical component of the Spectrum offering for many their first engagement with Supportive Services our Outreach teams conduct coordinated entry Assessments in the field exactly where people are eliminating barriers to housing they also provide life-saving services and linkages to resources such as emergency shelter the outcome of all of these efforts Speaks For Itself by the second quarter of this year our store Outreach team exceeded contract goals with 60% of our participants ex
iting to Temporary or per housing destinations this success was possible in large part due to funding uh for service enhancements that strengthen our program outcomes we invite you to come visit our sites get to know our staff and experience firsthand the work thank you next speaker Dear honorable mayor and esteemed council member members my name is Kelly cape and I am proud to uplift inclusion at home first it is imperative to understand that the existence of low barrier shelters and services l
ike ours answer the Urgent necessity to confront systemic failures that have perpetuated homelessness as one of the most accessible as one of the most accessible and inclusive Outreach service providers in our area we serve as a Lifeline for those repeatedly denied assistance by other avenues this vital safety net saves lives our organization operates on the fundamental principle that everyone deserves access to basic necessities and dignified support regardless of their circumstances people in
power owe their communities the recognition of the invaluable role agencies like ours play in repairing the shattered lives of those who have been failed by Broken systems and governmental neglect simply put our renowned Outreach teams meet people where they thank you next speaker good afternoon mayor and Council wow okay um my name is Peter kamacho I'm a resident of District 4 part of the Filipino Association of workers and immigrants and the Santa Clara County W Coalition I'm not here today to
dispute the targeted outreach program in of itself but I am here to express concerns about awarding or extending any contracts with home first um as some may have heard um you know and especially we've seen the impacts in our organization of wag step of discrimination against workers and the impacts it has to the workers and their families and we're concerned about the allegations and the you know the cost action lawsuits that have been filed against weight or against home first around wage the
ft and also around uh discrimination against uh various workers of home first um we know that you know it's really important to up lift and like serve our community but we have to really consider who is it that we're awarding these contracts thank you next speaker I'm also going to call down Amanda maricone Teresa and Blair hello my name is Samuel Paul Mars and I'm here to share with you my journey of transformation with the help of home first over a year ago I was homeless and without any hope
but thanks to support of home first Outreach team I was able to turn my life around pursue my passion with their help I found a safe secure place to live I was able to enroll in Barber College and pursue my dreams now after months of hard work and dedication I am proud to say that I will soon be graduating and starting my career thanks to home first I will be finally be able to arent my own apartment buy my own car something that I once only dreamed about my story is a testament of power of Hope
and res resilience and I hope that I can Inspire others to never give up on their dreams I grateful for the second chance that home first has given me and I'm excited for the feature holds thank you for taking time this to me thank you next speaker my name is vatri Ramos and I'm the VP of emergency housing at home first our Outreach and Street Based Services in San Jose are a crucial component in the fight to end homelessness these Outreach teams provide boots on the ground support they work di
ligently to build trust and Community which often times counters the isolation of homelessness they connect individuals to support services that are critical such as coordinated entry system our teams assist individuals with documentation Readiness and transportation to enroll in these new and scary services for them um This truly makes all the difference in the world in having a trusted provider during this process by their side we've seen really excellent results and successful out comes when
we take this Approach at a time when we have limited resources it is it is imperative that we use our resources to the best of our ability and going through coordinated entry with Outreach support is critical um Outreach not only helps those in immediate need but also contributes to a larger system of care that provides thank you next speaker and Katherine Hedges you can come on down hello um my name is Maron and I'm with the Filipino Association of workers and immigrants and also the Santa clar
County wage stuff Coalition and we urge you not to award any contracts to home first they were fined in 2019 by the State Labor Commission and also in 2023 they had a class auction law suit that was filed against them for wage theft and not only have they been filed against for wage theft employees there have also been targeted or fired or threatened with termination so instead of home first please focus on new vendors who better represent the unhoused population and have better labor practices
and um vendors who respect the child care needs of working mothers thank you thank you next speaker hi uh Blair bman uh thanks a lot for this item I was impressed uh from the previous item a few speakers spoke of the importance of uh the importance of a temporary not only building temporary uh housing uh in San Jose but but to work on other forms of affordable housing and the importance to return to the initial intentions of measure e that we were kind of promising to to do after this one year
this past year of of temporary using it for temporary housing so good luck with this item and uh thanks for your time and um yeah good luck how we can uh better address our own house thank you thank you next speaker hi my name is Katherine Hedges I'm not speaking on behalf of any of my um local affiliations so I did use to be a member of United Auto Workers um I'm very concerned that um one of the primary biders on this proposal is intercloud for wage theft and racism and um also has a near Mono
poly on so many different aspects of our shelter system so that if somebody is perab Bann from one location then they can't access hardly any other services in San Jose front housee people um we need to reopen the RFP and consider other biders and give the workers an opportunity to present their labor case before making a final decision on this matter thank you very much thank you next speaker I'm also gonna call Deborah Michael and John so that's Deborah Michael morand and John bets go ahead hi
I'm tresa I lived on cruise when all of that happened over there we were told by people that came out from home first that they would help us with certain things I gave them my number all my information I have never received a call nobody has come out to talk to me and I'm scheduled to have three operations and I cannot have them because I'm afraid I'm going to come out and not have a home to go to that's that's it thank you next speaker Amanda I'll just speak for myself I have been to many I h
ave lived in many shelters um I am sure that the people that are complaining about home first running the shelter in Sunnyville are not fa less they're not and it's just not a little bit of Whispers these are real offenses and to real people and uh yes many people have shattered lives that enter here and then to be kicked out is very harmful uh in some cases uh when I have lived shelters I don't think it's a very good model and I think that even if the operator was the best operator in the world
uh when you're trying to operate something something that's already broken and isn't working and it's a dehumanizing model um being housed is a rehumanizing model and uh there are shelters at work like in Sano you start in group housing then you have your own room then you get your own apartment thank you next speaker hi my name is Deborah Townley and while I was unhoused I went to home first little Orchard and um I had never felt so dehumanized in my life the way that they talked to me they ac
cused me of actually not being homeless and pretending to be homeless to get medical care they um denied me food while keeping me there all day waiting for an appointment that I didn't get and had to come back the next day at 7: a.m. they made us sit outside on the cold hard Concrete in the rain I watched people in wheel chairs scoot themselves with their feet with garbage bags over them in the rain and in the cold across from Little Orchard to the plant in order to get sheltered during the day
I saw the inside which was pristinely clean but that's because they don't let anybody inside during the day also it was raining and cold and they were keeping people outside I had a pregnant woman asked me if I had any food while there was plenty of food inside the facility um they wouldn't give her any food until a C thank you next speaker hello uh my name is Michael morand um I'm a formly um um unhoused person here in San Jose um I've also um um lived in an SLE and I've also right now I'm curr
ently with uh home first which has put me up at a a hotel and um before I go on more about myself I'd like to make some comments with regards to something I read in the spotlight um it says here San Jose spent $24 million in federal grants last year on addressing homelessness of more than a thousand people experiencing homelessness less than 10% eventually transitioned to any type of temporary permanent housing so that's like $240,000 a person if you do the math I'd like to address mayor M mayor
mahan's comments City spends about 6 million annually I'll go on he said he'd like to see the spending uh be implemented for something else if we're not offering a place maybe we're overspending on out thank you your time is up while the next speaker comes down I'd like to call Elizabeth damica Bailey and uninformed voice go ahead hello my name is John and I'm with uh the group called SOS recently because home first didn't like that our group was speaking up against SOS against uh home first th
ey actually went to the management the top level of Sacred Heart and spoke to them and so now um they're getting the man top levels of Sacred Heart to squelch our group SOS from speaking out that's a good example of home first devious and uh corrupt tactics there's many well documented things of the corruption and the mistreatment of employees and clients sometimes mentally ill people were caused to sit Outdoors all night because they thought someone thought they were misbehaving um other people
got fired because they needed to have allowance for the daycare needs for their children so all of these things aren't just vague rumors as the head of uh home thank you next speaker hi my name is Liz Stewart and I'm a homeless Advocate and for 18 years I have been a very faithful donor and supporter and cheerleader of home first however things have really gone downhill and I cannot support them anymore when I visit my homeless friends at the shelters they report um that they're treated like th
ey have no right to be there they're liars and thieves and experience humiliation it's um by staff and they end up choosing being homeless again over being at the shelter um same with home first Outreach when my friends at the camp report that they're treated in degrading ways and um in condescending ways and on the street home first has a very bad reputation um and they are not trusted people who are trusted are like Helping Hands office of supporting housing cville community services I don't f
ault the workers I think the problem is at the top um um I would like to urge you to please not fund home first find other vendors who who are trusted by the people on the street thank you next speaker hello honorable mayor and council members my name is De Bailey and I'm the housing stabilization director with home first and I'm here speaking today as I am also a parent and had a child while employee at home first I've worked for home first for almost 12 years now and I understand that communit
y members want to hold our agency accountable for things that they don't have the full scope of the issue however I also understand that as a staff member there that they have done all things that could possibly do to to make the work environment a great place as well as to serve those in the community from our homeless population as being an employee I have seen this organization make great steps to improve and to serve more in the community so I ask that you take consideration of continue to a
llow us thank you that's your time next speaker ironic that I follow the one black employee willing to get paid and come and speak for home first we are asking for the RFP to be reopened to give other applicants the chance to apply and for those that already applied a chance to improve their application we feel it is critically important to break up the near Monopoly home first has on unhoused services in Santa clar county and San Jose in particular when they ban a client from a shelter all they
do is end up go with nowhere to go on the streets home first is not where homelessness ends it's where homelessness rep repeats itself and when you're back on the street you don't want to talk to home first again home first uh as has been documented has an issue with racism the issue is not just at the Sunnyville shelter at least three sites have written complaints regarding it multiple small Outreach contracts would better Serve the unhoused People of San Jose you should not give a contract to
them certainly not a company that is a preferred vendor of the city of San Jose a reflection of you thank you Laray RS I've now called all the speaker cards after the speaker hello hi my name is Laray um I'm a peer support specialist with trust team which is a program within home first deals directly with Mental Health crisis um we work with 988 um we dispatch for uh deescalation or transport to uh crisis stabilization or Mental Health Urgent Care uh we work directly with law enforcement or in
Li of law enforcement depending on the circumstances um being a transgender person of color person of color I seldom find an environment where I feel completely supported and included and home first has provided that since I've started working here um the support and respect that they provide to the employees allows us to provide better service to the community and I feel like that directly translates into the success of our clients overall so um I would ask that you guys continue to support and
uh support us in our efforts to provide support to the community Through the different avenues that we have with home first thank you microphone sir sir you can come on down where at the sir the person um whoever's comment that was Renee Ramirez there we go okay good evening mayor good evening city council we appreciate the time today uh you know again much has been said about uh the actions within home first we've done uh great deal to try to address these issues we again invite you to come an
d visit our sites speak to all of our staff we've got 15 different locations that people could come and visit uh we continue to uh offer support to all of our employees we continue to look for accountability around uh all the questions that come at us we are not under any type of investigation there have not been any uh issues is raised at the local state federal government levels we're we're happy to open our doors and answer all questions that come from uh from anyone that's willing to come in
and visit our sites thank you back to council thank you Tony thank you all for commenting let's go to council M Cohen first yeah thank you um I want to thank everyone who came out and spoke and and thank staff uh for bringing this forward I I first just want to acknowledge that this work that we do is really challenging work and I don't think any of us know exactly how to be successful at at this um I certainly don't I know that others have a better feeling than I do um but um the result of tha
t is that we have to sort of figure out what are the what are the expectations what and how do we measure success because it's not the typical measurement of success that we have in a lot of other other ways we can't just take a simple percentage and say well this percentage was successful and therefore and have some Target percentage we have to we have to measure ourselves against uh comparable cities against other B and figure what the baselines are and and it's complicated um let me just star
t with a s with a question not a simple question but a question what measures do we currently have in place to sort of determine whether somebody is successful at this work or whether we're being successful as a whole at this work um have an answer to that I'll start and uh Kelly can add in Reagan heninger deputy director of the housing department um one of the primary outcome measures for our street Outreach teams is a benchmark around um housing outcomes so placing an individual in uh temporar
y housing or permanent housing that's our primary outcome that is probably most important to the housing department um I think one of the speakers from home first mentioned it um so that's our our primary outcome we have other kinds of what I'll call um things that we count or measure so what an example of that is um completing our vulnerability assessments that's our assessment for housing and what type of housing um someone is eligible for in our system so that's another thing that we measure
because Outreach serves as a primary populator of our homeless management information system so our database of people who are in need of Housing and I'll add hand it to Kelly if there's anything she wants to add I think you covered it oh okay that was the end I'm sorry um so obviously the ultimate outcome is somebody's housed um I guess my you know the hard part for me is is 1% of the people contacts resulting in housing success is 10% success is is 50% success that's the question I guess it's
hard to answer and how do we Baseline what is a successful result and I'm not asking you to unless you have a feeling now to answer that I think that's just something that we want to get a better handle on is you know it's it obviously our our ultimate goal would be 100% but we we know that this is a difficult population that there's a lot of challenges that there's a lot of service resistance so it's not clear to me what what what what the uh number is in which we can say we were successful and
so um just don't know if there's a comment on that um thank you for the question so um as a region our local Continuum of Care gets together with a um a work group that comes up with performance benchmarks and so we all strive to um get to we have we put these these outcomes in our contracts depending on the strategy and with Street Outreach um it is a tough population and moving straight out of an encamp there's going to be quite a quite a few barriers so the COC Benchmark is um is the only Be
nchmark that actually includes temporary destinations temporary successful destinations um as a as a success every other Benchmark is exits to permanent housing and that's totally intentional um because we're trying to reduce unsheltered homelessness and then the work continues once they're in the temporary housing so The Benchmark for for um 23 24 is actually we did increase it from 40% to 45% 45% of people enrolled in Street Outreach programs will exit to Temporary and permanent exit destinati
ons yeah I appreciate that thank you um we we have a joint memo uh council members uh Torres vice mayor K mayor Mayan and myself um I know you've seen the memo and so you've seen the recommendations for way for other metrics um what are your thoughts about how those metrics might enhance our ability to gauge our Effectiveness and and and improve our performance in the future thank you for that question I I definitely have thoughts about um some of the metrics that are being proposed here particu
larly uh letter c um the number of unduplicated individuals that basically tracking rejections of services and I think that that is complicated when individuals are not enrolled in Street Outreach so um you have to start with trust and Trust leads to an intake in in in the program and that leads to being able to track what we are providing or what we're offering no enrollment makes it very difficult to track what we're offering and the services es that are being taken and just to take it a littl
e bit further the the declines of Behavioral Health gets tricky as well because a lot of the time we don't have clinicians on staff some some are clinicians but not all and so that gets a little bit um in a gray area when we're asking our street Outreach workers our our street based case managers to to even assume that there is a behavioral health Pro um issue or diagnose somebody and so um they're not trained in that and so also this this has happened multiple times where we can offer some Ment
al Health Services and that's very offensive and that can break trust right away and so I I think we would need to think through is it is it an offer of of Mental Health Services or Behavioral Services or health services in general to everybody that we we see and then you get into well how do we track it if they're not enrolled so there are complications to to some of those and Kelly just on that specifically I think the spirit of that is uh basically when are those services available when reque
sted so that we can have better visibility into how we interact with our counterparts at the county and know when we have a request for service that they're unable to provide so that we can be tracking that because it's hard for us to hear anecdotally that a service is not available without having the data to back it up and say there was was a request for this service this number of times and we were able to access it through this service x% of the time and then we can actually request more serv
ice provision from Partners but Council M Cohen I interjected please continue yeah uh I appreciate that the that the um model here which I think is the right model is a Continuum of interaction that potentially leads to an outcome at some point so how we decide at what point to say a person has you know has been offered service is not not so clear and so taking it when when when I make a motion you can take it in the spirit of that and and kind of figure out how that can be built as a metric goi
ng forward without being too over prescriptive at this point um but certainly I think what's really important is for us to also understand how many folks are resistant to even the contact how many folks are not accepting help because that that's an important information for us to know as we deal with with the problem on our streets you know there's a certain number who are who are obviously will will and I hope a majority will be taking help and and building those relationships but some may not
and it's important for us to understand that in the context of this whole thing um I was going to ask some more questions I think we're down I'm down to my last minute so I'll I'll move on to my motion and I'll decide later if I want to ask my other question at the end um I will I will move approval of the me of the joint memo um which includ includes um uh the staff recommendation thanks Council second from the vice mayor appreciate it um and I and I think I just want to clarify I think Council
M said it well that I think this is an ongoing dialogue with the council I know we did our best to incorporate staff feedback into the recommendations and staff had a chance to look at them and give feedback and help shape them I think the spirit of it is we want to be educated on how much we're spending overall on Outreach what types of outreach are happening what are those inter what are we learning from those interactions what are the general Trends where are there gaps and part of it is we
have to decide ultimately how to right size are we spending the right amount on Outreach do we need more resources for outreach or should we actually hold off on expanding Outreach and put more of the dollars into expanding the places where people can go because if we send a lot of Outreach workers out and then there's no services to offer or we're out of placements then we're spending money that isn't having much of an impact so I think it's just helping us be better educated on the overall imp
act of those dollars and what we're learning so we can make smarter decisions over time let me uh turn to council member vatra next thank you for that report and uh I got a couple of questions on the Outreach hours when are these people supposed to be doing the Outreach uh is it 8 to5 or is it different hours could you some comment on that typically Outreach hours are Monday through Friday in during business hours but there are always exceptions especially during emergencies um we do get special
requests to work um in the early mornings sometimes in the evenings but typically it's it's St in the work hours um Monday through Friday see you know that we had difficulty with trying to establish about the RVs whether there were people any living or not living there by going through Monday through Friday during those hours we would never be sure because those people may have gone to work and no contact was made with them and when the community I was in the meeting yesterday with the CAC they
saying hey if you're only making contact between 8 and 5 or Monday through Friday how do we know in those RVs that the people are not living because those are working hours many of them do go and work and hence there is no contact with them to be able to say move it into the are we safe parking so I think you need to look into the this thing and and the request for getting those uh contact we made outside of those hours the response has been is it's not in our contract so I think when you're do
ing this thing you need to figure it out how would we get this in the contract if you need to be able to say something that the hours certain number of hours can be outside of these 8 to5 or whatever your normal is because that has been a pretty solid complaint from the time uh 11 14th of July when we launch the RV safe parking the community has been complaining about it that they have not been able to establish that so we need to figure out something I don't know what you need in this contract
change and I'm sure you had heard this before thank you Council M for the comments um we don't we don't disagree at all and our Outreach Partners um home first path life moves have been flexible and are able to kind of flex Outreach workers schedules so as you mentioned in the case of the Santa Teresa supportive parking site life moves did Flex schedule schedules as you recall and they were able to provide Outreach in the evening hours to some of those RVs and in the morning hours um so we can F
lex as needed um the the issue that we're trying to balance is also with our nonprofit Partners um with real Recruitment and Retention hardships um and sometimes early morning late night hours those are hard to recruit for and retain um trained great staff uh so we're trying to balance difficult issues but again we work with our providers um to kind of flex schedules and be responsive um to needs yeah I I agree working those odd hours in this kind of a job is pretty difficult and finding the peo
ple who will be willing to do it is even harder but that's the need so and based on my attending the meeting last night the community is not happy with the level of Outreach being done and the answer even the housing person who was there I'm not going to name him uh was the answer was those are the hours we have commitment for and and reaching in the other hour hours is not a satisfactory kind of situation so I just bring that to your attention and you need to fix something in your contract that
the enough hours in those strange hours very difficult hours to work in or available otherwise the program success is challenged okay and uh so so I think whatever amendment is needed are we willing to make that but that's a need that we need to provide for in these Outreach okay uh the second aspect is that you talk about having to make long-term contacts with these people when do we give the feedback that this person whoever we are making contact with we have reached the point of no return be
cause you know you made enough contacts this person is not accepting it for whatever reasons and hopefully you understand the reasons and do you ever reached that point what what do you mean by point of no return coun you basically declare that this person is not going to accept so making any future contacts with that person spending time on it find some other way of handling that particular individual than continuously uh going after that because we got limited resources to take care of there a
re more people out there who need to be taken care of we can't be keep going to the one who doesn't want to take help I think it council member it depends on the situation so if we're if it's a a Outreach team that is um reacting or being deployed per a housing department request um that Outreach team may encounter that individual one time um and that's it because we then deploy that Outreach team to somewhere else to be responsive to a request so um in in that kind of situation our our interact
ions are often limited um last year we got over 5,000 requests um to visit encampments in our proactive model like our safe encampment resolution um program that was funded by the state that Kelly referenced in her presentation um we don't we don't give up so we keep checking in we keep offering support and it's about that trust that um Kelly mentioned I don't know that there's a well after you know three times we give up I don't know that there is a standard of that we try not to give up on a h
uman okay all right okay so how do we want to make sure that the contract provides enough Outreach hours needed in those strange hours and not Monday through Friday was that a question Council M yes it's a question can you restate it please yeah because right now you just said that that your Outreach is Monday through Friday but certain times it's needed like I gave you the example of the RV parking you were not able to establish whether those people were living there or not so how do we get the
hours Outreach hours during the uh outside of Monday through Friday what do you need in the contract to be there something we will have flexible language in the contract as far as our hours and with this new model since we'll be in one encampment at a time I mean they'll be stretched probably six to seven between at any given time but we'll be visiting every week every day maybe and so we'll know who's living there and what their needs are the hours May fluctuate in one en camp to another so we
'll but we'll have the language in our contract as as very flexible on ours okay all right so you take care of that then uh I don't need to worry about it yes uh for the satisfaction okay thank you thanks council member vice mayor KEH thank you um so we all know that this this is very challenging and difficult work so um those of you who work in the community um trying to help the UNH house thank you no matter what you know what you do how you do it or anything thank you um I uh I think it's goi
ng to be important to um as our memo says uh to follow whatever metrics or try to get better information better data as to whether or not this is really the best use of our limited dollars so $9 million is quite significant last year we used $1 million that was significant and um you know as we continue along this road I don't see that it's going to be much less maybe a little bit but not much less right where where we over year over year over year uh are spending tremendous tremendous amounts o
f resources uh so I think that um Kelly you mentioned that it's difficult to track some of this information I hope that we can at least find a way to ask the questions so that we have a sense even a a a a a a a way of being able to gauge uh you know in terms of well you know know 20% of the people um don't don't want to be bothered or whatever whatever it is you know because I think that the information uh will guide decision making and so I think that that's going to be really important the oth
er thing I wanted to point out and I specifically made sure that it's in our um our group memo is that um I am uh I would like to see more information in in terms of this coming year and so the 9 million in the coming 15 months is specifically mentioned in the memo versus having up to three three one-year options to extend I would rather not have that because I think that it has to come back to us there's been a lot of dialogue a lot of information I know that um you know it's it's something tha
t we're trying to get our arms around but I am not in favor of just having you know the options extended without it coming to council first because I think that we need to see how how you're able to obtain the metrics and the outcomes um I know information does come to the Committees uh so I think that that may be a vehicle but to have an automatic oh yes you know you got a three-year you have a it was in here up to three one-year options to extend I think to me I'm not ready for that so I I fee
l that I'll give you the 15 months but I also want to be very clear as to we need to know more and we need to know how it all fits with everything else we're spending Millions upon Millions on trying to address the issue and I think that as we look at our budget uh you know the resources are diminishing and therefore we have to invest in the most appropriate the mayor just mentioned that you know if we have all this Outreach and trying to get people in places but don't have the places well then
maybe some of the money should go into the places so I just feel that that we need to be mindful that um as much resources as we can we need to U maximize its utilization and I know you know this but I'm just sort of you know uncertain about the way it was laid out in the staff report so I I just want to be clear that that's what we're voting on vice mayor we we will come back to you each year with a contract renewal um we haven't identified funding sources for future years should we choose to e
xtend so we would have to come back to council for authorization secondly we will come back through the homeless annual report that's being led by um out of our city manager's office and we will include um data on this project as well as our other uh homeless response programs for you yeah I just wanted to make sure because the way it's written out in the staff report yes you do acknowledge that subject to the appropriation of funds and termination for the convenience of you know blah blah blah
but at the same time I want to say wait a minute let's just take one step at a time because we may want to say well well you know we could have used you know this money for shelter or whatever something else so I just want to make sure that we're very clear on that and and that we're not going to make it automatic great thanks for clarifying that vice mayor uh Council Cohen yeah I just want to ask the question I ran out of time on before um but you know we we hear we hear a lot of um criticism a
nd some of it obviously valid and some I'm not sure but about the performance of the providers we have now and um sort of recommendations from folks who say look into Alternatives see if you can find somebody else can you just describe for for for us the RFP process the biders how you know how that went what what you know were there Alternatives because I think it's important to understand the um you know what's out there and what we what we're facing sure we opened the RFP for about six weeks a
nd we did quite a bit of community outreach to gain um as much interest as possible we did have five applicants um two of which did not meet our minimum threshold um and so because the three highest scoring applicants were pretty um pretty close in SC in range um we did come we did invite all three to come back for interviews and we conducted um interviews with all three and had had the same questions of all three and determined that path and home first um scored the highest after those intervie
ws okay yeah I appreciate that I think it's important to to sort of keep in mind the the process that we use as a city to to go out and and look for providers and that we must follow that process before we come forward so so um you know it it's it we can't you know as a council we can't deal with hypothetical we have to deal with what's what's in front of us and what the options are um and I just want to I think that's important as well as we as we make do this valuation but I do appreciate that
you know we're adding we're going to try to get some good metrics and we'll come back in a year we'll you know we'll go through the process again depending on our funding and decide you know what's working and what isn't and and maybe have a better handle on how to determine what's working and what isn't um so I appreciate that thank you thanks thanks council member uh appreciate that thank you again for the staff report Tony let's vote hold on just a second okay motion passes unanimously did t
hat I think she was talking to you motion passes unanimously oh it was unanimously okay great thank you appreciate that thank you all okay we're on to our final sorry I was just confrmed with noron process we're on to our final item that was agendized before open Forum that's item 8.3 now there has been a request at least there's a memo to bifurcate the vote on the two so I think what I would suggest and I'll look for a motion on this procedurally is that we we do the one staff presentation and
then take separate votes on the projects if somebody wants to move that does that councilor Cohen I think you were on that memo do you want to make a motion to that effect I I don't have a problem with voting on the project separately if yeah I mean I think the council member Ortiz wanted to make that motion about bifurcating I'm just going to okay but it would be a we' just do a joint single staff presentation oh what I'm asking is can we do a single staff presentation single public comment and
then take separate occurs after that anyway this is one item on the agenda so is okay so I just wanted to flag that since you had your memo out we can take that vote now we do it when we come back after public comment maybe that's better okay so let's go to the staff presentation first great thank you mayor and Council Rosaline huie Deputy city manager and acting housing director um the housing staff is very pleased to bring um the loan commitment for these two affordable housing projects to yo
u this evening for ker apartments and North Capital Avenue together these two projects will provide over 350 affordable units for our residents and um they are specifically for um extremely low very low and lowincome individuals and families in our community we do want to acknowledge the memorandum from Council Members Ortiz and Co uh and while these two projects are not city-owned uh similar to some of our uh interim housing sites uh we do want to let the council know that we do encourage devel
opers of private development like this one uh to actually work very closely with neighbors and the council district offices during the construction phase um of the project to address any Community concerns and so with that I'm going to ask kimet marakana division manager to provide an overie of both of the projects good evening everyone Cruz Apartments is a 191 unit multif family apartment building uh located at 1371 kuza Road in San Jose and 521 North 525 North Capital is a multigenerational 16
0 unit five-story development uh with ground FL climon areas and other minties as we'll discuss later there are 191 units at koer and 160 apartments at 525 North Capital 1371 crer uh will provide housing for 50 of which will be extremely low 50 of the units will be for extremely low income units 65 will be for very low income units and 74 will be for low-income families 30 of the uh units will be permanent Supportive Housing units uh there will be a significant number of family units uh over sli
ghtly over 50% of the uh units are two and three bedroom apartments the onsite amenities and features include a youth center a community garden uh there will be uh on-site services for adult education and skill building classes there'll also be a community uh community room and computer lab among other features as is generally the practice with multif family affordable housing multiple funding sources are being utilized here the county of Santa Clara is contributing $4 million and uh the city of
San Jose is contributing uh $19.5 million in construction to perm uh financing and as well other sources to make up the total permanent amount of 155 million the site at 525 North Capitol came to our attention as part of the $150 million NOA released in 20121 as mentioned it will be five stories with 40 permanent Supportive Housing units additionally it will have uh 10 units for the intellectually or developmentally disabled Community the development will feature uh on-site resident services uh
Community Building programs F Food Services provided by veggie Lucian and a computer lab for residents and more again similarly as to crer there are multiple funding sources for affordable housing uh here the county is contributing 8 million uh the development received a iig a infield infrastructure Grant Award of $4 million and the city of San Jose is contributing $20 million in construction to perm financing we' like to thank our partners in this process uh affirmed housing for the Koza proje
ct Community Development partners for the 525 North Capital project and of course course City staff including the planning division a city attorney's office and housing staff shelsea bass Michael Jung Francisco montz and Lucy ma that'll turn it over any questions great thank you for the presentation Tony do we have public comment yes I have several cards um when I call your name please come down I have one um interpreter request so if a Spanish interpreter can come down I have Barry ghee Jennife
r Kowski GF famam [Music] and soyon Del Ral looks like s o i t n and first person who's ready just come straight to the mic hey my name is Barry and I currently live in San Jose I have been a resident of San Jose at a long time and has participate in Special Olympics since I was 16 years old housing choices has assisted me in finding a safe place to live and provide transportation resource I don't drive I take the right where so I won't need parking people with disability deserve affordable plac
e to live because it's not safe to be on the street if if you have a deant disability I experienced this firsthand when I was traveling I was with my friend a man appro me yelled at me for looking at him forced me to give him money came very close and threaten me to put a knife through my throat I concern for my fellow neighbor who have disability and can't find a safe place to live because they're they are dangerous people of on this street if something happened to them they might not know what
to do I'm here because I protect people like myself and affordable housing is a necessary Avenue you're welcome thank you next speaker good evening mayor and council members hi my name is Jennifer I currently live in San Jose I live at San Jose's Fourth Street Apartment since uh 2012 I live by myself I had two different roommates previously that wasn't very good I felt extremely uncomfortable the onsite resident support services that housing choices has provided me to stick to following the rul
es to retain my housing I don't drive I take the light rail and bus public transportation is very helpful and I use it frequently the 525 North Capital Avenue is important to me because it deserves people a place to live with this economy today is becoming unbearably expensive for certain houses such as those with disabilities to live in the communities they grw up thank you thank you next speaker good evening everyone I would like to point out that this whole meeting has pointed to one obvious
fact San Jose needs affordable housing I'm here to support the development of 525 North Capital Avenue a 100% affordable housing project that will provide 10 homes for individuals with developmental disabilities this is a community that is too often neglected in our discussions and actions around housing production we all know we are in a housing crisis 525 North Capital Avenue represents more than just a solution to a housing shortage is a vital Lifeline for indiv uals in desperate need of a pl
ace to call home by supporting the development of 5 to5 North Capitol Avenue we demonstrate our Collective commitment we're saying hey in San Jose we look out for our neighbors regardless of the abilities they were born with thank you for your continued leadership I urge you to consider how positively this will impact communities are often marginalized thank you thank you next speaker and while um you come up to the microphone I'm going to call Esmeralda Leticia Magdalena and haime Alvarado go a
head good afternoon mayor and esteemed council members my name is is soita Del real Community organizer at Vilan I am here to support the construction of the building on Capitol Avenue since it is a source of hope to have affordable homes and have access to a community serving kitchen muchas Vil Luan has a program that supports East San Jose residents to start their own small food businesses this housing project will give our program the opportunity to use the kitchen to offer classes and meals
to building residents as well as to have a space to hold and give classes about food safety please support this project thank you thank you thank you next speaker hi this is Magdalene again first of all I want to leave clear that I'm not opposed to affordable housing actually I support affordable housing but in this this specific case I'm against to any project developed for a firm the companies that operate that build operate that business such as solar Enterprise P organization who is not give
n proper transition to the house people and managers of the building um etc for this reason we don't support this project until they fix the problems they brought to our neighborhood because this building brought more problems than benefits the for residents uh are tired of being ignored for Bella Apartments now I'm going to mention the some problems that they brought uh there a we have murder on those apartments drugs prostitutions guns illegal thank you your time next your time is up next spea
ker hi uh my name is esala velas representing destination home we need to approve funding for developments on 525 North Capitol Avenue and 1371 couser Road building deeply affordable homes such as these is crucial in addressing our Region's housing and homelessness crisis due to a severe shortage of affordable homes many of our lowincome households in our communities are forced to spend over half their income on housing leaving them a risk of homelessness with just one unexpected expense creatin
g more deeply affordable and supportive homes like these is one of the best in in Investments San Jose can make in addressing homelessness they offer the type of housing our community desperately needs ignoring this crisis is no longer an option the shortage of affordable housing is driving homelessness we must move forward with the plans for development on both of these sites thank you thank you next speaker hi M Alman Village advocates yes yes yes please fund this project um I wish I can come
here every week and say that same thing that you would fund these on a weekly basis but I also want to say that um you can do that and we need to uh learn the lessons of the projects that have been built to date so a firmed build a project on FAL Avenue that's called Bella Apartments um the fal Avenue Neighbors extended a hand of partnership to build a working relationship between the existing and the new neighbors on F Avenue airm and its management Partners have been unsuccessful in meeting fa
st neighbors halfway continuous conflicts have Arisen since the opening and affirmed and its Partners have not been held accountable to properly addressing the needs of both the Vela Avenue occupants and the f Avenue residents affirmed and its Partners must do better and we you as a city council we as a community and all developers we can do two things at the same time we can build that's your time I'd also like to call down per Marisa Fernando Fernandez Abigail Hudson and Blair any name that I
just called please come to the microphone good evening mayor and City Council Members my name is Abigail heinson and I'm the advocacy manager at Vilan I'm here to speak in support of the affordable housing project at 525 North Capital Avenue in San Jose in addition to providing 160 affordable homes for community members this project will bring food security and resiliency resources to Residents as part of this project fgi Luan will operate a community serving kitchen on the first floor of the ap
artment building where fellows in our East Side grown program will offer cooking classes and prepare tasty healthy and culturally relevant meals for residents to enjoy this affordable housing project offers resident community members an opportunity to have consistent access to healthy meals while building Community with Neighbors at Vilan we know that Community is built by cooking and sharing food and creating connections with one another across cultures please support this project thank you tha
nk you next speaker hi hi bo beakman uh thanks a lot for this item uh in Reading over the memo a bit it it describes you using measure e funding for this item uh thank you uh as I tried to say earlier today and what could be more relevant at this time just a thank you that um you're trying to consider uh measure e funding and and to consider an overall holistic approach to the question of the unhoused we're trying to address at this time um to address very low extremely low and and uh income ide
as is really important I think I I've learned today lessons about uh how mixed income can actually be working in different ways that's important that I know you guys work that I hope you can learn to share that more openly as as what you guys practice well and do well and uh an overall thank you that you're trying to address uh as as Government staff uh to address on house issues you're taking much different approaches than 5 years ago congratulations and uh good luck how you can work on thank y
ou next speaker good evening mayor and City Council Members my name is Fernando Fernandez Lea I am the interim policy director at beuan we are a nonprofit located in East San Jose District 5 we provide a space for low-income families to connect with the land and nature at the same time that we Foster economic opportunities for community members that want to start their food business the program Eastside growth provide technical support and training on food handlers business management and advoca
cy every year we have more than 20 graduates ready to start their business but they can find opportunities for them to start their Journey we are asking here for you for your support on this proposal we need affordable housing and this is a pro as a project that we want your support especially the city cils that belong to our area I'm talking about the east side of San Jose so we are looking for your vote thank you thank you next speaker okay I've called all the cards nobody else is ready to com
e up so back to council okay thank you Tony than you our public speaker ERS um why don't I first entertain if we have one a motion to bifurcate why don't we start with that just so we get the process down before we get into any substance I move to bifurcate the votes for 525 North Capital and the project on cuser apartment okay great so we need to vote on that first oh my hand was raised though oh for the next one yeah this is just to bifurcate the vote on the two projects Tony did that motion p
ass yeah motion passes with one no vote um the no vote is from Pam fley okay and let's go let's start with 1371 ker Road that's what I see first on the agenda um they're both listed here obviously uh so we'll start with the ker road development and we'll go to council fley thank you I'm actually very excited to see this project finally come through I think it's been about four years in the development stage and to finally see that it's coming for its final round of Nova funding means that we're
actually going to get these projects off the ground and these units off the ground this is 191 units uh most of them are family units 48 of them are three bedrooms there's actually 53 bedrooms but two of them are manager units and 40 of them are 48 of them are two bedrooms the rest are Studios and one-bedroom apartments there's also some uh Supportive Housing um a permanent Supportive Housing built into this particular project we've worked with the neighbors the residents I want to thank Rob Wil
kins and affirmed for listening to the community and coming out as often as he did with his team to address some of the concerns and listen to what the concerns of the residents are and we will continue to watch this the construction and the parking and traffic and other issues raised by the development but I'm very excited to see this come into District 9 we already heard earlier today how important affordable housing is and this is one project in District 9 that is almost ready to break ground
and move forward with this so with that I move approval of the NOA funding for ker second great thank you council member and I I just like to finish by saying we've spent a whole day talking and listening to tenant preferences and the concerns that there's no place for the tenants to go this project of 191 units gives the tenants a PR a place to go so I encourage my Council to vote Yes on this development great thank you council member agreed and Rob is here the developer is here if we want to
hear from him is that appropriate uh sure if the I don't mind asking the developer to say a couple words I don't see any other hands from colleagues councelor Foy do you want to ask him a question and and have him coming down to the podium you're welcome to do that Rob I just want to thank you for being here and sitting this whole time I don't have any questions for you I I've talked to you a lot and we have a ground opening on another project that uh Rob has opened in our neighborhood um the en
d I think Friday yes we do thank you thanks for being here yeah okay thank you council member and and I failed to ask often when we have developments and projects during this right after the staff presentation we allow the developer to have a few minutes so if you do want to say anything we'll go ahead and allow you to do that now I apologize I didn't have that in my notes here go ahead yeah I would just um thank you council member Foley for that um and and we we have four other developments tha
t we don't have issues with really um it troubles me about Bella we will uh you know double down our efforts in terms of like neighborhood advisory Council I know we have um we have we have one every month frankly this kind of took me off guard so um I'll commit to doing that and um making sure it's right I know that might can not get your vat Council board te's but we will try harder thanks great thank you appreciate that okay okay we have another hand councelor Ortiz I I just want to mention t
hat I support 100% affordable housing I've been thrown down for affordable housing in the last budget going to be throwing down in a couple weeks to save affordable housing in in measure e but when my constituents come to me and say that uh a manager of a property is not keeping up their end of the bargain uh it's my job to listen to my constituents and far from me to say that you're not providing the same quality of service on the east on the east side that you're doing on the west but on the e
ast side your project it's not mean the the bargaining with the with the community and so that's why I'm going to vote no okay I don't see any other hands Tony let's vote sorry that okay so motion passes 10 to one with Ortiz voting no okay all right we are on to the second half of the item now which is the proposed uh development at 525 North Capital and uh we'll go to council member Ortiz and then we will also allow the developer to say a few words if if they would like go ahead Council thank y
ou mayor um and thank you to our housing department staff for this thorough memorandum on these projects that bring to them the promise of a home for marginalized residents um it's timely to see uh these developments come forward seeing that this Council continues to reopen dialogue around measure e and strives to find the balance between funding affordable housing and addressing our homelessness crisis ultimately I believe that addressing the root cause homelessness the unaffordability of the u
nits in the city is the clear path forward and these projects help prove that concept last week we submitted a memo that obviously bifurcated the vote um and and just to give a little bit of the context um I know well that the history that brought us here today included a major upset for the immediate Community um as the town homes that sit behind the proposed 525 North Capital development were part of a botched signature project that signature project included a proposal for medical offices wit
h a shared parking lot for residents of the town homes on the site where this development is slated to be built um in short they made the decision uh to live in this neighborhood with the understanding that the site would serve a different use than what it is proposed to today and while I simp uh certainly empathize with uh with those who are disappointed with the new Direction the reality is that with SP sp35 it essentially precludes us for any change of course and and truly I have no desire to
stop this this project 525 North Capital stands out as a compelling development seeing that the location is walking distance to the Capitol Light Rail station near southbound Highway 680 entrances proximate to elementary middle and high schools and then walking distance to the Capitol Square Mall which houses various retail options as well as Blanca avado Resource Center which provides wraparound health services and steps away from our Malang Park um it goes without saying that the various type
s of individuals to be housed within this development includes veterans intellectually disabled formally unhoused and and lowincome and they will all benefit from the uh great services that will be provided um at these centers and furthermore Community Development Partners have been excellent Partners who've listened to Residents concerns over parking public entrances and even garbage pickups take a note to address them at a major cost to the project um of itself but to that end um My Hope in cr
eating the community adversary advisory Council um is not to fight the project or or for future residents to fight the project but instead uh to make sure that as the development process is in motion that's done so uh in good faith and hand inand with the community and although the name sounds formal I see the CAC continuing a role of a deao neighborhood association convening residents um and um Property Owners uh to become familiar with the managers dates of events um and even work together to
beautify the area um so uh really excited about this vote and and I move uh for approval thank you do we have a second council member condelles thank you okay I don't see any other hands if the developer would like to say a few words right good evening uh mayor and council members I just want to say thank you all uh for listening to this item um hopefully I urge you to support it we feel like we've worked uh really hard over the last three years um both with council members office as well as uh
the neighbors and our partners such as Vilan and with some of the nonprofits in the neighborhood to try to find a create this project that uh had the least negative impact and the most positive impact imp that we could that we could have and I I think we're there so I just want to urge you to support this and I appreciate everyone's time here today great thank you counc yeah thank you I I wanted to just make a couple quick comments first of all this this site before redistricting was one block s
outh of District 4 now District 4 is a little further north but it it's an area that's really important that I think is a great location for a project like this based on the um things that council member Ortiz mentioned about being right at a light rail station right near shopping right near every all the other amenities um I was I'm hesitant a little bit by the tight by calling this a community advisory Council I mean I support the idea because of the unique nature of um the CH the change of pr
operty use here and the community's concern about that um but I also wanted to make sure that just to on the record for myself to say that I don't want to set the precedent that we would create Community advisory councils for affordable housing projects across the city I think it's we've created we've we've created what we call Community advisory councils for our interim housing and RV parking and and homelessness sites um because of the large concerns that residents have about those sites movin
g into their community and I don't want to to uh have this be some way of implying that affordable housing projects need the same kind of community oversight that that a a homeless site needs or warrants um and that you know we're not we're not going to I don't want to stigmatize affordable housing projects in this way generally so I just wanted to make sure that I put that on the record um while I support this particular um The Creation in this particular instance that this shouldn't be a prece
dent for affordable housing projects across the city yeah I think that's a that's a great point I think it's also the case that we often see Council offices set these up organically without Council direction as well which is another another route to go it doesn't necessarily need Council Direction but I'm personally fine supporting it as it sounds like others are um okay un let's are any other comments or questions I think we're ready to vote motion passes unanimously okay thank you we're on to
open Forum which is an opportunity for members of the public to comment on any items not on today's agenda okay I have several cards um when I call your name please come down no particular order I have um um naom Noemi Brown jitti Torres Mendoza Rita blark Blair beakman and Mark Dobson and if you heard your name please come down you do not have to come in any particular order some people are sitting at the top some people are closer to the bottom so just come on down hi uh BL bman uh I'll be tra
veling up here to uh San Jose or to San Jose offer in the next month so I'll be attending some upcoming public meetings thank you for uh the work of of persons on the council working towards um wanting to continue and return to the original good practices of of measure e uh good luck how we can continue its initial good intentions uh I'm really impressed with the work you're doing uh with the RV issue I think you're trying to take a fair and balanced approach uh for all sides and improve upon th
e ideas of say uh LA and San Diego so thank you for that um the housing issues you talked about today were awesome uh if we work on the future of tech accountability and Bridging the digital divide not just uh as also in terms of tech accountability all those are practices of peace and an open democracy and not war and we give good examples to the world what what those what peace can be thank you next speaker hello Council my name is Rita Lark I was here about maybe three or four months ago and
I have a new address and I just want to know who the uh who who works in this District my address is 4300 Woods Drive and I would like to know who represents this District okay Mr what I'm trying to say is just like when I left copertino they had sex offenders and all that coming over there destroying the property the pipes the washers the dryer and all the water situations and then over here at the woods they're like completely ignoring because they have trouble tenants that help these people g
et into the complex and then there's another sen well yeah he's a senior he's disabled just like I am he's handy cap and he's an empty they told this man that they could not put those uh handlebards so he can work in the bathtub and all around his house they told him that he had to pay for it so these are your time and ma'am your council member can connect with you now and follow up offline thank you for coming next speaker I'm also going to call down um John Betts Chris West and [Music] Sean he
llo again uh my name is udit I'm here as a constituent from District 3 um and I'm here to share a story that I think about often uh hind was a six-year-old girl who was murdered with the rest of her family while they were trying to flee to a safe Zone within the Gaza Strip her last moments were filled with Terror something you can hear in the recording of her call to emergency service is the last words that we can hear from her are come take me you will come and take me I'm so scared please come
please call someone to come and take me I often think about Hind and think about what it was like to have seen your family massacred and see your impending doom I can't begin to imagine what the last moments of H short life was like I can't imagine what the children of Gaza are going through as they are systematically being murdered I believe we have the collective power to stop something that we're all complicit in and that we can do much thank you next speaker hi it's me again I needed to fin
ish my my point there because it was pretty important um here in your uh attachment a uh it says that there's no sex I'm so sorry open forms for things that were not on tonight's agenda I can give you we can give you our email address if that's useful and we send that to the council thank you thank you thank you Stephen do you mind please sharing our email address thank you next speaker uh hello my name is John Betts and I'm with SOS um I think listening to all of you the home people in the hous
ing department speak and a lot of you speak though you have a lot of good intentions but I don't think you really very many of you really have got to know the people in the unhoused community very well at all it would be good if and if you really seemed like you had ever hung out with anybody in the homeless Community for any length of time at all um and then what you the conclusions you're making might be based on more than guesswork as you decide who to give billions millions of dollars out to
based mostly on a lot of conjecture and guess work a great deal of the most successful Outreach and advocacy in these Santa Clara county and San Jose has done by the Grassroots Advocates and Outreach people who thank you your time is up next speaker I'm also going to call down Deborah Townley and Michael morand if the rumors are true somebody from the outside broke into the Arena Hotel and raped a resident and that's because of the poor Staffing who staffs the arena hotel and you just keep rewa
rding them with contracts unhoused people who have worked with them and not been well served by them came and spoke to you today and you just ignored all of them and I I don't understand you want to hear from unhoused people you say their voices matter and they all got blown off today people at the arena hotel are getting raped and then a whole bunch of stuff was happening on the weekends then it was like oh maybe we should have staff there on the weekends what's it going to take what is it real
ly going to take to get rid of a lousy provider I'm just asking because it seems like you'll put up with anything at this point so and I ask you that like in a serious way some of you really honestly know me I am asking you seriously what will it take thank you next speaker hello I'm a member of SOS my name is Deborah Townley and um we've been trying to address the sweeps and how this sweeps um we haven't done this publicly yet but we've been brainstorming about the sweeps um they've been going
rather inhumanely with people losing their items for survival and um not getting proper notice so we have some ideas about how to do it more humanely um by giving proper notice and allowing people to keep their things and possibly moving them to a different location or offering them shelter that is Humane um and we're hoping to do that through SOS but SOS is going to be uh Sunset soon um our last meeting is April 3rd so we want to get connected before that happens and figure out how we can work
together to do to work on the sweeps I know it's thank you your time is up next speaker um hello um I'd like to kind of finish up what I was saying saying not related to the agenda but um one of the problems that I see with home first and other similar organizations is their outreach program I think is flawed because what sir this is exactly the item we just took up which was home first Outreach you're welcome to talk about something broader than that but we literally just talked about H first O
utreach contract where I'm living is a place where there are some people that want to help themselves and there are support for those people unfortunately a lot of those people don't want to help themselves and why there are organizations that decide to spend resources on them and allow them to live there selling drugs doing drugs the man that mentioned the other thing I just don't think is a working uh solution I think as another person here said I think that uh Grassroots solution maybe if you
engage us uh people that have been unhoused that have some good ideas might be a good idea for you to do thank you thank you next speaker and I'm also going to call Amanda good evening Mr Mayor and council members um last time I came here I asked uh all of you what what would I do if I can't get uh a council member to return phone calls or emails and by that I mean staff members for them and you all said see the mayor so I came back to see if Mr your honor you be able to help us actually to res
olve these issues would probably be your help and the city managers so um okay I'm not quite sure what it's about but Stephen no can give can help us get in touch okay thank you okay Stephen's here make sure you have my contact info thank you next speaker Amanda from SOS um since we're being shut down I I'm sad that we never got consulted with because I do have um long-term and have plan for 10,000 people being housed never was asked about that idea um so a story why people might be tampering wi
th the water at other people's um in districts different districts might be because they're thirsty um in at Columbus Park there were people arrested for tampering with or for stealing things and they didn't steal any valuable items they just stole food and water from the local businesses so people are starving and people are uh dying of starvation so I think that um our Outreach should definitely be cons we should be consulted about uh how to best serve those people thank you thank you next [Mu
sic] speaker okay back to council okay thank you Tony thank you all we're [Music] adjourned
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