Mayor Todd Gloria’s team is taking another crack at a mega-shelter deal as the city faces a $258 million budget deficit for next year.
The City Council is set to get a closed-door briefing Monday on updated “price and payment terms” for the warehouse at Kettner Boulevard and Vine Street where Gloria envisions a large shelter campus. The discussion will come months after the City Council punted on the controversial Middletown lease amid a slew of concerns about the deal points and the city’s plans for the facility.
Gloria spokesperson Rachel Laing said Thursday the updated draft terms and lease address concerns raised by the City Council, city attorneys and city budget analysts earlier this year but declined to elaborate on the changes.
Gloria and Doug Hamm, the real estate and hospitality investor who owns the warehouse, argue it is uniquely suited to house a large shelter campus.
A spokesperson for Hamm also declined to elaborate on tweaks to the proposed deal but said he remains hopeful.
“Doug Hamm continues to believe in this partnership and is happy to see talks continue,” spokesperson Margie Newman Tsay wrote in a statement. “He has never given up on the potential of this site and remains hopeful that it can be part of the solution to address homelessness.”
Meanwhile: As the Union-Tribune reports, the City Council’s budget committee got a bleak overview of the city’s five-year budget outlook earlier this week and began to grapple with the significant cuts ahead. Multiple councilmembers raised concerns about the administration’s decision to plug in planned spending on a 1,000 bed shelter despite the lack of City Council approval for the project.
“We can’t just say we’re going to tighten the belt with one hand and then just let the belt loose with the other hand,” Councilmember Vivian Moreno said.
Laing said the mayor’s team included the planned 1,000 beds because the City Council included funding for them in the budget it approved in June. She argued that not providing additional homelessness solutions would translate into other costs during the city’s tough budget times.
“As Mayor Gloria frequently says: Addressing homelessness is expensive, but nowhere near as costly as not addressing it,” Laing wrote in an email. “Not providing shelter to get people off the streets and help them end their homelessness has a host of financial consequences the taxpayers have to bear — along with the considerable negative health and safety impacts to their community.”
About those 1,000 beds: Advocates and community leaders were critical of the plan to open 1,000 beds at the Middletown site. Gloria’s office now seems to be shifting from that initial commitment.
“We’ve been saying for some time now that it’s not certain to be a 1,000 bed shelter, even though that’s the building’s total capacity,” Laing wrote. “As it’s developed further, the plan is for this to be a campus with multiple shelters/supportive services that would be completed in phases.”
What about other shelter sites? Laing said city and Housing Commission officials continue to evaluate other options.
Gloria’s staff can’t get jobs elsewhere, this is it for them. Why would we be paying to put criminals in houses when we already pay to put criminals in jail? Why are these criminals exempt from the law?
Nothing like those back door Toad deals.
“Doug Hamm continues to believe in this partnership and is happy to see talks continue,”
Of course he does getting this lemon off his hands.