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In Unusual Move, Homeless Ordinance Proposal ‘Moves Forward’ to Council Without Committee Recommendation

In an unusual move, Public Safety Committee moves discussion to full Council consideration without a recommendation

Published on Thursday, March 24, 2016 | 4:17 am
 
Public Safety Committee Chair John Kennedy and Interim City Manager Steve Mermell are seen listening intently to a speaker during the Committee's March 22, 2016 meeting at the Pasadena City Hall.

In a relatively unusual development, the Pasadena City Council Public Safety Committee Wednesday moved a staff recommendation for a new ordinance addressing homelessness ahead to the full City Council for “consideration” without passing a motion to recommend it.

Once Councilmember Tyron Hampton told Committee Chair Councilmember John Kennedy that he would not be seconding Councilmember Steven Madison’s motion to approve a recommendation on the proposed ordinance, Kennedy suggested that “we move this to the full city council for a much fuller discussion, where all of us would be on the record, and have more discussion, if that’s acceptable to you, Mr. Hampton.”

Kennedy also said he feared that the meeting would lose a quorum since one of its members needed to leave early.

Hampton, unsure, asked if this would be “a policy we are sending to the council or will this be a recommendation?”

“It will be neither,” Kennedy responded. “The same report, possibly modified, based on comments we have received this evening from Councilmembers and the public, will go to the full Council for further discussion, and there will be required a motion from the Council, if the full Council chooses to move it forward, as it relates to directing the staff to draft an ordinance.” (The item was only for a recommendation from the Committee and no actual ordinance has as yet been drafted.)

“What I am attempting to do tonight,” said Kennedy, “since there is no second to the motion, let’s leave it to the full Council for consideration.”

According to Interim City Manager Steve Mermell the proposed ordinance will now go to the full Council for its consideration, “probably on April 11.”

The move is unusual in that most staff recommendations for new ordinances which begin in committee do not move any further without the approved recommendation by vote of the committee involved. Most unrecommended new ordinances or policies would generally not advance further or would be redrafted for reconsideration and another vote.

Kennedy noted that portions of the recommendation which involved providing homeless housing were generally popular with the Council and members of the public who spoke at last night’s meeting. Kennedy asked Housing Department Direction William Huang to direct his staff to find ways to implement those aspects of the ordinance.

A city staff report says the proposal addresses “citywide concern” with confrontational panhandling and begging by what it calls an increasingly visible homeless population. Just this week, an area resident was stabbed after he refused to give “a few bucks” to a man begging for money in an incident on North Lake Avenue, police said.

The report prepared for Wednesday’s meeting said that Pasadena currently has 632 homeless people on any given night, a 5% decrease from last year’s count.  However, the report says while the number of homeless people in Pasadena has fallen there quote significant needs quote make them more visible to the public.

More of the homeless in Pasadena have substance abuse problems and are chronically unsheltered than in previous years, the report says.

The proposed ordinance aims to give police more tools to address aggressive panhandling while simultaneously appropriating $250,000 to help with homeless housing.

The proposed ordinance would establish the boundaries of various business districts, including the Playhouse District, the Old Pasadena, South Lake, and Hastings Ranch and “prohibit camping or lodging” in those areas. The ordinance would also “prohibit, on all public sidewalks, alleys, streets or other public spaces, begging or soliciting of alms involving threatening, coercive, or menacing behavior.

In addition, the proposed ordinance would appropriate $25,000 from the unappropriated fund balance in the 2016 Housing Successor fund for the establishment of a landlord reimbursement fund, to protect landlords who rent to homeless tenants; expansion of the Homeless prevention fund, expansion of the Motel to Housing Voucher Engagement program, and expansion of the Rapid Re-Housing program.

The ordinance also recommends that the city develop and prioritize a policy of pursuing the development of permanent supportive housing on land already owned by the city.

Homeless caseworkers would also be placed in Pasadena libraries, as part of the new ordinance, since so many of the city’s homeless population spend their days there.

While most speakers at the meeting spoke against the recommendation of the ordinance, Councilmember Madison said of the aggressive panhandling aspect, “We don’t have the right to impair the rights of others. We won’t brook this misconduct. It’s tearing apart of the fabric of this community.”

Resident Arnold Siegel, speaking before the committee, supported the idea of caseworkers in libraries and also recommended that the city “make the best of use of public land” to provide new additional housing.

Black Lives Matter Pasadena member Jasmine Richards spoke out against the proposed law, saying that it was racist in nature, since “40% of the homeless in Pasadena are black.”

Turning her back to the committee members, she told the audience, “This is about humans, this is about humanity, this is about empathy, we should have some empathy.”

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