Council Approves More Funds to Assist Homeless

The City Council approved a budget amendment allowing $75,000 to be transferred from the General Fund to the City’s health department to provide supplemental emergency shelter services.

The item was agendized after Friends In Deed Executive Director Rabbi Joshua Grater told Pasadena Now he could not house all those who asked for shelter because he needed to ration his funds to last the entire cold weather season.

“It was very disappointing to see that people were turned away,” Gordo said at Wednesday’s meeting.

Housing Director Bill Huang said a handful of people were turned away. The nonprofit was immediately told by the Housing Department that people should not be turned away.

“We weren’t contacted, but as soon as we heard about it we reached out to them.” Huang said.

Gordo said he was at Friends in Deed last week and no one told him at that time that additional funds were needed.

The money will be used to provide temporary emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness in Pasadena so that they can stabilize and prepare for permanent housing.

“People who need it would be able to get a voucher,” Huang said on Wednesday.

The City has relied upon its motel voucher program as a readily available option for homeless residents to be sheltered during very cold weather since it lost the cold weather shelter in 2020.

The City put out a request for proposal for a shelter last year but received no response. Several churches have claimed they want to build housing on their property, but did not respond to the RFP.

According to Huang the City has identified a potential site for next winter and is working on securing the location.

“The vouchers are preferable and more people are willing to take them than go to a congregate shelter, you can assist more people at the shelter and we hope to do both,” Huang said.

Huang said the department is meeting with any possible candidate to discuss hosting a bad weather shelter.

“We have found a facility that we think is going to work, but we have to do more investigation.”

According to the most recent homeless count more than 500 residents of Pasadena are experiencing homelessness as of January 2022.

Friends in Deed gives out motel vouchers for the homeless using the weather-activated program – or during nights when the temperature is forecast to be less than 40 degrees, or when there is more than a 40 percent chance of rain.

Funding for motel vouchers is based on the number of clients who sought vouchers in prior years from one of the City’s three partners: Friends In Deed, Union Station and the Pasadena Public Health Department.

A series of storms have slammed the area since early December. The storms have dumped much of California with 400% to 600% above-average rainfall since early last month.

The City Council also voted to increase two contracts by $50,000 for services to assist the homeless.