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Orozco, Norma From: Tim Johnson < Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2019 7:44 AM To: eComment Cc: Pulido, Miguel; Sarmiento, Vicente; Penaloza, David; Iglesias, Cecilia; Solorio, Jose; Villegas, Juan; Ridge, Kristine Subject: 25H- Homeless Settlement Mayor, Council, and CM Ridge ... Thank you for your continued efforts to move forward with settling of the Catholic Worker case. I encourage each of you to fully understand the settlement and to move forward in agreeing to it. The settlement is not the end of this journey though ... some may say that now the hard work begins. I urge each of you to take this as an opportunity to make even more progress. I urge you each to consider the following: • Take continued steps to bring on board more permanent supportive housing with wrap around services for those who want help. I realize what we have done to date, yet we still have more to do. • Take steps to treat our homeless shelters as triage centers and not long term housing. Just as an Emergency Room is not where one goes for long term health issues but instead where one goes for immediate crisis issues, shelters should be the same... shelters should be the first stop in homeless housing stabilization- triage centers. Where one goes to get immediate and urgent needs met and then moved on to more appropriate housing solutions. • Direct staff to educate the community about how a properly run homeless shelter will have less of an impact on our communities than the current homeless individuals who are in our streets, sidewalks, parks, parking lots, back alleys, and railroad tracks. We need to know that each shelter will not be like The Courtyard but instead like The Link. • Work with the county, both publicly and privately, to have them make immediate changes to The Courtyard- the way the shelter is currently run is one of the main reasons why no one wants a shelter in their neighborhoods. They see the impact that facility has and do not want that near them. The county needs to step up on this. • Work with the county, both publicly and privately, to spread their homeless housing/shelters and services across the county and not concentrate these services solely in the north and central SPA ... for example, consider serving the previously approved suit against South County cities. • Work with the county in reforming the jail release programs (i.e. see 8513) to lessen the impact on our community. • Work with the county to get appropriate funding for our city to deal with the impact that some of their own policies and procedures have had on our city. Obviously, this settlement, once approved, will allow our PD to enforce anti -camping ordinances leading with health services. I urge you to also educate the public about what our expectations should be with regards to the visual homeless that we continue to see on the streets and in our parks. The public needs to know what the police will do and what we should expect. Additionally, please progress forward with the litigation that the council approved on April 25, 2018 where the city was to sue other cities in the county yet the only active defendant in that case right now is the County of Orange since there was a decision to not serve any of the South County cities. Please see other comment regarding item 18 on this matter also. Thank you for all the hard work everyone has put into this settlement. It has been a long time coming and I pray that this settlement helps our city not only improve the quality of life for all of its residents but also will help those who need help, to receive that help and ultimately prosper. 0