This week at City Hall expansion of the Riverside Convention Center is reviewed and the Housing and Homelessness Committee looks at two major plans fore the city.
Tuesday evening the City Council will continue its discussion on the Riverside Alive project at Public Parking Lot 33. The spot is located between the Riverside Convention Center and the adjacent Marriott Riverside hotel. The council plans to hear more about the project on Nov. 2, where they will receive an overview of the envisioned site. Additional review of the site will take place during a closed session on Nov. 9.
Housing and Homelessness Committee
Item 3: Update on Santa Ana River Bottom Encampment Response Plan
On Monday, the committee received an update on the Santa Ana River Bottom Encampment Response Plan and moved to approve the plan’s overall objectives and continued timeline.
Their Monday presentation said the river bottom is one of the largest concentrations of homeless encampments in the County of Riverside. The committee has laid out four goals for the SAR’s plan which includes the following:
Rehouse existing encampment residents living in the Santa Ana River Bottom Area.
Remove and mitigate physical encampments.
Conduct clean-up and habitat restoration.
Establish effective tools to prevent the reoccurrence of encampments.
Also included in the presentation was a general timeline of when they hope to execute various tasks. So far, if they are up to their schedule, they have completed four of their 11 assigned tasks. The last task is a clean-up effort of the river bottom, scheduled to occur between April and May of 2022.
Item 4: Planning for 2022 Point-In-Time City Homeless Count
The committee received a presentation on the 2022 Riverside County Homeless Point-in-Time Count. The count factors the number of sheltered and unsheltered individuals experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. The yearly count is federally mandated and can help show the cities need for federal and state funding to address the issue.
Jonathan Linden is a freelance reporter covering politics for The Raincross Gazette. Jonathan graduated from Biola University with a B.A in journalism and also reports for 91.9 KVCR in San Bernardino.
City Council set to consider a 23-unit affordable housing project in La Sierra, a 24-station electric vehicle charging hub at the Riverside Airport, and the $2.4 million purchase of electric trucks for its fleet.
City Council does not meet this week. Potentially stricter rules for industrial development near neighborhoods and a review of the City’s homelessness outreach and cleanup spending are on committee and commission agendas this week.
