In states like California, Colorado, Washington and Arizona, cities this summer are spending millions buying hotels and converting them to shelters for the homeless.
In Los Angeles, there is a ballot initiative in 2024 to require hotels to use vacant rooms to house homeless people besides paying customers. The American Hotel & Lodging Association has objected to the proposal.
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The Scottsdale City Council voted Tuesday night to accept a $940,000 grant from the Arizona Department of Housing to house homeless people from Phoenix’s “The Zone” encampment and illegal immigrants in a Scottsdale hotel. Five of the council members and Mayor David Ortega voted yes, with Scottsdale City Councilman Barry Graham the sole no vote on Resolution No. 12888, the Homeless Shelter and Service Funding Agreement..
Graham tweeted his disappointment in the vote. “Last night, council voted to accept nearly $1 million from AZ Department of Housing on condition to house homeless from Phoenix and border migrants—not Scottsdale homeless,” he said. “The city will rent hotel rooms in McCormick Ranch-area. I voted ‘no’ based on responses to my questions about vetting participants and community safety. Scottsdale residents are compassionate—however there are better ways to demonstrate compassion.”
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Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed Senate Bill 1413, a bill that would have made homeless encampments on private property trespassing.
The bill would have also allowed cities to remove homeless encampments’ property if after a warning they are not claimed within 24 hours. If not claimed within 14 days, the property would be destroyed. Counties and municipalities would be required to clean the area.
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Students from San Jose asked their school board Thursday to build a fence around the school and to address the homelessness problem, according to NBC Bay Area.
A group of roughly 20 students from the charter school KIPP San Jose Collegiate explained that homeless people have been entering their school and leaving needles on their cafeteria tables, NBC reported. The issue has been going on for about one year, they said.
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A lawsuit filed last August challenging “the largest homeless encampment in Arizona” is going ahead after a judge denied the City of Phoenix’s motion to dismiss. Residents who live near “the Zone,” which has grown to over 1,500 people, allege that the city has failed or refused to enforce criminal, health, or quality of life statutes to improve the Zone.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Stephen Tully said in his January 16 ruling that dismissal wasn’t warranted because the city didn’t meet the standard where “as a matter of law plaintiffs would not be entitled to relief under any interpretation of the facts susceptible of proof.” He found that the plaintiffs properly pleaded their case and supported a private cause of action for public nuisance.
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San Francisco, California, has spent millions of dollars housing the homeless before spending more to evict them, again, according to recent documents obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Since 2019, the city has spent over $160 million every fiscal year on “permanent supportive housing” – i.e. single-room-occupancy hotels (SROs) across the city – as part of Mayor London Breed’s administration’s response to the city’s homelessness crisis, according to the documents obtained by the Chronicle.
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Baltimore plans to spend $90.4 million of federal funds to buy hotels to replace existing homeless shelters and support other homelessness programs, The Baltimore Sun reported Tuesday.
The city has not yet announced which hotels it will buy, but it plans to replace 275 existing beds in several shelters with private rooms in city-owned hotels, the Sun reported.
“Non-congregate shelter is a best practice we’re seeing throughout the nation,” Director of the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services Irene Agustin told the Sun. “We know this is an intervention that’s going to work within the city of Baltimore.”
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The American Medical Association (AMA) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) have jointly published a language guide that tells readers to no longer use the words “handicapped,” “morbidly obese,” or “homeless.”
Rather, the document, “Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts,” stipulates that these terms should be referred to as “people who are experiencing (condition or disability type).”
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With popular conservative Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio term limited, local activist and professor Moses Sanchez, a Republican, announced he is running for the District 6 slot based in Ahwatukee. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Phoenix in 2018, a difficult race for Republicans since Phoenix has more Democrats, but District 6 leans Republican.
“I’m proud to call Ahwatukee home,” he said in a statement on August 11. “I’ve raised my family in Phoenix, served on our local school board, run for Mayor, and worked to grow a small business. I’m running for Phoenix City Council to provide the same opportunities this city has given me and stand up for the most overlooked community in Phoenix.”
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