TITLE
Recommendation to request City Manager to draft a report on the feasibility of implementing a "Safe Parking" program such as those found in the cities of Santa Barbara and Monterey Bay that would (1) move people who reside in their cars off the street and into safe spaces (2) that those locations would provide basic essential services (3) connect these individuals with programs that will work to move them into permanent housing.
Items for the report to include:
· Review of best practices from other cities,
· Potential locations that have both parking spaces and services
(Multi-service center, Churches, etc),
· Identify the basic essential services that would need to be
provided at locations,
· Number of potential parking spots, and
· Provide 1-3 program options including their time to implement
and their costs.
DISCUSSION
Recent actions from the City Council to restrict the parking of RVs and oversized vehicles in Long Beach residential neighborhoods and commercial corridors to address traffic safety raised concerns about potentially criminalizing homelessness as a side effect of the restrictions.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 231 people are currently living in their vehicles in Long Beach. Legal scrutiny placed on previous RV restriction and anti-camping ordinances in other cities such as Los Angeles and Santa Cruz have demonstrated the issues that can arise when the intent of such ordinances are both 1) traffic safety and 2) ban vehicular living/removing transient individuals from public space. This is particularly true when such ordinances are enforced without providing adequate alternative locations for these individuals to sleep, as is the case in Long Beach.
Given residents' rising concern around homelessness and the city's recent emphasis on addressing our transient population in a compassionate and effective manner, the purpose of a "Safe Parking" program is to 1) address the public safety and health concerns...
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