HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-1-23 Item 1UFrom:Ian Gabriel
To:City Clerk
Cc:Jessika Pollard
Subject:Public Comment - City Council Meeting 1-23-2025 - Item 1U
Date:Thursday, January 23, 2025 1:32:05 PM
Attachments:PS - TBRA Support Letter - 1-23-25.pdf
NOTICE: This message originated outside of The City of Palm Springs -- DO NOT CLICK on links or open attachments
unless you are sure the content is safe.
Hello,
Please find attached a public comment letter for tonight's city council meeting in reference to Item 1U on
the consent calendar.
Thanks,
Ian
IAN GABRIEL
Director of Collective Impact, Lift to Rise
We've moved! Our new address is:
75-175 Merle Drive, Suite 100
Palm Desert, CA 92211
C (732) 241-1041
lifttorise.org
01/23/2025
Public Comment
Item 2A
WHEN THE SUN RISES, IT RISES FOR EVERYONE
01/ 23 / 2025
To:
Palm Springs City Council
From:
Ian Gabriel,
Director of Collective
Impact,
Lift to Rise
75-175 Merle Dr # 100,
Palm Desert, CA 92211
Subject:
Support: Item 1.U.
Appropriate $1,000,000
in Housing Set Aside
Funds for Tenant Based
Rental Assistance
Program
Dear Mayor DeHarte, Mayor Pro Tem Soto, and distinguished Councilmembers Garner,
Ready, and Bernstein,
Lift to Rise would like to express our strong support for the appropriation of
$1,000,000 for the city’s Tenant Based Rental Assistance (TBRA) program that will
continue assist residents with overcoming barriers to housing and help the city reduce
the number of rent burdened individuals and families.
Since 2023, the city’s tenant-based rental assistance program has provided over $2
million in rental, deposit, legal, and utility assistance, assisting 450 households. The
program has also led to permanent housing for 98 unhoused residents and prevented
eviction for 93 families. Over half of the residents who received assistance work in the
hospitality industry, which is the most important economic driver in the region. But
despite the program’s tremendous impact, especially for the hospitality workers who
fuel the local economy, funds available for assistance to tenants have been depleted.
Lift to Rise implores the City of Palm Springs to renew funding to this crucial program
so that the immediate housing stability needs of its residents can be adequately
addressed.
Lift to Rise is no stranger to tenant-based rental assistance programs and has seen
firsthand how effective they can be. In 2020, during the pandemic, Lift to Rise
partnered with Inland SoCal United Way and Riverside County to launch a rental
assistance program, called United Lift, that kept more than 120,000 people housed
throughout the County during the largest global economic crisis in decades. Working
with USC Price School of Public Policy, we conducted an evaluation of United Lift in
Riverside County where the data showed that tenants who received emergency rental
01/23/2025
Public Comment
Item 2A
WHEN THE SUN RISES, IT RISES FOR EVERYONE
assistance “benefited greatly” from “lower rates of housing instability and
homelessness,” and improved food security and mental health. Unfortunately, our
program was only temporary; now others like the City of Palm Springs are continuing
to provide this service.
According to the city's own housing element, 60% of Palm Springs renters are rent
burdened and 44% of Palm Springs homeowners are rent burdened; meaning they are
spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs (rent/mortgage and
utilities) leaving them with very little to cover the costs of other basic necessities. This
program will help promote stable housing, reduce financial stress, and promote
positive health outcomes for both renters and landlords.
We are proud of the policy interventions the city of Palm Springs has taken to promote
inclusivity and affordability with ordinances such as inclusionary zoning and
commercial linkage fees, TOT allocations to affordable housing funds, home
rehabilitation programs, and the TBRA program. We encourage the city to continue
funding programs like TBRA, which meet immediate housing needs of City residents,
while also contributing funding to affordable housing development to increase the
supply of affordable housing in the long-term.
Lift to Rise was formed to transform the systems that generate the supply of
affordable housing, recognizing that the combination of low wages and high housing
costs are the root causes of financial precarity among Coachella Valley residents.
That is why Lift to Rise and over 70 cross-sector partners, including the City of Palm
Springs, have coordinated around a shared goal of reducing the regional housing cost
burden at a population level through the production of 10,000 units of affordable
housing in the Coachella Valley by 2028.
Together, we are operating off a shared Action Plan which spans 6 key strategy
areas:
1. Aggregating a pipeline of community-prioritized projects across the valley,
2. Growing a regional Housing Catalyst fund to spur production,
3. Advocating at the local, state, and federal level for policies and regulatory
changes that Support housing production in our region,
01/23/2025
Public Comment
Item 2A
WHEN THE SUN RISES, IT RISES FOR EVERYONE
4. Engaging and mobilizing residents and elected officials in support of affordable
housing,
5. Ensuring that infrastructure challenges are no longer a barrier to affordable
housing production, and
6. Keeping residents housed through a coordinated eviction prevention
strategy.
We stand ready as a collaborative to support the city to increase affordability. We
thank the City of Palm Springs for joining us in this work thus far and urge the city
council to continue to prioritize the production of affordable housing to ensure that all
residents are healthy, stable, and thriving and urge you again prioritize affordability
with this recommendation.
Yours sincerely,
Ian Gabriel
Director of Collective Impact
Lift to Rise
01/23/2025
Public Comment
Item 2A
From:Chriztopher Scott
To:City Clerk
Subject:City of Palm Springs - Housing assistance program
Date:Tuesday, January 21, 2025 10:37:13 AM
NOTICE: This message originated outside of The City of Palm Springs -- DO NOT CLICK on links or open
attachments unless you are sure the content is safe.
To City of Palm Springs,
I would like to send a letter of thanks and gratitude for assisting me during one of the most difficult and dire times in
my life.
At the end of November I was laid off from my position at Kaiser Permanente, where I was a team lead in Human
Resources/Talent Acquisition. November and December historically are the worst months to be looking for a job.
Your program is what saved me, as I had not been unemployed in California in over 12 years. However when I went
to file for unemployment, there was a fraud case pending on my account due to someone hacking and trying to claim
benefits during covid in 2020. I am told these investigations can take up to 6 months. I have no family to depend on,
as I am 55 years old at present. So really no-one to turn to help in this situation.
While I know eventually will receive all claims at the end of the investigation, it has left me in a position to where I
stand to lose everything. I have never in my life been in such a position \and while I know, I will eventually
receive the claim money, if it was not for your program. I would become homeless and a statistic.
That being said, Presently I am a candidate also to become a 911 dispatcher for the City of Palm Springs to give
back to my community, I am also applying to other Talent acquisition positions as well, but seem to be
experiencing what is commonly called ageism in the hiring process. So it has made it a more lengthy process, as I
am very hirable and have never been unemployed for longer than a few months.
This program I hope continues and I wanted to make certain that you know the importance of such a program, as it
will truly saved me from becoming homeless at really no fault of my own. I wanted to truly say Thank you for the
assistance and hope the program will help others in similar situations in the near future, With out it, I had not a hope
or a chance.
Sincerely.
Christopher Leonard
A Palm Springs Resident
01/23/2025
Public Comment
Item 1U