At the Tuesday night City Council meeting, an annual report on homelessness detailed that Santa Monica's "multi-pronged" investment in homelessness has resulted in relief and a road map towards sustained change, the City of Santa Monica announced.

The Homeless Count numbers also affirmed the progress, the press release said. In 2017, Santa Monica allocated an additional $1.4 million one-time general fund as homelessness grew to become one of the region's "most pressing humanitarian issues," the City said.

"In the last year, immense groundwork was laid to re-examine the City's approach, realign resources, expertise and effort to impact homelessness in our community," said Alisa Orduña, the City's Senior Advisor on Homelessness.

Read More: https://patch.com/california/santamonica/santa-monica-sets-new-goals-address-homelessness

The ban applies to studios smaller than 375 square feet

Apartments smaller than 375 square feet are now temporarily banned in Santa Monica under an emergency ordinance adopted Tuesday night by the City Council.

The ban will only be in effect until May 10, giving city leaders 45 days to mull a permanent measure to deal with a sudden boom of market-rate micro-apartments in downtown Santa Monica.

Read More: https://la.curbed.com/2019/3/27/18281150/santa-monica-micro-apartment-ban

NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS

That’s where you’ll be heard and have real input. (Unless you live in Ocean Park, like I do.) Then you can speak collectively, as a neighborhood, to City Council.

 Read More: https://www.smdp.com/another-boondoggle/173750

A battle is brewing on Beacon Hill over a longstanding contentious issue in housing: rent control.

A group of House lawmakers is getting ready to file a bill that would allow cities and towns in Massachusetts to impose rent control — which voters in 1994 banned statewide — and a variety of other measures to protect renters from eviction and steep hikes in their monthly payments.

Read More: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2019/03/25/rent-control-long-shunned-back-table/Lms7oXkBGsPlCuKabrojqN/story.html?p1=AMP_Recirculation_Pos2

The state assemblymember representing Santa Monica introduced a bill earlier this month to expand rent control to all buildings older than 10 years old, including single family homes, with an exception for small landlords.

Richard Bloom revealed Assembly Bill 36 alongside a suite of other tenant protection bills that call for policies that Santa Monica has already put into effect, such as just-cause evictions and a rental registry. The proposals follow last year’s defeat of Proposition 10, which would have repealed the Costa-Hawkins Act and paved the way for rent control across California.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/bloom-discusses-pending-rent-control-legislation/173716

Executive Summary

Homelessness has been a challenge in Santa Monica for decades.  As the numbers of people experiencing homelessness throughout Los Angeles County has dramatically increased in recent years, the City Council in 2015 focused on Santa Monica taking regional leadership on this shared crisis.

Much has been accomplished, yet the latest numbers indicate that community public health, wellbeing and safety concerns remain unresolved.  Despite progress in matching people experiencing homelessness to services and permanent supportive housing in Santa Monica and elsewhere in the County, there has also been an unprecedented increase in the number of housed residents at risk of becoming homeless.

Read More: http://santamonicacityca.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_LegiFile.aspx?Frame=&MeetingID=1178&MediaPosition=&ID=3376&CssClass=

See Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Aj7bl61m4

City Council will temporarily prevent developers from including affordable housing intended for extremely low-income households to increase the number of affordable units in the city overall.

The City of Santa Monica requires developers to include affordable units in their projects or pay into an affordable housing fund. Current rules have incentivized developers to include the smallest number of affordable units possible, preventing Santa Monica from reaching its affordable housing goals. Council will vote to alter those rules at its meeting Tuesday.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/council-to-debate-building-more/173675

Read More: https://www.santamonica.gov/blog/new-video-resources-encourage-community-to-get-involved-in-addressing-homelessness-in-santa-monica

These geographic boundaries constrain our City’s area to only 8.4 square miles. As such, there is no room for lateral expansion. If it were a perfect square, it would measure less than 3 miles on a side and could be traversed by bicycle in less than 12 minutes. This small remaining land has forced future expansion in the only remaining direction: UP. Perhaps we should be asking not how, but why, we need to build taller buildings that block views, light and increase density. There may be many reasons but the most likely one is our City’s need to generate more revenue to pay for its profligate spending- far greater than most cities of a similar size.

Read More: https://smmirror.com/2019/03/our-citys-unique-charm-and-our-ability-to-share-it/ 

The City Council could put an immediate halt next week to a sudden flood of market-rate “micro units” proposed for Downtown Santa Monica under a loophole in the City's zoning laws.

Council on Tuesday will take up a recommendation from planning staff to adopt an urgency interim zoning ordinance that would stop all market rate Single Room Occupancy (SRO) developments citywide..

So far the Planning Department has received applications for six SRO developments totaling 363 units that range from 219 to 373 square feet, staff said.

Read More: http://surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2019/March-2019/03_22_2019_Santa_Monica_Set_To_Ban_Market_Rate_Micro_Units.html

AND pg. 1: http://backissues.smdp.com/032319.pdf