After protest, Palm Springs finalizes agreement to buy site for homeless navigation center

Just hours after dozens of community members gathered to protest the city's plan to locate a homeless navigation center near their neighborhood, the Palm Springs City Council voted to finalize an agreement on how the city and Riverside County will purchase the property, and to direct that the purchase be completed.

The council also voted to contract with a local homelessness services provider, Martha's Kitchen, to operate the center and authorized the city manager to take any steps necessary to apply for grants that could help fund operation of the center.

The decision to locate the center on McCarthy Road was made on Nov. 4, when the council voted 4-1 to move forward with purchasing the site to convert into a homeless navigation center that would provide a variety of services to homeless residents, including housing, food, mental health services and help securing employment and permanent housing.

The Thursday vote was unanimous, although Councilwoman Grace Garner noted that she stands by her original vote in November to vote against locating the navigation center in the Desert Highlands Gateway Estates community.

Garner said the city and council need to be better about communicating with residents of the Desert Highland Gateway Estates community who are upset about the project. She noted that there is a justified lack of trust from residents from the area. She also said many walked away from the November meeting when the council voted to locate the center in the neighborhood thinking there would be more efforts made to address resident concerns than were actually made.

"There are very real concerns based on past interactions for why there is a lack of trust right now in this project, generally, and in this project in this location," she said. "There was an actual bus stop that was moved due to the unhoused causing issues with school bus stops."

Garner said the city needs to take steps to assure residents that the city will continue to fund and maintain the center and take steps to address problems, even if, for example, the city does not secure as much grant money to fund operations as it is hoping for.

In explaining her vote, Councilmember Christy Holstege said that she does not think the McCarthy Road site is a perfect one and "does not like its impact and proximity to Desert Highland Gateway Estates."

However, she said she also believes that any site proposal would be met with similar concerns and that it ultimately makes sense to take the opportunity that is the McCarthy Road site.

"These are the hard decisions that people elect us to me when we govern the city," she said. "So we have an option of, are we going to have a navigation center that's available now, that is a good match for what the county and other stakeholders are looking for, that could provide housing almost right away as soon as possible, or do we spend another year to five years searching for sites and then we get down to another site?"

During a marathon three-plus hour discussion preceding the vote, the council questioned staff members from the city, county and Martha's Kitchen about the multitude of claims and concerns expressed by opponents of the project.

When asked about concerns expressed by neighbors that the area around the site could become a focal point for crime, Palm Springs Police Chief Andrew Mills said he could take steps to mitigate that, such as assigning a lieutenant to be in charge of policing the area around the center.

"Certainly there are behavioral health issues and mental health issues that need to be addressed," he said. "I believe that working with the people who are providing the services as well as safety personnel there that we can design out many of the problems that the community would be concerned about through situational crime prevention techniques and through environmental design."

As part of the agreement, Martha's Kitchen also will be obligated to staff the center with 24/7 security.

Another topic was the means by which city residents would be able to raise concerns about how the center is operating. City staff members said they had been envisioning having quarterly community meetings where residents could express those concerns. However, multiple councilmembers said they felt the meetings should take place more often and that the city should perhaps form a resident committee to be in charge of overseeing the center and making sure concerns are addressed.

Linda Barrack, president and CEO of Martha's Kitchen, said her organization has had great success at its Indio facility assuaging resident concerns by inviting them to volunteer, which she said is proof people become more comfortable with navigation-center type facilities when they learn more about them.

"I think that once the community truly sees what can happen, the miracles that are going to happen all the time, it'll be fine," she said.

Included in the agreements voted on Thursday are a set of deadlines for the progression of construction on the center. The acquisition of the property must be completed by March 1, while construction must begin by Jan. 1, 2023. The center must be open and operating by February 2024.

However, City Attorney Jeff Ballinger said it is the city's "hope and expectation" that those milestones will all be completed well before those deadlines.

Before the vote was cast, Mayor Lisa Middleton noted that while a lot had been said at the meeting, everyone involved in the project will now need to prove that they mean what they said and keep the promises they made.

"The proof that we mean it is the work that we do, beginning tomorrow," she said. "If our actions back up the commitments that we have made this evening, we will have improved the lives for hundreds, if not thousands of people in our community, not only those who are homeless or not. If we do not back up what we said tonight, we will have failed at a fundamental responsibility."

Protest: 'They're not listening to us'

The afternoon protest about the site of the center, which was organized by the Desert Highland Gateway Estates Community Action Association, started in front of Palm Springs City Hall about 90 minutes before the meeting began.

While city council meetings typically are held at city hall, the council has been holding meetings remotely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The event began with a prayer led by Pastor Tommie Russell of New Bethel Community Church in Desert Highland Gateway Estates in which he exhorted those in attendance to stand together to fight the city's plan.

"Because what's about to happen, we have no control over," he said. "But we as a people have got to be supportive of one another."

Russell also said he and others are concerned about the impact the navigation center could have on both businesses and families in the area.

He then questioned whether the four members of the council who voted to move forward with putting the center at that location would want it in their communities.

"They won't put it in their communities, I know they won't," he said. "But they just treat us like a nobody, they have treated us wrong for so long. ... So they need to straighten out their act and what they are doing to the Black community and we need people to get behind us because we don't want to see this happen no more."

Cynthia Session and others said that the Desert Highland Gateway Estates community is not opposed to helping the homeless, only placing a center near residential areas, including an apartment complex that contains a youth center.

Raghda Zacharia, who lives in the Palm Springs Villas 1 community located across the street from the proposed site, said she feels that the process was controlled by Riverside County Supervisor Manuel Perez and his policy advisor, Greg Rodriguez. She said she feels Perez and Rodriguez pushed the council to choose the McCarthy Road site over others that were under consideration that would've been more suitable.

"They're not listening to us, so we have to do something big," she said. "We need to voice every day, we need to go by the center, we need to put a stop on it, because they are meeting and they are rolling with it and this is going to affect over 1,000 people."

Corey Payne, who said he attended the protest to support his friend, Kevin Navarro, who lives in Desert Highland Gateway Estates, said he was disappointed that no impact study was done by the city to determine the impact of a 200-bed facility on the community. He also said the other options for the site presented by the city during the site selection process seemed much better.

"There were options in all kinds of commercial areas that would have not had this impact," he said. "So the reason for choosing this one makes no sense, other than something nefarious, honestly."

Navarro added that the neighborhood is working hard to address several of the problems that have plagued it over the years, and that placing the navigation center would be a detriment to that effort.

Speakers also bemoaned their feeling that the city did not make an effort to meet with residents in the neighborhood about their concerns prior to making plans to move forward with the center. They said they will likely begin circulating petitions to gather signatures of citizens opposed to locating the center on McCarthy Road.

Previous reporting from The Desert Sun reporter Tom Coulter was included in this story.

Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the City of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and via email at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs finalizes agreement to buy site for homeless navigation center