City Pushes For More Housing Types

In Which: Staff Unions push for a better COLA. Shelter residents share success stories. And one Councilmember speaks out against military equipment in the Police Department.

Big Lawsuit Payout

The City Attorney revealed that the City paid out $1,000,000 for the Roe vs. Montenegro case that has been working its way through federal court. I honestly have no idea what part the City played in that, but that’s one of the largest payouts I’ve heard the City Attorney mention.

Unions Go Public (Again)

In another revealing look at how the labor negotiations are going for most of City Staff—outside of the Fire and Police departments—multiple representatives from the Hayward Association of Management Employees (HAME) gave public comment urging the City Council to increase the Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) for their members. The Cost of Living Adjustment, for those who don’t know, is extra money that gets added on to take into account inflation and general increases in the cost of living.

The representatives mentioned ongoing issues with retention and losing institutional knowledge. One went so far as to outline the practice in detail: People leave, there’s a short-term hire to finish out the year, the position gets cut and given to a contractor. Contractors often charge more and do worse work because they lack institutional knowledge, connections, and context.

While the HAME representatives didn’t speak aggressively and mentioned multiple times that the negotiations were close, they repeatedly mentioned the COLA as the sticking point. It’s worth pointing out that the Police Officers received a 10% “market-based adjustment” and all the Council Appointees (City Manager, City Attorney, and City Clerk) received double-digit wage increases, as well.

SHP Shows Up For Funding Ask

The item concerning funding for Bay Area Community Services (BACS) and South Hayward Parish (SHP) was pulled for extra discussion and comment.

Councilmember Andrews revealed that there’s a special working group concerning the Weekes Park area—presumably the consistent population of unhoused people. The working group includes the Library, HARD, Maintenance Services, LINK (part of the HEART program), and Hayward PD. Councilmember Andrews expressed a desire to “not see spillover effects from South Hayward Parish,” which seemed to imply that SHP’s shelter was somehow causing problems.

She further pushed for accountability and timelines for the group, referencing the Foothill Action Plan Working Group—though she did not explain what that group did.

Councilmember Syrop asked if the money would help the St. Regis project, and Staff explained that the Hayward Navigation Center will eventually move to the St. Regis building, but be a separate program. The Hayward Nagivation Center is currently on Depot Road in the industrial area—formerly Russell City.

When it came time for public comment, three men who were currently using the South Hayward Parish Emergency Shelter spoke about how important it was for our unhoused neighbors. One said that he had recently gotten a job with help from SHP—both for stability and connection to services. Another highlighted the importance of the emergency shelter to the refugee population who might otherwise have nowhere to go. And the last gentleman explained that he had recently found housing solely because of the help provided by SHP.

Aaron Horner, Community Outreach Pastor at First Presbyterian and the public face of SHP, then took the podium. He thanked staff for inviting SHP to the Weekes Park Working Group—as of the last meeting—and gently pushed back on any blame being laid on SHP for issues in the Weekes Park area.

He pointed out that shelter residents wanted to be part of the solution and had been volunteering to pick up trash in the playground areas and on multiple streets. Pastor Horner explained that he had grown up in the area—as had some of the shelter residents—and they all wanted to make things better.

When it came time to vote, the funding passed unanimously.

Zoning Changes To Improve Housing Options

The usual efforts to address housing shortage tend to focus on building more affordable housing, but that’s only part of the solution. Planning Staff suggested several zoning changes to allow a wide range of housing that help all parts of the housing spectrum. This graphic lays it out neatly.

The Staff Report focused on four housing solutions meant to help people who are unhoused: Single Resident Occupancy buildings, Group Homes, Shelters, and Safe Parking locations. Many of these housing types are heavily restricted, only allowed in certain places with extensive approval processes. I’ll briefly go over all of them because this is real Nerd Shit.

Single Resident Occupancy (SROs)

SROs are small—really small—rooms meant for a single person with some shared facilities. If you’ve ever been to a hostel, it’s like that, but you get your own small room. They’re usually between 150 and 400 square feet. Staff recommended allowing them in some commercial and high-density residential zones, so long as they have a management plan for how the building will be operated.

Group Homes

Group homes are where residents live in a big ol’ group, usually with some services provided. An elder care home is a group home, and so is an Alzheimer’s facility. They’re already allowed anywhere a house is, so long as they’ve got 6 or fewer people living there.

The complication is that there are Licensed and Unlicensed group homes. Staff recommended increasing the resident limit for Licensed homes all the time, and a resident limit increase for Unlicensed homes based on the number of bedrooms and with a permit that the City can revoke if things go south.

Safe Parking Facilities

Safe Parking facilities are a place to legally park your vehicle overnight without being rousted. They don’t exist in Hayward, it’s currently illegal. Staff is recommending allowing them in certain zones on property owned by non-profit organizations. They would need to have permanent bathroom, kitchen, and laundry facilities open to all residents. And finally, there’d need to be some kind of performance standards that Staff will figure out later.

Shelters and Low Barrier Navigation Centers

Right now Shelters and Low Barrier Navigation Centers—like SHP and the Hayward Navigation Center respectively—are only allowed in Industrial Zones on City land, certain spots on Mission Blvd, and in commercial areas with a special permit. Staff recommends removing as many barriers as possible by allowing them in commercial and mixed-use districts, especially near encampments. And also, Staff needs to draft performance standards which currently don’t exist.

What’s All This Mean?

What the City is trying to do is make it easier to build the kinds of homes that actually get folks off the street. The City isn’t building them themselves, but they are making it easier to get them built. This will better house our unhoused neighbors by not treating shelters and SROs like they’re radioactive. Right now, if you don’t have a first, last, and deposit, your options are limited and this is hoping to fix it.

Council Gives Broad Support

The City Council was supportive of the zoning changes, though many of their questions couldn’t be answered by the Planning staff who was present. Councilmember Zermeño asked about the plan to locate shelters near existing encampments. Staff thought “locating these shelters and these services near encampments will ensure that they get used.” He also expressed an interest in reports and metrics for the people served.

Councilmember Goldstein was supportive but said, “I didn’t see anything [about RVs]” in the safe parking plan. “There are a number of RVs parked around town that are distressing to local neighbors.” Staff explained that proper hookups for RVs can be expensive, but later said that RVs could be treated like any other vehicle if they use the on-site facilities.

He also wanted to make sure that the facilities weren’t too restrictive. “Sometimes [people] can’t get in for a 10 o’clock curfew,” Councilmember Goldstein said. He also highlighted that newly sheltered residents often need extra time to recover from being unhoused for so long. “When they do finally find shelter,” he said, “they sometimes sleep continuously.” Many shelters have limited hours—from 10pm to 5am, for example—after which they force everyone to leave for the day.

Councilmember Syrop said, “[I’m] excited to see us taking some first steps toward enabling safe parking.” He was also concerned about being overly strict, especially when it came to safe parking. He pointed out that the Safe Parking site at First Presbyterian “has an outhouse toilet” instead of a permanent bathroom facility.

He asked about hotels and how they tied to the SROs. Staff said that the plan was inspired by the hotel voucher program used during COVID. “What came out of dialoging these SRO regulations,” they said, “was looking at the model we used during COVID to house a bunch of people in hotels.”

Finally, Councilmember Syrop pushed for including medium-density zones as places where SROs can be built. The majority of Hayward is zoned for single-family homes, so having more options in the few medium-density areas would allow more opportunities for different kinds of housing. “Homelessness is a spectrum,” Councilmember Syrop said, “it’s not linear.”

Councilmember Roche also pushed for RVs in Safe Parking sites, though she recognized that some places with evening Safe Parking need the space during the day. She also expressed concern about SRO management falling through, “What can we do to basically have management services in escrow?” she asked, “It doesn’t work if management falls apart.” Staff didn’t address this directly, but said that a management plan needed to be in place and that the City can revoke permits if things degrade.

Councilmember Roche then asked if it was cheaper to pay rent to house people who are on the street—especially those who heavily use emergency services. Again, the Planning Department couldn’t answer, but multiple studies have shown that paying to put people into supportive housing is cheaper than relying on emergency services.

Councilmember Bonilla said, “I really like the range of options here,” and supported using portable toilets for safe parking. He also liked expanding the zones where these homes could be built, “I’m really not a fan of clustering all of this in one particular part of our community.”

In an effort to address concerns around non-Hayward residents being at Hayward facilities, Councilmember Bonilla asked Staff to explain the Coordinated Entry system. As you can see below, it is more complicated than it should be.

Unfortunately the Planning Staff couldn’t answer that either and no Community Services Staff were online. The former Housing Manager briefly explained that there’s an assessment process that places people throughout the County. It helps the problem regionally, but may come at the expense of housing people in Hayward.

Councilmember Andrews asked Staff to help developers with the process. “We’ll be sure to include all of the challenging community partners,” she said, referencing agencies that hold up development. Councilmember Andrews also wanted to make sure that non-housing problems are addressed, “Having an ID and having issues with keeping stable employment.” Staff assured her that these things are usually covered by the wrap-around services that are provided on sites.

She closed by laying some blame on BART for not developing in Hayward on their vacant parcels. “We’re prioritizing cars over people living in a building,” she said.

Mayor Salinas expressed concerns about the room sizes for SROs. “Are these [SRO room sizes] standard for humane conditions?” he asked. Staff confirmed that they complied with HUD standards. “I just want to see… cleanliness standards—hygiene standards,” the Mayor said. “I don’t want us upticking density to where it becomes unsafe.”

HPD Military Equipment Policy

The City Council approved the military equipment update after a brief report from Police Chief Matthews. We covered this update as best we could two weeks ago—though the videos are still inaccessible and there are no minutes posted. Though there were some discrepancies between that report and the one given to the full Council.

Chief Matthews said that HPD only has 6 UASs (drones, to you and me), but the former presentation listed 11, not including the 6 that are being requested this year. The Council presentation also erroneously listed only 6 UAS deployments, and Chief Matthews explained that the number should be 64—he admitted it was an error on his part.

The Chief further said that the robot and UAS purchases were new items and that the rest were replacement items for consumables. However, later he also said that the robot was a replacement because the current robots aren’t supported anymore—their manufacturers went out of business.

Council Waves It Through

Councilmember Bonilla asked that the record show that the policy was approved in the Council Public Safety Committee and then asked about the term “use.” “Does [the number 2] mean it was pulled out twice? Shot twice?” he asked, in reference to the Carbine Rifles. Chief Matthews said the “uses” were when police killed an unhoused man suspected of having a gun behind the Safeway on Foothill Blvd last year. A report by the LA Times has more details on that incident.

Councilmember Syrop asked for clarification on why HPD needed new drones. Chief Matthews said that some units, like the Crime Scene Technicians and Traffic division need dedicated drones. The Chief also cited issues with battery life and needing drones more easily available in the field.

Councilmember Roche wanted to clarify some of what Chief Matthews had said about not buying new equipment, despite saying that the robot and drones were new. Chief Matthews clarified, “No new equipment… that we didn’t already possess.”

It was at this point—during Mayor Salinas’s comments—that the recording was cut. I’m trying not to put my tinfoil hat on about it, but it was very noticeable. It happened again during public comment, editing it out almost entirely.

Mayor Salinas mostly asked for clarification on when a drone would be deployed. Chief Matthew said it was “the equivalent of a helicopter,” and listed out multiple innocuous situations, like search and rescue and disaster situations. At the end he added that drones can be sent into a house with a search warrant—at least one drone has the ability to break windows.

Councilmember Syrop pushed for more community engagement on the Military Equipment updates, “I want folks to know how much conversation is happening around this.” He also asked for it to be discussed earlier in the year as opposed to the last item on the last agenda for the Council session. “It makes it difficult for us to receive feedback and maybe change course if there’s concern,” he said.

“The carbine’s role in the recent officer-involved shooting is why I do have reservations around military weaponry being in our police department in the first place,” Councilmember Syrop said. “I do have reservations around this item,” he said before revealing he would abstain from the vote. “As we make changes, I may find myself more supportive in the future.”

No other Councilmember had any comment.

The vote passed 6 in favor and 1 abstention.