More than a dozen supporters of a rejected affordable housing project spoke during Tuesday’s Riverside City Council meeting, days before the state’s civil rights agency is set to hold mediation talks between city representatives and housing advocates.
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“This week, you will have the opportunity to make a new decision, one that restores this much-needed housing initiative,” resident Ash Davis said at the August 11 meeting. “We can still house 100 people.
“We can still have something that would make headlines, that would put us up there with other cities that are leading,” Davis continued. “I am encouraging, begging, imploring and demanding that this be done.”
The city requested the Friday mediation after the California Civil Rights Department opened an investigation into allegations that the council violated anti-discrimination laws when it rejected a $20.1 million state grant, according to Ugochi Anaebere-Nicholson, an attorney with the Public Interest Law Project.
That funding, if approved, would have been used to convert the Quality Inn Motel on University Avenue into apartments for low-income and homeless residents.
A public affairs official for the civil rights agency said in an email to The Riverside Record that the department was unable to comment on, or even confirm the existence of, investigations. An email Public Information Officer Phil Pitchford shared with The Record confirmed the city was participating in the mediation, but he declined to comment further, citing city policy.
The council also did not address the upcoming mediation during Tuesday’s meeting, but did vote unanimously to support Proposition 1, a statewide ballot measure that would allow California to sell $11.25 billion in bonds with the purpose of providing funding for affordable housing.
The mediation process, according to the state agency’s website, is a confidential one-day meeting facilitated by a neutral third party to help resolve conflicts between two parties. The agency added that it can be useful to avoid the costs of a long-term investigation or court battle while also temporarily pausing the investigation.
“Our overall goal is to work with the city to repair the harm that has happened as a result of their vote,” Anaebere-Nicholson told The Record. “We have different pathways that we have prepared to present to the city to try to address that harm, and so we’re hopeful that we can sit down with the city and present those pathways and identify a solution.”
Although the list of demands is considered confidential, American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California attorney Kath Rogers said the advocates hope the city will reapply for the grant.
If the participants in the mediation do not come to a settlement agreement, Rogers added, the civil rights agency would resume its investigation, which could lead to either legal action by the state or by a private litigant.
“At this point, we don’t really know whether the mediation is going to be successful in terms of whether the parties are going to reach a resolution,” Rogers said. “We’re going in hopeful that that we’ll see a positive outcome for the Riverside community.”
A California Department of Housing and Community Development spokesperson said in an email to The Record that the agency administers several programs that offer grants to cities for affordable housing projects, but did not comment specifically on potential or future funding opportunities for the city of Riverside.
The mediation date, and Tuesday’s outpour of support, followed a monthslong effort by local housing advocates calling on the council to reverse its decision and warning the city of potential litigation.
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