8/14/2019 Emily's Letter to City Council

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Dear City Council & Mr. Emlen,

Thank you for listening to my concerns last night regarding the current emergency situation with the homeless

community and the Dec. 1 Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Davis and Davis Community

Church.

I believe that in life-threatening situations, such as the extreme cold we are continuing to experience, no one

should be forced to sleep outside, regardless of circumstances. I was relieved to hear this belief echoed bymany of the Council.

I would like to take this opportunity to respond to what I witnessed at the meeting.

1) It is evident that the MOU was adopted without any emergency contingency plan in place. This put the City

Manager and the Council in the position of brainstorming solutions the day after there had been a problem.

2) It is unacceptable that one week after adopting the MOU, we find ourselves scrambling to address the

repercussions of the forced capping of services with NO provision to replace them. This is indicative of a bad policy.

3) By limiting the services offered by a privately funded, non-profit group, the City has created an un-acceptable situation. I demand that the City now take responsibility for solving it.

4) I understand that the MOU came out of 14 months of intense meetings and that the neighbors adjacent to

DCC have very strong feelings that should be respected. However, the current situation is unacceptable and

the MOU should be immediately rescinded until Council and city staff is able to work with the current

shelters to come up with a workable emergency contingency plan.

5) I am concerned with the solutions that I heard being put forward last night.

• Providing a free bus pass to Woodland where there is a bed.

I support coordinating efforts between the cities of Yolo County, and using whatever resources are available to

address an immediate situation. However, I am very concerned that we are establishing a practice that when thegoing gets tough we ship our homeless out-of-town to where beds may, or may not, still be available on arrival.

This does not reflect the values of community that I, and I believe many others in Davis, would like to uphold.

• Opening up City facilities as emergency overnight shelter.

I would certainly support this in principle. However, instantaneously creating a City program every time the

weather deteriorates seems unrealistic and foolish. In Davis, we can count on extreme and therefore dangerous

weather conditions on a regular basis. Clearly, partnership with the current shelters would be crucial. Last night,

the idea was put forward to have volunteers staff a City site. If this plan was pursued, would the City staff be

responsible for recruiting, training and managing these volunteers? With a 3.5 million dollar budget deficit and

employee furloughs already a reality, I question how feasible and sustainable this would be. It is unfair that the

non-profit leaders and volunteers who work hard to handle these issues on a daily basis are first

constrained in their work by the City and then, when crisis hits, asked to shelter additional guests on thespot.

Thank you for the hard work and long hours that you dedicate to our community. I appreciate and look forward

to your prompt response and your re-evaluation of the MOU.

Sincerely,

Emily Henderson