9.19.2024 City Council Committee on Ordinances

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the clerk will call the RO councelor kadim here councelor Hart councelor reposal here councelor Samson here chair perea here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings and and Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those

present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible item number one on the agenda um citizen input we have two people that signed the first person is Albert Ario you y yes this is my first time approaching our our illustrious committee welcome so um I'm here because I wanted to voice an opposition to to that proposed okay sure Alber aruo 100 Holland Street in Fall River Mass thank

you okay and it's a pleasure to see you guys so I wanted to voice my opposition to this to this ordinance uh as someone who has experienced so there's like three categories right of where this would impact people right first and foremost is the unhoused right second is people who are homeless right and who have housing instability but at an extreme rate right and then the third

the third category would be just housing unstable so you're not sure where you're going to be but you're housed so you know you might be in a hotel room for a couple of weeks but then you run out of money and now you have no place to go you're in your car you're in someone you know you're couch surfing you're doing other things so throughout my history right I've I've experienced all three

categories in Fall River and in the past you know 30 years um it's been difficult um you know and I I feel like this ordinance is addressing like one subset of the people who are experiencing these difficulties right you know basically the addicted criminally insane right and there's this broad brush right where saying oh everybody who is experiencing homelessness or unhoused or housing

instability right is addicted mentally ill criminally insane uh and that's not the case so like in all of the instances where I have been literally unhoused living on the street and unfortunately at the Times there were no shelters here um every single time it was like you know through this Confluence of events which had nothing to do it was more economic you know the first time my

mother had cancer uh I was taken care of her uh she had lung cancer she died uh she was on Section 8 I was living with her uh and I didn't qualify for Section 8 I didn't have section 8 and so I became unhoused right um unfortunate uh the second time uh I was housed right I was paying rent you know first month last month security deposit all of that I was up to date never

missed a payment ever right I was in a you know a lowincome uh slum Lord kind of a situation but it was housing right well the landlord never paid the rent he never paid his mortgage right I lived there I don't know almost uh two years uh the one night I had get a knock on the door it was uh the Board of Health they're condemning my building uh they're giving me one day to get my

stuff and get out right and I'm like are are you kidding me she go and they said oh we're doing you a favor I said you're doing me a favor they said yeah we could condemn the building right now right and you would be out when you couldn't get any of your stuff out right you know they put the yellow y plastic thing across the door and that's it and I said well thank you very

much right nowhere to go the guy went bankrupt he wasn't out of LLC from you know out out near Boston right um the one lawyer I had I went to said what you know you could try to sue him but you're not going to get anything because obviously if you can't pay his mortgage there's nothing left in that in that company you know so I was out not only that month's rent right and the security

deposit right I so it was like I had nothing right I had nothing to go into another I had absolutely nothing right so that was another time unhoused right and it wasn't anything to do with like you know being mentally ill or you know drug addicted or you know alcoholic had nothing to do with any of that those kind of situations happened right the third time was uh I got into a fight

with a girlfriend that I was living with right and you know you get into a fight you get thrown out you know so that was a temporary kind of a situation so that wasn't too too bad I guess um because I did get on my feet relatively quickly but those were three cases of being unhoused living on the street right with with like nowhere to go um and no car to

sleep in in two of the times so I didn't even have a car two of the times to sleep in right the one time I you know when my mother I did have a car to sleep in so it wasn't as bad um so I just wanted to you know bring these this kind of thing up because in my experience you know going to soup kitchens uh being an advocate for homeless people um being on

the mayor's task force to end homelessness now for at least I think for 17 years meeting every month right speaking about the issues and problems that that this community has um and actually we actually saw this problem that we're having now coming like five years ago 10 years ago I mean I think any reasonable person knew before covid this is all before covid that the uh the economic events that were taking place

in Boston with the housing issues we you know we predicted that that wave was going to come to Fall River we did not we did not plan for and we did we did not address it I don't I believe that this ordinance is going to make people who are experiencing this situation 10 times 10 times worse because not only you're going to be fined not only you're going to be jailed you're going to have a

record and you're not going to be able to get housing even you know it's going to be much more mrjo yes you've gone past the three minutes I was Oh I thought it was 5 minutes that's why oh I'm sorry I should have asked you that cuz I I didn't know I thought it was five minutes all right thank you for your comments appreciate it thank you for and you going to get that fixed I

know tomorrow morning um the next speaker is Tracy alberes but she's from Swansea so motion away of the rules motion wave second all in favor I just state your name and address of the record Tracy alz uh 246 swans M and Swansea um I work here in the city of Fall River for United Interfaith action um as the for Community organizer and I'm here to speak um against the ordinance I think that the thing that is

missing about this ordinance is the fact that for the majority of these people regardless if they uh can't get housing or if they have you know a health mental health issue or addiction issue is that there is no housing for them to go to even if they go to treatment or for the folks that um are just got pushed out of their apartment there is no affordable housing available in the city so to me to have

an ordinance that does that doesn't um address the issue of the lack of affordable housing is a huge problem um UIA back in in June had a community housing action where we proposed some solutions to um the affordable housing crisis and some of the statistics that we found was that there's like 517 students within four Public School Systems who are experiencing homelessness for is number three for

evictions amongst all the cities and towns in Massachusetts there's 6,000 people on FL River's weight list for public housing there's 6,000 plus people on for's weit list for Section 8 with the 9-year weight period that 46% um of folks are spending 30% of more on their rent on their housing so and then we see in the news that all this market rate is being built and we're not seeing that market rate

shouldn't be built but what what happens to the people who that can't afford a market rate that are longtime residents of the city so we're just asking to to really think about criminalizing people who were in poverty or suffering from an illness um when thinking about this ordinance thank you thank you attorney Ramsey I think the reason for this meeting was to look at the criminality

of it um we would just need a motion to take pardon we just need a motion to take it out of order if we're taking item three two we have two first oh yeah item number three on the agenda it's a proposed ordinance for you to speak we need do number two Council motion to approve the minutes minutes thanks cuz I have such a cold you guys have no idea I

just all in favor so all in favor I I and now we have attorney Rumsey I think one of the problems at the last council meeting with that people were getting the idea that people that were homeless we going to be um penalized criminally yeah so let me address that address that I mean listening to the comments the people made today could I just wait a second because councelor

Andrew had his hand up so I don't know if he wants to ask a question no I was actually G to have do the traffic thing first but since we're already here that's fine never mind continue on okay no I I mean I've listened to the comments from the the prior meeting as well as today and I I think I I think most of us agree with the comments that

we're hearing um I so I think what's mostly happening is a misunderstanding of what this ordinance tries to do uh when you have a ordinance the the city is permitted to either go um criminal or non-criminal and a lot of times it's the choice of the officer of the municipality at the time to to make that choice they can decide whether this going to be criminal or not uh when I

wrote this um I I did not because I felt like it was the will of the city council to not have the criminal aspect in there which is why it's not included you as I said you know I just I write it for the will of the city council which is you know largely what the people want so that's why it wasn't included there's nothing in this uh ordinance that allows

for criminal so how would this ever become criminal I mean honestly there's probably one real way this could be criminal it's the failure to abide by a lawful police order so I could see somebody potentially being arrested uh when they don't move along when the police says to move along um but everything in this ordinance is designed um really it's there is a fine aspect to it because what else are you going to do

if you go non-criminal you generally have a fine and that's what this has um and you know it's it gets kind of complicated but if if you are fine you don't show up for a hearing you don't pay for it and uh it could be converted well down the road but as I said I the way I imagine this is the only way there's going to be any criminal charges will have nothing

nothing to do with this ordinance is the failure to abide by a lawful police water so you know and just to quickly address I think everybody is empathetic to the issue and understands the issue and understands your Z of housing um but I I I would at least like to say that the the cities all cities Not Just Fall River it's the homeless person can't necessarily decide where they want to

put up a tent remember this is a camp be ordinance but they can't just decide that I'm going to pop down in any public space anywhere so the police have to have the ability to say okay you can't be here we need you to move along and that's really what this is intended to do is there any I think that was such the biggest confusion is that people are going to be arrested in that and we

heard it today again and that's not what's going to happen is there a way um that how are we going to convey that to the community is is the the administration and I don't even know if you can answer that question going to get that information what this really looks like because we have several different encampments one of them um I won't say where the location is but it's out of sight it's not a problem I've

been down there they're actually growing strawberries um people you know they're just out of their luck and then we have a an encampment that has got a lot of criminal activity and the police are down there and they need something like this to be passed so in that language and I want it to be um stated that the mayor has the authority to say you know this is okay for right now this spot is

okay for right now this spot is not you can't put up a tent you know so I I think that there was a lot lot of miscommunication a lot of misinformation and my hope is that um there's a plan to roll out what this this really looks like because it is fearful and people there we are seeing increased homelessness and so I guess this is more of a comment than a question um that

there is some um way that the administration is going to look at getting this information out there's a lot of um material out there as to you know it's really going to be education for the police department or any it it doesn't have to be the police it could be some from the from the Department of Health as well um and it's just I think a a matter of education and I do have an

outline I haven't brought it down here today because it's not relevant necessarily to the ordinance but suggestions on how to approach this um you know it's very similar to some of the the case law that's out there but it's it's trying to work with people trying to get them into a better place um but you know the city has to reserve the right to say you can't be here so I

mean that's the main thing I mean if anybody lived next to a park I mean I think you'd imagine there are some places better than others and if somebody popped up a tent and outdoor cooker right next to your house in a park you know the police have to be say not here yeah um so I did have one point uh and I don't know if there we can enact a schedule of

fines that was not done in this I I I guess we probably a Miss we' probably should have talked about under penalties when we talked about it before um you know part of me thought we're never going to get to a fine I mean it's really just a move along kind of thing but without any specific fine you're stuck with the penalty that's in ordinance already which is a 100 200 300

kind of set meaning 100 first offense second 200 second offense third uh 300 for every third and subsequent if if you wanted to you could have a it's really should be entitled something like a schedule of fines and just have a set amount that could be much much lower if you if you wanted to otherwise it will default to the one two three could you explain that a little further

on your the F sure so if you look at our ordinance right now um 2-125 it has a general penalty which is $100 for the first offense $200 for a second offense and $300 for every third and subsequent offense um the 40u as well is idea is that you you should have a schedule of fines for ordinance violations and ours we don't have a schedule that just has them all in one

easy convenient place we'll have a certain fine in this section that deals with for example code enforcement issues we might have another fine for traffic um so since we don't have a schedule of findes at separate distinct we probably if you want to if you wanted to lower it from one to 300 scale you probably should um throw it either in the next letter H to I or before that schedule fines and

say what the actual fine is for this amount if you wanted to lower it as I said I don't see anybody really getting a fine on this it's more move along I guess if they refuse to move along they'll probably get fined interested Council Samson it it does I'm just looking um trying to see where it says in it but uh where it says they can impose a fee right it it doesn't NE it's not an

automatically going and there's a there's an encampment that they're going to give a fee immediately that's what's we have to I want to make sure that's defined yes in so section c I think is where okay unless specifically

authorized you know we're trying to solve a problem that we hope we never get to but if you are to do a non-criminal fine and you wanted to pursue it to you know dot all the eyes and cross all the te's you should have a specified amount so if it's not specified here it's going to default to the one25 I Yi Council you yield coun Council so I don't necessarily have an issue with the

I guess the fine schedule that's outlined in in ordinance so the 100 200 um and what' you say it was 300 300 for every third and subsequent uh so the only thing that I I guess I would make a motion on is to undo my motion to strike the language that you originally had in there which um was under the section H for penalties so my motion would be that we

add in however the imposition of a fine shall not be imposed if one the person is homeless two shelter is unavailable and three the homeless person is willing to immediately go to the shelter if when space becomes available I have the original copy if the clerk needs that as well with the original language so I I would do that in formal second that motion okay there's been a motion there's a second all in

favor so I I do think when I made a motion to to have that removed I was just thinking in terms of you know we're trying to enforce a penalty and then we have all these um exceptions associated with it but guess I did miss after hearing everybody at C input the criminal aspect and obviously we we have the conversation here that we we understand if they're truly homeless they're not

going to be um able to pay for a fine but it was just more of a mechanism to enforce uh the Orin that's before us and if a fine is not paid then we have the ability to go to court things of that nature um but I think it's important because if if somebody is willing to go to a shelter and there are some folks that are willing to go to the shelter

that um they have the ability to do so without being fined I guess the concern and I think this is where you know we're all trying to find an ordinance and strike that balance is is the fact that um there are a number of folks regardless of there's services or um beds available they just simply refuse to go uh and that's that's the issue that we're we're hearing from residents

and um and it's not to say we do not appreciate the difficulties and the challenges that that these individuals are are faced with um but at the end of the day you know that we have 990,000 residents a little bit more than 90,000 residents in the city of Fall River um and it's our responsibility to try to uh represent each and every single one of them so trying to strike a balance is

important um so I would personally support this and I've got no other issue uh with the ordinance before us as long as we have those uh three criteria in there that as long as somebody is trying to get up on their feet uh trying to do the right thing is not becoming a nuisance right because I think that's the biggest challenge that we're faced with is the nuisance part of it and the

quality of life not only for those individuals but uh for the residents uh in those neighborhoods I mean we we talk about and I know Council Samson talked about it we've got some encampments there are no issues and then we've got you know the ones next to the cish and rail trail which are extremely dangerous right and so as a city council we need to make sure that there's an ordinance in place so that when the

police do go there they have a tool in their tube Bel to be able to address uh the situation so but I I think the way that this was written um and the criteria that you had laid out originally does strike that balance and it was something that I missed the first time that we reviewed it so that's support it anybody else one of the issues that I think we look at when we

look at homeless individuals and it's a total different perspective than just people being homeless I think that the building department should look at um different regulations for tiny houses there was a beautiful tiny house that uh the jobs program had done and it was between cdre and the police station and it was there and it we couldn't put it anywhere because we don't have any

regulations or um about you know tiny houses um or smaller Lots or if somebody's has a big piece of property and their parent wanted to come and live with them but not live with them that they could build a small house like on that property I I think we need to look at that too because it's becoming unaffordable for some people but I'm not you know I'm fine with the ordinance the

way it is and if people are urinating or defecating that's a criminal offense outside of this ordinance that's just you can't do that well honestly unauthorized campign is too I mean that one of my thought process about creating this I mean other than attaching a fine that we hope to never actually use it's always been unauthorized to to camp on public property without permission so I mean everything in here

everybody's so worried about this ordinance is too strong I mean it's like you're saying you couldn't defecate in public without before this ordinance this ordinance really doesn't change anything it just makes it easier to show somebody here's the rule that shows you where you can't do this I mean what council kadim brings up about the rail trail I've had many people over the summer telling me that they used to walk

there all the time and they won't do it now well that's not fair that's not fair to people either um and you know the other thing is for River has more housing affordable housing stock in our city than other communities you know we have people that come um Mrs alanz came from Swansea what does Swansea have what do they have they have nothing for for you know housing what does Westport have

what does Somerset have it's like if they you know stepped up to the plea too to have affordable housing but when somebody is moved out of one of those communities they end up coming to the city because there's better transportation here there's more services here so that's not fair to us either every Community should take a piece and help out you know we all work together live together we should all be

part of the same Solutions um but that's all I have to say I think maybe we need to look at building department to come up with some codes for tiny houses and things and uh I did hear at a a meeting that I was at the other day that there are veterans housing in dayon uh and it can be used by the whole you know greater area so if there was a veteran that's homeless

they've converted one of the nursing homes into housing specifically for veterans so that may be something good for people to know but other than that I yield do you no so I I think we just need to recognize and I I think everybody at this table recognizes that you know this is an encampment ordinance right so it doesn't necessarily solve the underlying issue that we've we've heard and uh

we've discussed for I don't know how many years now in terms of the affordability of the city of Fall River right and I I think um Madam chair you you you speak volumes in terms of when you look at surrounding communities and what they're doing for affordable housing uh there's not much going on uh from those communities and then the burden is placed on larger cities like the city of Fall River and it and it

becomes a challenge and that's why you see the waiting list for Section 8 or you know public housing or anything like that and it's because there are so many individuals from surround the communities coming into um our St our stock which is you know well over the 10% um and I know there's a push uh to to get affordable housing um but it's unfortunate because when we started talking about affordability and cost of

living I don't know that Massachusetts was ever on that high list uh in terms of being unaffordable you would you would hear California you would hear New York and I think you know Massachusetts is now in the top 10 right and I was having this conversation with somebody the other day um and they challenged me and they said well that's fine but if you go to these other communities you're

not going to get the services that you get in Massachusetts I said well that that still doesn't make it right okay so you look at the amount of uh just the cost of living in terms of you know electric uh we had a conversation about the electric bills recently uh groceries I think you get five items it's going to cost you $120 you know for for grocery bills and then you start looking at the

rents and and I support uh market rate housing you know I think it's a good thing for a community I but at the same time we need to be cognizant on the fact that we still need to have that balance with affordable housing right some folks might want to see the genfic of the city of floriva I I personally don't agree with it you know I think there's there's a balance that needs to be um reached

and and I think we can do it I'm not quite sure how how we do it uh but those conversations need to be had I know um couple of counselors I I went to the icma last year and there was a vendor there and I don't know that they referred to them as tiny houses but there were they were tiny houses essentially for uh for the homeless and

um I did bring this up to the mayor that there was one community I forget what the community is now but I think it was the state of Washington where they created almost like a trailer park but it was these tiny houses and they included all the wraparound services that were required into this uh location in in the city uh to make it easier and um obviously to to make the quote

unquote encampments a lot more safer right so you know I kind of think we we missed the boat with that um in terms of being able to utilize uh potential arpa money uh that we had you know they would temporary shelter but it's a it's essentially a one-bedroom you know you've got a desk a bed you've got heat you've got AC so you just need to run the Electric uh to these essentially a

shed uh but the installation and uh to uninstall it is about a 20- minute process so you know I think it's something that uh you know we need to consider from you know the administration standpoint and as well as the council uh to see if that's makes more sense in order to try to address this from a long-term standpoint where we don't have folks in the woods uh we have them in Secure uh temporary housing

and that's what they would be temporary housing uh where all that wraparound service is actually located on the site and the you know the more difficult part of this is is identifying a site but quite frankly I think um and I'll say this and I'm sure the neighbors not going to be upset about this but what tupp of heights is in my mind the location that it should be uh but we

don't control that property right so that's going to have to be uh a discussion in a partnership to be able to get that that done but I I think if we're serious about this we can we can truly fix it um but we have to be um we have to be willing to really kind of do this from the long term because it's got to be sustainable it can't just be a

temporary temporary fix but I I will say I don't know how we get it done but if we we can get to the table I'd be supportive of of something I know um and I'm I'm going on but I I don't want folks to think that the administration hasn't done things because between community development and um the folks advocating for the homeless and and the mayor's office to me they've done a

phenomenal job of trying to get get the services that they need um but we just need to do a little bit more and I and I don't disagree um that communities right a little affluent communities surrounding us need to do a little bit better job of trying to uh take on some of the burden that we're faced with or at least pitch in and and provide some additional funding so that it will help

us alleviate uh some of the cost associated with dealing with this with that I yield yeah I just want to briefly just clarify I I know councelor kadim knows this but I just want to make sure everybody else knows that Whata height is not owned by the city of Fall River and actually is part of a lawsuit right now so I can't really comment on it too much but it's part of a lawsuit about

what to do with that property is there a motion a motion for emergency Preamble motion for emergency Preamble second all in favor call roll call roll call roll call councelor kadim yes councelor Hart councelor reposo yes councelor Samson yes chair Pereira yes just just for clarification that was for with the with the amendment yes correct we put the amendment we voted on the amendment have

motion to pass through all readings as amended second all in favor I thank you item number four on the agenda is proposed ordinances handicap parking Third Street West starting point um 74 ft north of Branch Street 9th Street West starting at a point of 105 ft south of Bedford Street Alden Street West starting at a point of 21 feet of Ross Street um Cherry Street South starting at a point

of 125 ft east of Grove Street Eastern Avenue East starting at a point of 46 ft north of County Street Oak grve Avenue East starting at a point of 115 fet South of Lemieux Street and Tuttle Street East starting at a point of 52 feet north of dwell Street motion for emergency Preamble second motion for an emergency Preamble a second roll call councelor kadim yes councelor Hart councelor raposo yes councelor Samson

yes chair Pereira yes motion pass through all readings second motion pass through all readings there was a motion and a second all in favor I could I ask that we table number five and six because councils have um other commitments motion to table items five and six second there a second all in favor I motion to to Jour made second all in favor I thank you