Recap April 29th / Mental Health events – May 2023

Hello friends of CHOA,

We have a few updates on the gathering on Saturday, April 29th, and want to point out a few more events coming to Arcadia.  See the list of topics below in this newsletter.

1. Summary of the CHOA Sharing Session on Saturday, April 29th, with a few highlights
   1. Safe Parking
   2. Housing Element – 2 examples of mix-use buildings coming to Arcadia
2. Mental Health events coming to Arcadia
   1. This Thursday, May 11th at the Arcadia County Park – 12pm-3pm
   2. Next Thursday, May 18th at the Arcadia Mental Health Center – 12pm-3pm

Summary of the CHOA Sharing Session on April 29th

20 people (19 adults and 1 child) gathered for 2 hours to hear what CHOA is doing on short-term and long-term efforts, and what individuals or groups/churches can do.  We are so grateful to have Hill’s Church host our event.  Seven churches in Arcadia were represented, see the list below (in alpha order):

1) Arcadia Christian Baptist Church
2) Arcadia Friends Community Church 
3) Arcadia Community Church 
4) Acadia Congregational United Church of Christ
5) Foothill Neighborhood Church 
6) Hill’s Church 
7) Holy Angels

We recorded the sessions, and you can watch them from our Events page (see the link below), and click on the “April 29th, 2023” event.  Contact CHOA for the password to see the videos.

http://choaarcadia.org/events

Mayor Pro Tem April Verlato also came to share her perspective, on the Housing Element, and good work the LaCada Housing Navigators are doing.  Despite the Point-In-Time count, the navigators are finding there are a lot more unhoused folks in Arcadia.

There were a lot of take aways from our gathering.  In this newsletter, we highlight 2 topics that were brought up: 1) A Safe Parking Program, and 2) Mix-use development to increase Affordable Housing in Arcadia.  If you like to listen to more of what was brought up, listen to the videos mentioned in the link above in the CHOA Events web page.  The handouts and the slide presentation can also be found there.

A Safe Parking Program

One of the keys to reduce homelessness is finding ways to help folks that are unhoused to get back into housing.  Some people live in their cars, which presents a multitude of challenges: harassment, no hygiene facilities, safety issues and possible parking tickets….all which add to their woes.

A Safe Parking program offers unhoused folks a way to park overnight safely.  To access the program, they must agree to a goal of being housed.  Safe parking provides a place to securely park and sleep in peace, with access to restroom facilities. Parkers are vetted before being admitted into the program, and receive case management to help with employment, housing navigation and other resources.  The program has requirements: the car must be registered, and the parkers must have insurance, although the program can help with these.  Parkers enter at a certain time in the evening (such as 7pm), and they leave each morning by a certain time (like 7am). 

Arcadia churches could be a great place to have a Safe Parking program.  Many of our churches have very large, deep parking lots, which would be ideal.  Congregations can get involved by providing fellowship opportunities (although this is not required).   If a few churches work together, they could rotate hosting the program.  This is an effective way to transition those unhoused, but with cars, back into housing.

The program already exits, and the SGV Safe Parking committee would be happy to work with any Arcadia churches interested in exploring a Safe Parking program. Contact CHOA at the below web page, or at the mike@choaarcadia.org email, to learn more or to set up an information meeting.

http://choaarcadia.org/contact-us

Housing Element

CHOA’s long-term effort is to work on the Housing Element.  As we mentioned, the State of California needs more housing.  In this 8 year cycle of the Housing Element, cities across the state are charged to allow for large development of housing.  Arcadia is included, and is set to provide 3,200 residential units; these are considered our RHNA quotas.  RHNA stands for Regional Housing Needs Assement.  Half of these will be Affordable Housing units.  Not only do we just need more housing, but some of this housing needs to be affordable…even in Arcadia.  You can see in the link below, all the cities in Southern California need to build more housing.

https://scag.ca.gov/sites/main/files/file-attachments/6th-cycle-rhna-final-allocation-plan.pdf?1616462966

In our gathering on April 29th, we reviewed how Arcadia will change.  Here are 2 examples of what this change will look like.  Although there are some Affordable Housing, notice the percentage.  These are 4% and 8%, which is the best we have seen so far. 

What we are asking the faith community is, what percentage do we as the faith community want to see?  Pasadena has 20% right now.  The City of Arcadia will hire a consulting firm to do this financial/feasiablity study.  CHOA is hoping to see a percentage between 15% to 20%…and then urge City Council to move forward.  This percentage will be our official Inclusionary Ordinance, and will be required for all new developments after it is passed.

• Example #1: Derby Mixed-Use – 301 E. Huntington Drive (6 stories – see picture above)
  • The Derby restaurant, next to the old Soup Plantation.
  • 214 units total
  • 9 are affordable units
  • 4% affordable units
  • Read more in this news Pasadena Star News article
• Example #2: Alexan Mixed-Use – 150 N. Santa Anita Avenue (see picture below)
  1. This is across the street from Rusnak car dealer, and REI.
  2. 319 total units
  3. 26 are affordable units 
  4. 8% affordable units
  5. Read more at this City of Arcadia web page.