Mountain View’s aid package won’t help all who qualify

Mayor says 830 renters have applied for help, but only 50 to 80 will get funds from the city

Though Mountain View is offering financial aid to residents and businesses experiencing hardship in the coronavirus pandemic, the money won’t reach everyone who needs it.

As the coronavirus continues to spread in the Bay Area, businesses are laying off workers, and hundreds of thousands of people are lining up for unemployment benefits.

In Mountain View, the number of people needing help is ticking up.

Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga said in an interview that more than 830 households have sought rent relief from Community Services Agency, a city rental assistance group that has received a half-million dollars from the city.

But only 50 to 80 households will ultimately receive rental assistance because of limited resources, so the city has turned to outside private and nonprofit groups to fill the gaps.

It would cost the city about $1 million for one month of rent relief for about 500 families, but it’s likely to be a hefty sum for the city to pay without additional state or federal funds.

“We probably could not afford to satisfy everybody’s needs for the entire period of time that the shelter-inplace exists,” Abe-Koga said. “But we can get funding out quickly to basically tie folks over until the larger assistance packages come online.”

Along with the $500,000 for rent relief, the city also has given $440,000 to help small businesses and $100,000 for small apartment complex owners with up to nine units, money that tenant activists say should be going to renters in the city.

About 58% of households in Mountain View rent, according to city data.

“There’s this assumption that landlords can afford to forgive rent,” AbeKoga said.

“Half of our rental units are owned by what we call small landlords who rent out 10 units or less. Some of them have come to us in the past with concerns when we were debating rent control. Some of them are senior citizens and this is their income now.”

The city also has approved assistance with utility payments and has sought help from outside groups to provide other relief, such as Google, which

gave the city $1 million this month after canceling one of its annual conferences.

About $400,000 of Google’s money will provide relief for small businesses, matching funds that the City Council approved March 27 during an emergency meeting.

The Los Altos Community Foundation is administering the Together Mountain View online donation portal initiative to help local renters and small businesses.

“The city is one part of the community trying to come together to address the pandemic and things that are affecting our community,” Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei said.

“The city is also going to evaluate our contribution to the relief effort, but we’re going to be one part

of it. This problem with the pandemic is going to require everyone coming together as much as we can for our community.”

For former Mountain View Mayor Lenny Siegel, who has organized a “rolling rally” of about a dozen driving protesters, said the city isn’t doing enough for renters.

Siegel said renters will have to rely on unemployment benefits and other federal assistance, not the city.

An eviction moratorium set up by Santa Clara County officials two weeks ago isn’t easing fears.

“I don’t think landlords will actually evict people because the courts aren’t open, but people are scared,” Siegel said.

“The various levels of government that have enacted

eviction moratoriums have not squashed that fear.”

Siegel and other groups have raised an alarm about the lackluster effort by the city to provide sanitation equipment for homeless residents and those living in RVs.

As of Saturday, two portable restrooms and handwash stations opened at Rengstorff Park, along with a portable restroom and hand-wash station at Eagle Park, while temporary hand-wash stations opened throughout downtown.

But 300 people have a signed a letter asking the City Council to provide more restrooms throughout the city “to support the hygiene needs of our most vulnerable populations and prevent an even more challenging

public health crisis.”

“We appreciate what the city has done so far,” the letter says. “But this is insufficient.”

Mountain View resident IdaRose Sylvester, who wrote the letter along with Marilyn Winkleby of View Street, said they are urging council members to act because services normally available to homeless communities in the city have shut down.

When the Hope’s Corner showers, gyms, the YMCA and other organizations that homeless people depend on closed, Sylvester said, “we immediately knew we had to act.”

“People had literally no place to go to the bathroom, wash hands (let alone with hot water) or shower, creating a humanitarian and public health crisis,” Sylvester said.

Sanitation and bathrooms aren’t all Sylvester is worried about.

She and Siegel are concerned about the city’s video conferencing system, which does not allow users to give public testimony in real time.

Had a vociferous group of activists pressured council members from the audience, Siegel said, he’s convinced not as much emphasis would have been given to landlords during the most recent council meeting.

“Everything that’s going seems to be going on privately, so we don’t know what’s going on,” the former mayor said.

“That’s a recipe for disaster.”