San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
RUSH FOR HOMELESS HOUSING FALLS FLAT
La Mesa officials left out of loop of county plan to convert hotel
A county plan to convert a La Mesa hotel into housing for the homeless was quietly in the works for months before East County officials learned about the project just days before it was scheduled to be voted on by the Board of Supervisors, according to emails obtained by The San Diego Union-tribune.
Correspondence shows representatives from Affirmed Housing, the San Diego-based agency pushing to purchase and operate a Holiday Inn property in La Mesa, and officials in the county Department of Housing and Community Development were expediting the project to take advantage of millions of dollars in state funding only available in a short window of time.
County employees and the project’s developer were even pushing to close escrow before the project had been approved by the Board of Supervisors, according to emails between the developer and county Department of Housing and Community Development employees David Estrella, Kelly Salmons and Felipe Murillo.
From the time the idea was first floated in mid-july through mid-august, the county never officially reached out to the La Mesa City Council or the city manager to gauge whether the community would be supportive of the venture. Instead, a representative of Affirmed Housing contacted Councilman Colin Parent, executive director at the nonprofit Circulate San Diego, who receives campaign contributions from Affirmed.
In response to an email from Affirmed Housing Exe
cutive Vice President Jimmy Silverwood, Parent, before officially consulting with anyone else in La Mesa, told the county the city would be receptive to the project.
“I spoke with Jimmy Silverwood with Affirmed Housing this morning about Affirmed Housing’s proposal to acquire and rehab the Holiday Inn into studios for people at risk of homelessness,” Parent wrote to the county in an Aug. 12 email. “I am strongly supportive of this idea and I hope the county can partner with Affirmed on the application to HCD.”
Affirmed, in turn, conveyed that sentiment to the county, which continued to process the county’s application for the Project Homekey funds to purchase the Holiday Inn and convert it into permanent housing, emails show.
The following day, on Aug. 13, the deadline for submitting applications, the county filed its applications with the understanding the project still needed Board of Supervisors approval. Details still had not been shared with La Mesa officials.
Project Homekey is a $600 million state program that offered funding to those who quickly purchased motels and similar buildings to provide housing for homeless people vulnerable to COVID-19.
The county was looking to spend Project Homekey funding on housing for homeless individuals at the Holiday Inn on 8000 Parkway Drive in La Mesa. The total cost for the purchase and rehabilitation of the motel was projected at $36 million.
Besides $19 million from the state, the county would have provided $1.1 million toward the property’s rehabilitation, and the developer would have raised the remainder through a variety of public and private sources.
Parent said he doesn’t believe it was inappropriate to back the project before it had a public airing or that he had a working relationship with the housing developer.
“I’ve worked in affordable housing policy for a decade now since I served in the Jerry Brown administration and got to know basically every affordable housing operator in the region over that time,” Parent said. “When I was contacted by people at Affirmed, I knew who they were, I knew they were a respected affordable housing operator. I have been familiar with the kind of work they do and the kinds of projects they are a part of. Seemed like a perfectly ordinary thing.”
La Mesa City Manager Greg Humora said he learned about the application for Project Homekey funds on Aug. 12 from Parent, but had not received any more information about the project’s specifics, emails show.
On Aug. 14, Humora sent an email to City Council members noting that the 141-unit property was for sale and that Holiday Inn generated $434,950 in Transient Occupancy Tax to the city the year before. “Apparently, Affirmed has been working with the county on this project for some time,” he wrote, adding, “I have asked the developer and the county to involve the city in the process so that we can stay informed and know of any potential board meetings regarding this item.” That did not happen. Humora said he didn’t learn about the proposed project until he saw it on a Board of Supervisors agenda posted Sept. 11. That was just four days before it went to supervisors for discussion and possible passage. In an email sent Sept. 11 to the mayor and City Council, he said, “Interestingly, the location of the project is not named in the report! I told the county that it is inappropriate for the county to take action without input from La Mesa.”
Humora called into the county board’s meeting to voice the city’s concerns on Sept. 15, but Supervisor Nathan Fletcher urged the board to approve and submit the application, leading them to believe it could be revised. But that was not the case.
Fletcher said he was aware of the opportunity to tap the state funds and was eager to use them to address the region’s homeless population. He said he was not aware of the La Mesa hotel site until the board agenda was posted, but felt the project was a great opportunity for all.
“When it got docketed for us to vote on, it was the first time I knew it was La Mesa,” he said. “I chalked that up (to) everything moving fast because of the timeline. I just thought, ‘Great, they found a location in La Mesa,’ and that would be really good.”
Other La Mesa officials, however, angered about being kept out of the loop, called an emergency online meeting on Sept. 21. Hundreds of constituents wrote letters or spoke out in opposition to the project. The next day, Sept. 22, Mayor Mark Arapostathis addressed the Board of Supervisors, which, pressed by Supervisor Dianne Jacob, ultimately voted to withdraw the application.
Jacob was adamant that the county not go forward.
“I got a call from the mayor over the weekend (of Sept. 12),” Jacob said in a mid-november interview. “He had no knowledge of this, only that one councilmember had written a letter to the county supporting it. The county staff took that as the city supporting it. There was a timeline for state money and there was some waiving of the zoning process, but I wondered where La Mesa had the opportunity to weigh in, in an open and transparent process. I asked questions, ‘How did this happen?’ I knew the county was under a timeline but you don’t do this by cramming it down their throats.”
Jacob and fellow Supervisors Kristin Gaspar and Jim Desmond voted to withdraw the application.
Supervisors Fletcher and Greg Cox, however, said they wanted to see the plan move forward, believing it to be a rare opportunity to create much-needed affordable housing for the homeless through the use of state funds.
After several requests for input to the San Diego County Department of Housing and Community Development Services, a county spokesman said they would have no further comment on the matter.
karen.pearlman @sduniontribune.com