Public Comment

According to the Mayor, Berkeley will soon take possession of 10 FEMA residential trailers for use as isolation shelter for unhoused people in need of medical isolation. The City has not yet decided where to place them. I sent the following advice to City Council, Mayor, City Manager, and Councilmember Davila by name (my appointing member for the Housing Advisory Commission and Joint Subcommittee for the Implementation of State Housing Law -- also my excellent representative on City Council).

Regarding the placement of FEMA trailers: I suggest that you place the trailers on the Berkeley Way parking lot, across the street from the fire/EMT station.

While this would prevent progress on the Berkeley Way housing project, the scale and speed of economic and supply chain disruption now unfolding makes it very unlikely the construction project could proceed on-budget and even close to on-schedule. The project may very well already have become no longer viable. The certainty of a good place for the trailers should trump the uncertainty and dubiousness of the construction project.

In the event that BRIDGE is forced to back out, there is still a saving grace: it would free up both City of Berkeley funds and County A1 funds earmarked for the City of Berkeley. Those funds could then be applied to faster, cheaper, better ways to house people in the new reality we are entering.