July 20, 2024 (Lemon Grove) –
An angry crowd of residents confronted Supervisor Monica Montgomery-Steppe during a community forum in Lemon Grove Thursday night, most opposed to a homeless sleeping cabin project voted on by Supervisors before the community’s voices were heard. The meeting had to be moved to the recreation center’s gymnasium to accommodate the overflow turnout.
Just two days earlier, Supervisors voted 4-0 to move forward on the project, with Chair Nora Vargas absent. The forum, held after the vote, left many residents feeling lied to. as they had believed Thursday's forum was a chance for the community to be heard. The crowd was loud and passionate.
Montgomery-Steppe’s team claimed to have canvassed “nine residential areas reaching between 150-175 residences.” But several neighbors said they were never contacted. A lack of communication from the County was one of the community’s biggest complaints. Montgomery-Steppe’s team said, “We did our best.” The crowd grew angrier.
Montgomery-Steppe said there be a limit of two people per cabin with “24-hour site management and security services, case management including behavioral health, housing navigation, meals, transportation, site maintenance and hygiene facilities.”
The Supervisor addressed complaints from the audience about not being informed there would be a vote on Tuesday, before the community got to weigh in. “We did engage in quite a bit of community conversations and dialogue, but obviously not everyone,” Steppe said.
As residents screamed over each other, Montgomery- Steppe responded, “I understand, this is Lemon Grove, this is the community.”
After chants and people yelling, “rescind the vote” Montgomery-Steppe replied, “I don’t have plans to redirect it and if you would listen to me, I’ll tell you why. I’m not sure how much it’s going to matter.” She stopped speaking briefly, then decided the crowd was too unruly for her presentation to be made, so she decided to allow the residents to speak on the mic one by one.
Most of the speakers from the audience were adamantly against the project. Resident Stephanie Becker expressed, “Montgomery-Steppe has stepped over her boundaries. She did not ask one person in this community before they voted Tuesday. My question is this. If you can’t be trusted and you can’t be honest, how are we going to trust you to run these tiny homes and keep this community safe?”
Montgomery-Steppe recited a timeline that started with asking the County to consider the Troy Street in Lemon Grove after the previous Spring Valley location was rescinded. A survey was sent to some residents, she said (mostly circulated online between neighbors), 175 homes were canvassed, and a meeting at the county included community leaders. Montgomery-Steppe stated, “If I’m telling you what I’ve done, you might not think that’s enough, and that’s ok. But it was done.”
One reason Supervisors may have rushed the vote was to try and resurrect state funding, which Governor Gavin Newsom cancelled after the Spring Valley project fell through. Supervisors have committed to backing the project even without state funding, but have indicated hope that a new state funding request may be granted.
Timing of the vote wasn’t the only complaint.
Resident Jim Aldridge objected to the sleeping cabins being slated to prioritize helping homeless people from other areas already in the county’s system on a wait list. “You’re not helping these people...You’re not getting one person off the streets here in Lemon Grove. You have a fiduciary responsibility to the community of Lemon Grove,” Aldridge said.
He added that he is upset in the “shadiness in the way this whole thing came about. You don’t tell people after the fact that you’ve done this. If there is any person on this Council that stands to make a penny on this, yes I’m looking at you Ms. Snow, you should recuse yourself. Shame on you if you stand to profit from this.”
Aldrige was referring to a County meeting back in June where Councilmember and Mayoral candidate Alysson Snow spoke publicly, stating she was “representing the other Councilmembers and the Mayor” in support of bringing this project to Lemon Grove. Most Lemon Grove residents didn’t know about the project yet and felt Snow’s comments did not represent the community she was claiming to represent, nor was any vote taken by the City Council, however there is no evidence that she would profit off the project’s approval.
Lemon Grove School Board Trustee Cheryl Robertson spoke in support of the project. “Look, I know you’re upset,” she said to the crowd, “but I think what you guys are thinking about is the people you see in encampments and on the street. I understand why that’s scary, but they only represent 5-10% of the homeless population. The Lemon Grove School District right now has roughly 3200 students total. Roughly 200 of them are unhoused.”
Robertson asked Montgomery-Steppe to explain to the crowd the type of person the County would be placing in the cabins. Montgomery- Steppe responded, The people that will be in the sleeping cabins are already within the county system. These are people who are on their last step before they go back into permanent housing.”
The County has indicated that sleeping cabins will not be available to anyone who is a registered sex offender, or who has been convicted of arson or a violent felony, or has a felony warrant, Fox 5 reports.
The meeting was cut off at 8 p.m. and not all the speakers were heard. ECM went outside to speak to residents, where we met up with long-time resident Rosa Hatcher who explained, “We met our quota for HUD and low income [housing] for the past 40 years. The census says that we are a majority of minorities in 2022, and there are several cities that have not met their quota. Why? I feel like we are being discriminated against. Why not move this to another city?”
A resident since 1992, Victor Vega told ECM, “I’ve seen the decline of Lemon Grove with all the homeless coming in, and it’s a little bit unfair for the representative from the fourth district to drop this on Lemon Grove without taking our vote. As you can see 90% of the people here are against this.”
Vega suggested that the representatives should build an ADU in their backyard and welcome the homeless in. “I’m a law enforcement officer, and my wife asks me to walk her to Food 4 Less or to Wal-Mart because she’s scared of getting assaulted by a homeless person,” he explained. “I tell her, go to La Mesa because sometimes I can’t walk her.”
Vega said that it is unfortunate that she spends money in La Mesa instead of Lemon Grove over safety concerns.
This community forum, according to Montgomery-Steppe, is just one of many moving forward, but maintaining order may prove challenging, given the sour mood of the crowd in Lemon Grove last night.