Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s threat of a possible lawsuit against the city of Norwalk over its emergency ordinance that bans homeless shelters and supporting housing facilities, the city council voted Tuesday to extend the moratorium through August 2025.
The vote came a day after Gov. Newsom sent a notice of violation letter to the city, saying the moratorium on various establishments, such as emergency shelters, single-room occupancy, supportive housing and transitional housing is “unlawful.”
City staff recommended during the city council meeting that the council pass the motion to extend the moratorium, so it can conduct a further study on how prohibiting the types of facilities would impact the community and whether the city would need zoning amendments.
A man who described himself to be a lifelong resident of Norwalk spoke during the city council meeting, criticizing Newsom’s threat of a possible lawsuit against the small city.
“Norwalk should not be forced to bear the brunt of the region’s homeless population,” Brian Lopez said. “There are 88 cities in this county. Why is the focus placed on our working class community of color?”
Another resident, who was speaking on behalf of Mr. Rosewood Family Restaurant, urged the council to extend the moratorium as he said the area surrounding the restaurant was a “disaster scene” while the city ran a Project Roomkey site in front of the eatery.
“We’ve seen a lot of hanging out, a lot of loitering that people don’t need to see when they’re going to go eat with their families,” Jason Perez recalled. “I commend you for listening and making sure that you take care of Norwalk and make the right decision.”
Before Tuesday’s council meeting, Norwalk Mayor Margarita Rios urged Newsom to acknowledge her city’s “proactive measures” to address homelessness while asking for “direct resources to support” its efforts.
“Norwalk also hosted one of the largest Project Roomkey sites during the pandemic. Despite these efforts, Norwalk has received no Measure H funding,” Rios said.
Measure H passed in 2017 to establish a quarter cent sales tax for homeless services.
Mayor Rios said because the city couldn’t tap into Measure H funding, the city was forced to “use its own resources to manage the fallout from abandoned state-mandated programs, which puts both residents’ safety and the city’s finances at risk.”
The city council had noted the city’s power to make and enforce ordinances to regulate the use of land within its jurisdictional boundaries when it passed the ordinance.
Although Norwalk passed the moratorium based on the Housing Crisis Act, which allows local governments to issue a housing or facility ban when there’s “an imminent threat” to public health and safety, the state argued in the letter that “there are no findings of a threat specific to the housing subject to the moratorium, nor any finding of a citywide threat.”
With the notice of violation, the state implied the Los Angeles County city with the population of 100,000 could face the same fate as Anaheim and Huntington Beach. The two Orange County cities were forced to bring forward new housing plans after they lost lawsuits brought on by the state in similar fashion.
In a statement, Newsom’s team condemned the city’s decision.
“The Norwalk City Council’s decision is disgraceful and clearly violates the law,” the statement read. “The state will act swiftly to address this dereliction of duty. Stay tuned.”