$12M (!!!) in State Funding for Ojai's Unhoused

The grant funding the Ojai City Council nearly didn't seek.

Author’s note: the story and accompanying voiceover were updated at 7 p.m. April 22nd to include additional information about Dignity Moves’ conceptual budget and hotel vouchers in the ERF application budget.

Hey folks. Big news. Huge news.

In a past story — Crisis at City Hall — we learned about Ojai’s $12 million application for state funding to clean up the encampment at Ojai City Hall and add 20 units of permanent supportive housing to the property. The grant application was approved for submission on a 3-2 vote back in January, with Mayor Betsy Stix and Councilman Andy Whitman voting in opposition. Both supported waiting for the next round of funding. I’ll note that the project budget was not complete at the time of the vote.

On Thursday, April 18th, Mayor Stix participated in a Zoom press conference alongside Governor Gavin Newsom and the leaders of 17 other California cities and counties. Newsom announced nearly $200 million in Encampment Resolution Funding (ERF) grants — $12.7 million of which will be awarded to Ojai. It’s the full amount requested in the ERF grant application prepared by Jennifer Harkey, Program Director for the Ventura County Continuum of Care. And it’s the single largest grant to any California city in this round of ERF funding.

Image from the April 18th press conference with the Governor.

Let’s fixate on one aspect of this story for a moment: Ojai won $12 million in grant funding from an application we almost didn’t submit.

Here are the 17 jurisdictions awarded ERF funding on April 19th. Note that little Ojai received the largest grant of any other California city.

And that’s not our only piece of news. On Friday, April 19th, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that they will hear arguments in the Johnson v. Grants Pass case beginning Monday. As readers will recall, the Grants Pass case affirmed an earlier Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision (Martin v. Boise) which found that disallowing an unhoused person from sleeping on public property — without providing alternate shelter — is cruel and unusual punishment. This decision carries the force of law in the ten states and territories in the ninth circuit.

Headline via ScotusBlog. A good publication to check out if you’re into this sort of thing.

Notably, Governor Newsom has urged the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to review the Grants Pass case. He argues that “rulings from the bench have tied the hands of state and local governments to address this issue.”¹

The Grants Pass case — and the precedent it relies upon — is one reason why the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office can’t enforce Ojai’s camping ordinance. SCOTUS’s decision may well change everything.

Headline via Reuters.

Ok — let’s get back to the grant funding. A team of many assembled the ERF application — including Harkey, HELP of Ojai staff, former Interim City Manager Mark Scott, city staff, and the Ojai Homeless Taskforce, which includes locals Ruth Miller, George Gaines, and Betsy Van Leit. 

“There've been so many people [who helped] in so many ways and everyone deserves to have a little bit of recognition,” Miller said. “Not just for them, but so that people know that things can happen. It's just a matter of stepping forward and saying, ‘What can I do? What can I do to help?’”

Miller was moved to take action a year ago, after the Ojai Valley Family Shelter wrapped up its 31st winter shelter season. OVFS provides “a comprehensive service of indoor shelter with food and showers from December to April,” according to Board Member John Brooks. In April of last year, Miller learned about an 80-year-old Ojai woman who had nowhere to sleep but a tent. “And I thought, that's not okay,” Miller recalled.

Ruth Miller calls on the City Council to approve the ERF grant application January 23rd. (Hi to subscriber Chris in the background!)

The Family Shelter, too, is celebrating the grant news. “The Ojai Valley Family Shelter applauds the members of the Council who successfully applied for this grant,” said Brooks. “We hope it can be used to satisfy the large homeless population and the neighborhood that fears too much at one location.”

THE MONEY

Here are two more details I’m fixated on. First, the ERF grant funding amounts to more than 50% of Ojai’s annual budget.² Second, according to the state’s ERF guidelines, that money needs to be spent by June 30, 2026.

Get ready for a lot of numbers. 

The vast majority of the funds (approximately $10.7 million) will go to DignityMoves, a nonprofit housing developer. According to DignityMoves’ conceptual budget, the 20 114-square foot modular housing units³ (think of them as private rooms) will cost approximately $1.7 million. The Kent Hall remodel, which would offer centralized restrooms and cooking areas for residents, is budgeted at $3.5 million. General contractor costs are another  $3.5 million. The rest of the budget goes to contingency fees, soft costs, and DignityMoves’ 5% development fee.