Tuesday's City Council meeting drew a full crowd of residents and advocates urging the council to reconsider a permanent supportive housing project it rejected in January — a rejection that prompted a state Civil Rights Department (CRD) investigation into possible anti-discrimination violations. The renewed concern comes as the city is expected to meet with the CRD on Friday in mediation on the matter.
Ugochi Anaebere-Nicholson, attorney with the Public Interest Law Project, told the Gazette that the CRD's investigation is currently paused while the parties mediate their dispute.
If the parties reach an agreement, it will likely need to be approved by the City Council in the coming weeks — and if not, the parties will determine whether they will come back at a later date for more negotiations, according to Anaebere-Nicholson. If the parties cannot come to a resolution, then the case will go back to the CRD, which will decide whether to continue its investigation.
The CRD launched the probe back in May following a joint complaint by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, the Inland Equity Community Land Trust and the Inland Empire Tenants Union. The groups alleged that council members relied on discriminatory stereotypes — not evidence — when they voted to turn away $20.1 million in state funding and $9.5 million in additional federal and state money to convert the Quality Inn Motel at 1590 University Ave. into 114 studio apartments.
The units would have offered 94 permanent supportive housing units for people with documented mental health or substance use challenges and 20 affordable units. The Riverside Housing Development Corporation brought the proposal to the council, which rejected it on Jan. 13.
Anaebere-Nicholson said the groups are looking for reparations for what she describes as the "harm" that's been done to Riverside's unhoused community.
"Immediate harm has arisen as a result of the 114 units not being moved towards…development and as well as the harm in not meeting the city's regional housing needs assessment," Anaebere-Nicholson said.
However, she said she was unable to discuss details of reparations – or whether bringing back the University Terrace project is still on the table — due to the confidential mediation process.
Meanwhile, residents continued to tell the council they hoped the project would be brought back.
“Every day in Ward 3, I drive by and walk by unhoused people. This heat is deadly. 140 homeless people died last year in the county, probably more. And I'm really concerned. I'm thinking about that unhoused child going to school and they're in [survival] mode. I learned that Housing First works and it's not housing only. It has multiple steps to it,” said resident Sue Raginsky during public comment.
Resident Dan Hoxworth told the Gazette that "ultimately this is about the lives of 94 homeless individuals who are most vulnerable."
He also noted the 20 affordable housing units that would have been included in University Terrace.
"If you talk to Family Promise, if you talk to Path of Life Ministries, their problem is they're holding people in transitional housing longer because they don't have an affordable housing unit to move them into," he said. "There's just nowhere for people to go. The affordable housing units aren't there because we aren't creating them in Riverside, but the demand is there."
Ugochi Anaebere-Nicholson also described the disparity between Riverside's very-low- and low-income housing and its higher-income housing developments as "quite stark."
Back in March, a report showed that Riverside permitted no new very-low-income housing since 2021 and met less than 20 percent of its overall state-mandated housing allocation.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development determined that Riverside must plan for 18,458 new homes between 2021 and 2029. About five years into the timeline, the city met just 19.6 percent of its obligation — with 3,613 total housing permits issued since 2021.
Most of the permits issued, however, have been in the above-moderate-income housing category. The city created no new housing for the very-low-income category in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and it created no new housing for the low- and moderate-income categories in 2024 and 2025.
