MALIBU—The Malibu City Council will each appoint two members to the new Homelessness Task Force during its virtual meeting on Wednesday, July 21 at 5 p.m. All community members are invited to participate in the meeting.
During the meeting, City Council will discuss the efforts to address homelessness in the city and proposed amendments to the City’s Nuisance Code to address the alarming amount of brush fires in homeless encampments. There have been 17 fires in 2021. The city’s current definition of a nuisance lacks clear detail to property owners what a nuisance is. The proposed amendments will include language specific to fire and public health hazards.
In a press release, Mayor Paul Grisanti stated:
“As in so many communities across America, homelessness in Malibu has emerged as a humanitarian crisis with severe impacts to the community’s public health and safety, the environment and quality of life that cannot be ignored.”
The city already has a Homelessness Working Group. Malibu City Council is working to provide more effort, resources, and attention to homelessness by creating a Brown Act-governed Homelessness Task Force. The Brown Act requires open meetings and public record-keeping by government bodies in California to ensure transparency and accountability.
The new task force will be in charge of reviewing existing efforts, evaluating the need for an alternative sleeping location (ASL), developing strategies to mitigate the fire safety concerns of encampments located in open space and on undeveloped private property, addressing other issues related to homelessness, and providing regular updates and recommendations to the Malibu City Council.
The agenda, staff report, viewing, and commenting instructions for the meeting are available at https://www.malibucity.org/VirtualMeeting. Community members may also review documents about past and ongoing work to address homelessness at https://www.malibucity.org/1066/Reference-Documents.
