Fresno council hears public pleas to fully fund eviction defense, moves dozens of budget items to reconciliation

Fresno City Council continued its annual budget hearings June 10 with more than a dozen public commenters urging added spending on tenant protections and mobile-home repairs, and with councilmembers filing dozens of new and revised budget motions across parks, transportation and development. Council members later voted to approve the collection of motions for reconciliation, while stressing that final funding decisions will be made during a reconciliation process next week.

Public commenters focused on housing protections early in the hearing. Giovanna Morales of Leadership Council said the council’s increased allocation so far is welcome “but we do urge the city council to allocate the full 2,500,000.0 to the EPP.” Rosa de Leon of Housing Coalition Empower California Action told the council “2,000,000 is not enough. We really need to make sure that we are investing in keeping our tenants safe.” Kyle Lopez Schmidt, executive director of South Tower Community Land Trust, asked the council to fund implementation work for a tenant opportunity-to-purchase policy the city included in its housing element and to boost the Eviction Protection Program (EPP) to…