Mayor Dave Shaw and council members opened the meeting by reading a proclamation recognizing November 2025 as Homelessness Awareness Month and thanked local partners working on shelter and services.

Johnny Burke, speaking for the homeless consortium, told the council the region’s point‑in‑time count for Sutter and Yuba counties was 830 people and said that represented a 14% decrease from two years earlier. "Our total number for both counties combined was 830 individuals, which is still a lot of people, but our numbers went down," Burke said, citing both weather and programmatic efforts as contributors to the change. He reported county‑level figures (Sutter County: 393, down from 418) and noted the consortium has filed an unsheltered count of 528 with HUD.

Burke also summarized calendar‑year activity through coordinated entry: thousands of people touched the system in recent years (he cited nearly 2,700 in 2021 and 3,383 in a recent year) and said the region is beginning to see reductions in first‑time homelessness and average lengths of homelessness. "We track intakes and we’re forecasting almost a 20% reduction in new intakes this year," he said.

Council members and Burke highlighted pipeline housing as a central strategy. Burke said Merriment Village (a multi‑phase project discussed later on the agenda) is expected to add capacity for more than 200 people across three phases and that Richland Village would add roughly 130 units, both of which he said should increase exits to permanent housing over the next few years.

Mayor Shaw and councilmembers praised collaborative efforts across law enforcement, faith‑based and nonprofit partners, and county providers. The council directed staff to continue partnering with regional agencies and to report back as new housing phases move toward construction.

Next steps: the council later authorized a supplemental loan agreement to govern Homekey grant disbursements for phase 1 of the Merriment Village 79‑unit project, and staff said Habitat for Humanity is pursuing a private line of credit to cover an outstanding gap in the project budget.