INGLEWOOD, Calif. (2UrbanGirls) – The city of Inglewood abruptly canceled a scheduled Public Hearing on the City’s Housing Plan minutes before it was to take place during the Dec. 13 city council meeting.
The public was notified at the top of the meeting and those who called in and were physically present to speak on the matter were prevented from doing so.
“You can’t speak on this item because the item has been pulled,” said Inglewood Mayor James Butts who then proceeded to be sworn in for his fourth term in office.
The accompanying staff report on the matter states the City has a deadline to have the plan into the Department of Urban Housing and Development by Dec. 30.
City Hall will close to the public on Thursday, Dec. 22, so this author will be checking the City’s website multiple times per day in order to alert the public to ANY special meeting that is scheduled between now and then.
Residents are concerned about how the $1.8 million in COVID rent relief funds were spent that only assisted 59 households in a city with 36,104 households, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
According to records released by HUD under a public information record request shows the Inglewood Housing Authority sought guidance on providing $200 stipends to residents who participated in COVID related tasks like food distribution and sought waivers to have the stipend excluded from annual income limits.
Emails also detail the IHA staff struggled to complete the necessary forms required by HUD to meet deadlines for the Housing Plan that was rejected for 2021. Representatives from HUD’s Los Angeles office made several site visits to City Hall in order to provide IHA staff with technical assistance.
Residents called into the Dec. 13 council meeting to complain that they were unable to watch the council meeting on Spectrum Channel 35 as listed on the council agenda to participate in the public hearing. Another resident reached out to 2UrbanGirls to alert residents to check Channel 12 instead.
Today, Dec. 15, was the deadline to have comments into the City.
You can view the draft 2021-2022 Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report (CAPER) here and you can view the accompanying staff report on the Public Hearing here.
If you would like to email the HUD Los Angeles office about concerns with the City’s handling of this annual process, you can send them an email here.
