The first step, born out of quality of life complaints pressuring the City Council, was to get control of the city’s petty-crime problem. Homeless people were being arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct and drug offenses. In 2020, City Attorney Mike Webb persuaded the Superior Court in nearby Torrance to send a judge to Redondo Beach one day a month to conduct a homeless court using the power of the bench to lead defendants toward shelter and treatment.

Next, there had to be somewhere for those defendants to go. The city built a village of 20 tiny homes, leased five rooms in a single room occupancy hotel, formed relationships with the home sharing nonprofit SHARE! Collaborative Housing and low-income housing provider Soul Housing. With $300,000 from its own budget, along with county, state and federal grants and donations from service providers, the program has grown. The city now leases 18 SRO units and is adding 25 tiny homes. Lila Omura, right, convinced Brooke Owens to move into one of the tiny homes at the Redondo Beach Pallet Shelter.

This summer it opened a 20 units of permanent housing in a motel conversion funded by state Project Homekey and obtained a county grant to double the size of its tiny home village. The number of homeless people on the streets has steadily dropped.