Phoenix's mayor on challenge to 'Zone' cleanup

in with Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego now in her fifth year in office. Welcome back to square off. Good to be back. And first a disclosure for viewers as many of you know by now, my wife is a city of Phoenix employee. Let's start with the news of this past week. Back in March, a Maricopa County judge ordered Phoenix to clean up the zone. That's the homeless encampment just west of downtown about up to a thousand people live there at any time.

Last week, the city asked the judge to lift a requirement that the city make significant progress on the cleanup by July 10th. The city said that wasn't possible. The judge responded he's not moving the deadline. Why can't the city make significant significant progress in the next two months? The city is making significant progress. We have already seen changes and announced the schedule for making sure people have a safe place to call home. No one likes the status quo. We want people in our community to have a safe place to call home and living in the right of way isn't good for anyone.

We have been working for years on this situation and trying to make sure we have more affordable housing as well as more transitional housing. We are appealing the ruling for some technical legal reasons including some hearsay testimony. I will leave that to the public. Well, it's more than technical reasons. The city doesn't believe the judge has the power to tell you what to do. What we feel is we have a very good plan that's put out. It is a priority for everyone on the city to make city council to have better housing options and we're moving forward with that.

We also have litigation in federal court and we need to make sure we are able to abide by both judges' rulings. In some ways they are conflicting and so we want to work that out. But I just want to be very clear. We agree with the spirit of the ruling. We want to clean up the area around the human service campus and we have been planning for a long time. So you agree with the spirit of the ruling and that's correct. The city has had a strategies for a homelessness plan in the works for three years.

The plan said there was a quote, sense of urgency. That was a year ago. So again, why can't there be significant progress by July 10th? And if that's taken away then what should folks expect the city to do and when? We are absolutely committed to significant progress before summer, particularly driven by the fact it gets more dangerous as it gets hotter. In a few hours I'm talking to Governor Hobbs about the possibility of using some state-owned property for better facilities for people to move to and we hope quickly. This is not the first time I've talked to the governor. My first conversation with her about right after she was elected was focused on this particular issue. So again, we have been working for a long time.

But to give the US vets as an example, when we purchased the hotel, we found out that there were some structural issues that had to be addressed. The sewer was backed up. We don't want to ask veterans to move into housing where the sewer doesn't work. You also have to do electrical code upgrades because when people are going to be living permanently in a facility, they're much more likely to cook in the hotel room than they would if they were just using a hotel. So it's safe. Sorry to interrupt. Council members have expressed concern about where the people who live in the zone are going to go.

Betty Guardado is concerned that they're being moved to District 7 and 8, South Phoenix, Slovene. And O'Brien's concerned they might end up in her district. So is the city going to treat every district equitably as that strategy, as that plan, the strategies for homelessness plan said? So we are trying to invest in facilities throughout the city. We have, we're working with the county to purchase a hotel near the airport. We have worked with Central Arizona services to purchase one on the west side. We're also building from the ground up. I joined St.

Vincent DePaul this week, as well as the county and state, when they broke ground on a new facility. So we hope there will be investments throughout the city and good facilities, many of which, like the one I mentioned, are coming online within a matter of weeks. But other of which will take longer. We have to have safe places. Is the zone a years long project? We have been working for years to try to bring new housing online. But looking at where it is today is clearing that out and finding safe place, safe shelter, support service for those folks, a years long project. It depends how many partners we have.

So if more jurisdictions step up, we're much more likely to see progress more quickly. Right now, there are many cities in the valley that don't have services. And so they hire Phoenix based providers who bring people experiencing homelessness to Phoenix. If they were to step up and provide solutions in their cities, it'd be more likely to be successful because people could stay near their networks. If kids are in school, they'd be closer to the school they know and sometimes deeply value. We would love to see more investment from the state of Arizona. I'm a big supporter of the low income housing tax credit at the state level, as well as fully funding the housing trust.

So the more entities that are willing to partner with us, the better we'll do. Right now, we spend more per capita than the state of Arizona to address this housing challenge. If that changes, we'll make progress more quickly. But overwhelmingly, Phoenix residents are stepping up and supporting a wide variety of services. The last time I was at a domestic violence facility, the people I met, none of them were actually from Maricopa County who were staying there. They'd come from Northern Arizona because there was not a good safe facility in Northern Arizona. So I'm proud that the city of Phoenix has contributed to make sure we are part of the solution.

The more partners we have, the more progress we'll have. Over the next two months, almost 400 people will be evicted from three mobile home parks in Phoenix to make way for development. You've been criticized for not supporting solutions that might keep them in their home. And at a meeting, council meeting a few weeks ago, you shut down public comment by those residents on what was happening. Do you regret either of those decisions? I'm very passionate about making sure we have housing for those individuals. I joined with four of my colleagues to support millions of dollars to help get them on the path to a great housing situation. They don't feel like they're on a path to a great housing situation.

These folks are largely a kick away from homelessness. Don't have great credit ratings. Don't have the money for security deposits and the rent, which as you know is quite high these days. So how are they on a path to a great solution? We are looking at solutions like the city of Phoenix has an award-winning project called Saluna that is in Edison Eastlake and would have beautiful mountain views, a park, a great place to call home that is a city housing facility. So moving into those units to me would be a good quality situation. That's one of the tools we're looking at. So you think all those residents will find those kinds of solutions when they're evicted from the mobile home parks? We have partners such as Trellis who are working to navigate and understand each individual's situation.

We are also working to make sure we are building new projects. We have supported thousands of units in Maricopa County and in the city of Phoenix in particular and trying to make sure the supply of housing adjusts to the fact that we're the fastest growing city in the country. Sometimes it's good that people are voting with their feet to come here, but if you are struggling with rent, that's not good news for you that there's so much demand to live here because the prices have gone up and up. Got to end the discussion there, but I do have to ask you, 2024 is coming. Do you plan to run for re-election? I do. You do? All right. Good to know.

Mayor Kate Gallego, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.

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