On Tuesday, the Antioch City Council agreed to contract out its homeless encampment cleanup to a third party contractor at a cost of $400k per year for a total of $2.3 million over 5-years.
The 4-0-1 vote (Torres-Walker abstained) came after the Public Works Department was tasked with encampment cleanups and had spent 2,197 labor hours performing the cleanups in 2022 at a cost of $350k. However, it was taking away from their other duties in public works including routine maintenance that was now being backlogged and working on repairs.
Over the past three years, the City of Antioch has seen an increase in homelessness according to the recent Point in Time Survey by Contra Costa County which shows in 2020, Antioch had 238 homeless in the city. By 2023, that number increased to 334.
This comes as the Antioch City Council has thrown money at a homeless solution and to provide services which include:
- $2.3 million for on-call homeless encampment cleanup (through 2025, see staff report)
- $2.3 million for a 32-room homeless motel at Executive in (2-year lease)
- $2 million per year for Social Services at Hotel by Bay Area Community Services
- $284k to guarantee 15-rooms at Delta Landing in Pittsburg for homeless.
- $300k on Louie Rocha Emergency Plan for Homeless
- $2.2 million per year on Antioch Crisis Response Team (note: citywide program)
- $478,500k contract with Focus Strategies (now on 5th Amendment)
In June, Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe suggested a ballot measure to help fund the crisis response and homeless motel as well as some of the other recently approved services.
On Tuesday, many within the public works department spoke out Tuesday stating they had been threatened, harassed, robbed while doing the cleanups—they said it came down to safety.
“A lot of it to me comes down to safety… having to cleanup these homeless camps is a big deal we have had people spit on us, people bump us on the shoulders, try and hit us,“ said Zack Looney. “When it gets to that people, you really need to figure out if you want to continue to do this and not really being compensated with hazardous material pay and the stuff we have to deal with in needles and knives. It really makes you think if we can get around from doing this, I say we do it.”
“I am here in support of contracting out our homeless abatement’s,” said Miguel Santoyo. “Since I have been employed here by the city I’ve been stolen from. Keys, wallet, lunch pale. I’ve been threatened, I’ve been spit at, hit at and called every name in the books. All I ask is we let the professionals do what they are hired to do. Let our department focus on what we were hired to do and that is sewer.”
Bruce Cook shared how scary it was that they can’t see half the things they touch in the encampments.
“We have to literally sort through needles if they have been used or not. Half the guys get hired and do not have that experience and they have to get taught that and we don’t get paid for that. Our experience is not there, our experience is in sewer, our experience is in storm. That is what we were hired to do” explained Cook. “We should not be going through and having to calm down the person who’s home we are taking. How would you feel?”
Jeff Cook, who is the manager of the division, said the workers were not painting a good picture because he says they have to have Antioch Police on scene at each site, which they cannot stay the whole time.
“When they show up to the site, they run them off and a lot of times they don’t leave. So the guys are getting cursed at, yelled at, threatened while they are trying to do their job. These guys are all professionals at sewer, storm, crate maintenance, we pay for extensive training and this contract would allow us to be actual professionals who are trained to these jobs,” said Cook. “We have had multiple incidences of drugs found on the site, one of the officers actually passed out from fentanyl exposure and have Narcan to bring her back. We have about 20 guys we call family and we would like to see them make it home every day. I urge you to bring this abatement contract on board.”
Todd North shared this contract was needed because although public works stepped up, it came at a price because other work was not getting completed and its beginning to catch up with the city.
“A backload of work is growing and compounding everyday,” said North. “There is a lot of old and new infrastructure that needs constant maintenance. Yes, it’s a lot of money to do business, but it’s the cost of doing business these days. This is something that is not going away and the problem is long-term. We are stuck with it.”
Meanwhile, Antioch resident Andrew Becker spoke sharing they could all agree the public works department is not the right department to do homeless cleanups and there safety is paramount.
“I question why public works is doing this presentation and why are our other departments who work with our unhoused are not apart of this conversation,” said Becker.
Councilmember Lori Ogorchock urged the council to move forward with the outside contract for a homeless encampment cleanup as soon as possible.
While its estimated to keep the cleanups in-house would be cheaper today, in the long-run, due to inflationary factors such as wage increases, ongoing maintenance costs for equipment and supplies, the in-house costs would be $1.91 over 5-years.
The estimated yearly costs to contract out homeless encampment cleanups over the next five (5) years are $455,000 for each of the next three years with anticipated 3% inflationary increases projected in years four and five with annual costs estimated at $468,650 and $482,710 respectively for a five (5) year cost of $2,316,360. This estimate is based on a recent Request for Proposal published by the Public Works Department on April 26, 2023.
The council then approved the item in a 4-0-1 vote with Torres-Walker abstaining.
After the vote, Mayor Lamar Thorpe stated while in negotiations last year, he wanted the public to know this was something they agreed with and wanted to meet their obligation to public works.
22 comments
So where does the City of Lamar draw the line in the crap? Does it double in 5 years? I would like to know what monies were spent 5 years ago? What is the cost per homeless person 5 years ago and what is it today? I’ve always said that this is a way to expand local government. There’s a lot of cities that do not have this issue. Tell the citizens of Lamar why.
Perhaps people would respond to your question if it wasn’t framed using such a racially biased and condescending format that most people can immediately and easily recognized that you will not be happy with anyone’s answer to your obviously bigoted opinion of Antioch’s mayor.
Perhaps you need to reflect on one very important fact and that is that Mr. THORP ran an honest and ethical campaign to become the mayor of Antioch and in case you are not capable of understanding how elections actually work, Mr. Thorp was able to capture the majority of votes from the residents of our city, which means he won that election and he deserves to be called the rightful title of “Mayor Thorp of Antioch, CA.
I suggest that if you are incapable of accepting this fact and you cannot address this man with the respect that he is due, then you need to rethink your approach to the situation at hand because, at this point, nothing you say will be viewed as being worthy of devoting any our precious time towards providing you with an intelligent, well thought out response to your questions.
You don’t treat citizens that Thorpe (not Thorp) disagrees with as dirt like he does. Respect is earned and he doesn’t deserve to be called Honorable or Mayor. He needs to change his reckless lifestyle and his immature and shitty attitude. You racial advocates are obsessed with race and many of you are racists yourself. Your obsession with race and acceptance of lawlessness are ruining many communities in California. Rethink your comment about Thorpe being honest and ethical. You are very naive!
Uh there was no racial anything in that post…..
He may have been able to capture the votes to win at the time he campaigned, but voting for him for many was a mistake. His arrogant, aggressive, narrow minded attitude is a turn off and repels people who have experienced first hand how damaging his rhetoric and posturing has been to the quality of life in Antioch. He sees the damage it causes then continues to double down and make things worse. Anyone still supporting this guy has on very thick blinders. It’s not about race to call him out, it’s about what is helpful and what is not, what is productive and what is not, what is right for Antioch and what isn’t. Stop making the objection to Thorpe’s antics around race. I can assure you, many people of color don’t support him either.
After reading the comments made by Public Works employees, it sounds as if the vast majority of work was done by Sewer Maintenance Division employees and possibly Water Distribution staff. If that’s the case it begs the question. Were funds from these budgets used to accomplish tasks they were assigned? If they were, the monies for those budgets are collected through fees associated with sewer, stormwater and water system maintenance, they are enterprise funds and dedicated to maintenance of these systems. Were these funds reimbursed by the general fund for jobs, labor and materials included?
One more comment. NOT ANOTHER PENNY IN TAXES FOR VAGRANT SERVICES! Lemar was instrumental in bringing this scourge to Antioch and neglected taking steps to stem the growing population of vagrants in our community.
Please provide evidence that supports your allegations that our Mayor is responsible for bringing 100 additional homeless/jobless people to our city. If you can’t provide evidence of your allegations, then keep your mouth shut
Better yet, tell us what he’s done to discourage the migration of the homeless here. Absolutely nothing! In fact, he rolled out the red carpet and arranged hotel accommodations to encourage it. Closed his eyes and failed to act on the scores of complaints about people camping out, destroying public and private property while most of us slept, setting fires, trashing the community and leaving behind unsightly graffiti. What’s astounding is how consistently some people turn a blind eye to Thorpe’s failed leadership and policies. The disintegration of the city should be obvious to anyone paying attention. Meanwhile Thorpe has been busy playing power games and dissing the police rather than leading in a constructive way.
Antioch is open for all states and cities to drop off their homeless people and it’s an unofficial sanctuary city for for the criminals vote depends on. This city is known to give more support to the homeless, low-income, and criminals than business owners and homeowners. The evidence is in Thorpe’s statements since he was elected. He’s pro criminal and anti-police. He won’t win the next election because the blind have woken up to his bs and law-abiding citizens outnumber the homeless and criminals.
I hope that it won’t be too late by the time we get someone in leadership who will do something to help our city not be taken over.
You should try using a picture that’s more recent for your headline instead of a picture that’s 5 or more years old.
Maybe instead of treating homeless people as a nuisance, especially those who suffer from addiction, we start implementing harms reduction programs that center on rehabilitation, and improve housing programs. Housing is a human right, and treating those who can’t afford to have it the way that this article has depicted those in position of power, is disgusting.
And who do you suppose should pay for people who choose every day to use drugs rather than stay sober? And who’s going to pay for all these programs to help when taxpayers are already taxed beyond what’s reasonable. People who choose to use drugs and continually make poor life decisions should be held accountable for their choices. We get ourselves into a bind, we have to first choose differently then figure out how to get out of the bind. We can’t just keep setting up program after program after program with no accountability and expect to have a productive society.
The state legislators have stated quite clearly that the sweeps of the homeless camps serve no positive purpose. It is merely moving them from one spot to another and then back to where they started. It sets back the ones who are trying to get ahead. To the gentleman that said Thorpe brought the “scourge” here: According to all of the studies conducted the homeless are here because of the astronomical housing costs. I will say it again to you bigots who insist everything is the fault of our black leaders: I will openly debate any one of you racists in a filmed organized debate. Your racism denies our progress and I feel I’m just the guy to expose your archaic perspectives with the truth and facts. Just let me know…
Not everything is about race. Not everyone who disagrees with Antioch leadership is a bigot. You left out a major issue with homelessness which is mental issues and drug use. I wouldn’t believe much of what “state legislators” say given they have not accounted for how spending on homeless has actually benefited anyone given the increased number of homeless in the state.
Everyone that comments about your much esteemed leader (at least in your view) is not racist, white or bigoted. Some of us happen to ourselves be people of color, so stop stoking the racist/bigoted angle to make this about race. It’s about failed leadership, plain and simple. Sorry if calling it like it is upsets you, drives you to attack people and make assumptions about their ethnicity simply by reading their comments.
$2.3 MILLION??? that’s nothing compared to the hospital bills you peasants pay for all the gunshot victims in Antioch
CC News touches on a good point. Antioch’s city council, state legislators and our honorable governor all like to crow about how much they are spending (of the taxpayers’ money) on “the homeless issue” but no one talks about what kind of RETURN we are getting on all that spending. How effectively is it being spent? We know a lot is being wasted by being funneled through non-profits that are poorly managed – and in some cases out-and-out dishonest.
The focus needs to be on OUTPUT, not just monetary INPUT. Who/what is doing any auditing of all this spending?
Does it State anywhere who is the company that they’re going to contract with? There are many non-profit animal rescues that are going into these encampments and trying to provide services. Many have gotten to the point that it’s so dangerous that they risk their lives to go and help a sick or injured animal. And again all state laws regarding animals are ignored because these people are considered homeless.. Since the Antioch police will not assist us hopefully we can go in with these clean up organizations.
I’m unsure if this company is just going to be used, when they move a site from one place to another but it seems like at this point it needs weekly maintenance. So now we have taxpayer money going for housekeeping of the homeless.
I’m not sure any of you that are reading this attend your County Board of Supervisors meetings but they just developed a social equitable justice department. I suppose they did this because there’s Federal money coming to support this but my concern is that basic infrastructure such as roads and drainage, Animal services, etc are not being provided.
The county just did a huge abatement on a RV Marina site in Bethel Island.
The owner still possesses the property but the county will lien the owner for the cost. I would suggest that the city of Antioch lien any properties that are receiving this contracted services.
The elected Sheriff of Sac County is now stating that there has to be a mandate that these people accept housing.
Contract not awarded yet
According to numbers being reported, expenditures for vagrant services in Antioch will exceed 10 million dollars. Has anyone taken the time to compare our neighboring communities, Brentwood, Pittsburg and Oakley specifically and how much they have spent during the same time frame on services for vagrants? Has anyone inquired about the number of vagrants in their communities compared to Antioch? Better yet, has anyone taken the time to take a drive through those communities to see for themselves the lack of vagrants in those communities. My guess is few if any. And the reason there is less money spent and fewer vagrants in those communities is they don’t allow it. Their leaders have elected to keep their vagrant population in check, Antioch has not. It isn’t about racism folks it’s about leadership or in Antioch’s case a total lack of leadership pure and simple. Our Council policies related to vagrants encourage them to come and remain here.
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