From: Janet Shirley
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2026 3:25 PM
To: Distrib- City Clerk <[email protected]>; Lindsay Lara <[email protected]> Subject: Public Comment for Tonight's Meeting 4/24
Good evening Mayor and City Council Members,
My name is Janet Shirley, and I live in San Rafael Meadows.
I want to focus on one thing tonight: what we can learn from a very real example of what could happen at 350 Merrydale—I’m referring to the tiny home village at Peralta and 3rd Street in Oakland.
That project was launched with the same intentions that were offered for 350 Merrydale: to provide safety, dignity, and a pathway to permanent housing. But the outcomes did not match the promise. Many residents did not transition into permanent housing. And now, as the site is being shut down due to funding cuts and failed results, people who were told this was a step forward are facing displacement all over again.
Where is the accountability?
When a program is temporary, when funding is uncertain, and when there are no enforceable guarantees for permanent housing outcomes, this is exactly what happens.
So the question before you is not whether this project is well-intentioned. The question is does it risk repeating a known failure.
Why should we believe 350 Merrydale will have a different outcome? What binding commitments are in place to ensure that funding will not disappear midstream for this project or that everyone will have a place to go? Again what is going to happen to the residents of 350 Merrydale when the time has come to transition to affordable housing, as you have promised for this site and residents have not found permanent housing?
If those guarantees are not clearly defined and secured, then we are not solving homelessness—we are cycling people through another temporary solution with a predictable end.
I urge you to take the lesson from Oakland seriously and ensure that this project does not become the same story, just in a different city.
Thank you.
Janet Shirley
San Rafael Meadows