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Riverside Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson gives the 2023 State of the City Address at the Riverside Convention Center. | Photo courtesy of the city of Riverside/YouTube
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Riverside Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson delivered the annual State of the City Address on Jan. 26, highlighting economic development and efforts to reduce homelessness with a focus on eliminating youth homelessness in the coming year.
“I didn’t run to be the mayor of Riverside to just be good,” Lock Dawson told a live audience at the Riverside Convention Center. “I ran because I believed – and still do – that Riverside should expect excellence. Let’s propel Riverside to greatness!”
Lock Dawson officially launched the Mayor’s Challenge to End Youth Homelessness, pointing out that preventing people from becoming unhoused is the key to decreasing homelessness overall. Young people who are homeless are more than five times more likely to be consistently homeless when they become adults, and foster youth are especially vulnerable, the mayor reported.
“No young person should have to worry about shelter, or sleep on the streets when they should be attending school or becoming a member of our workforce,” Lock Dawson said. “We did it for veterans, and now we can do it for our youth.”
Lock Dawson thanked residents for their commitment to shopping at local businesses and for approving Measure Z, which levied a one-cent transaction and use tax that goes directly to the city. Riverside is in a strong financial position partially because since 2019 general sales tax revenue has increased more than 30% and Measure Z sales tax revenue has risen by nearly 34%.
Lock Dawson noted that the city invested heavily in infrastructure in 2022, more so than in the last 15 years. More than 25 miles of roads were repaved, nearly 160,000 square feet of new sidewalks were built, 127,000 square feet of potholes were repaired and more than 18,000 street trees were trimmed, doubling the city’s investment in tree trimming.
The mayor complimented the Alvord and Riverside school districts, as well as the city’s four colleges and universities, for their close partnerships with local government. She said her office’s Campus Riverside initiative will help retain local students and build the local workforce by creating additional internship and job development opportunities.
“We are positioned for investment, opportunity and prosperity,” Lock Dawson said. “Riversiders are resilient, ready for action and committed to designing a better tomorrow, today. We are going to design a Riverside that works for all of us.”
Noting that residents who took the most recent Quality of Life Survey identified homelessness as their top concern, Lock Dawson emphasized that Riverside’s intention to strike a balance by continuing to offer services to unhoused people while also investing in programs that aim to ensure public safety in public spaces.
“Yes, we all have rights, but we all have responsibilities as well,” Lock Dawson said. “Our approach must continue to reflect both these realities.”
The Project Connect program is designed to help prevent former inmates who are released from jail from becoming homeless. A new agreement with Riverside County ensures closer coordination of services, and the city’s new Homeless Action Plan states specific goals.
Other investments include the new Parks and Neighborhood Specialists program, continued investment in the Public Safety and Engagement Team, and a new PSET focusing on wildland areas such as the Santa Ana River bottom, Hole Lake and Sycamore Canyon.
The public safety programs are designed to reduce the risk of fire that has threatened both homeless individuals living in wildlands as well as adjacent neighborhoods threatened by fires.
“I reject the notion that it is inhumane to enforce laws to prevent these kinds of encampments,” Lock Dawson said. “The reality is that it is inhumane to allow people to languish in conditions unfit for any human. We need to ensure that we are exhausting every single remedy so that we can solve this problem.”
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