Riverside’s City Council affirmed its support for Proposition 1, an $11.25 billion statewide veterans and affordable housing bond on the November ballot, while more than 20 residents spent nearly an hour urging the council to revive the University Terrace permanent supportive housing project it rejected in January.
The bond measure known as California’s Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026 would create new funding opportunities for local affordable housing, and Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson called it “our highest priority” under her leadership of the Big City Mayors coalition. The council unanimously approved the support resolution along with a number of other items on the meeting’s consent calendar.
The University Terrace project — a 114-unit development that would house seniors, veterans, and disabled residents — dominated public comment during Tuesday’s meeting. Speakers said the council’s Jan. 13 rejection of $20.1 million in HomeKey Plus state funding left vulnerable residents without a path to housing, and several alleged the decision was discriminatory. A civil rights complaint is. The California’s Civil Rights Department is investigating allegations that the Riverside City Council violated anti-discrimination laws when it refused the HomeKey Plus funding.
One speaker who said she was a Riverside resident with a permanent disability living in her car told the council, “Permanent affordable housing like university terrace would give me the stability to protect my health, keep working, and rebuild my life.”.
Eve Garrow, a policy analyst with the ACLU of Southern California, said council members had “made degrading remarks about people with disabilities and people who receive financial aid for housing.
“I’ve been troubled to hear people experiencing houselessness described in these chambers through stereotypes, including as dangerous,” Garrow said. “Council members have also made degrading remarks about people with disabilities and people who use Section eight vouchers. This is discriminatory.
“When we characterize an entire group that way, we stop seeing people as people deserving of dignity,” Garrow continued. “We begin making decisions based on fear and stigma rather than evidence, compassion, and the needs of our community. Unhoused people are not the problem. They are our neighbors.”
The council took no action on the housing project itself during the meeting, and the item was not on the agenda for a vote.
California voters will decide on the bond measure in the Nov. 3 election.
Madison at Railroad project
On the Madison at Railroad property, the council approved a purchase, sale and development agreement with Railroad Ave Storage LLC for roughly 3.7 acres of Successor Agency-owned land for $650,000. The site is slated for a mixed-use project including four affordable three-bedroom homes and a self-storage facility.
Residents raised concerns about the site during public comment, including railroad noise, vibration, derailment risk, and parking capacity. Ward 5 Councilman Sean Mill clarified that the agenda item was only a purchase agreement, and that a future planning commission meeting would address the actual development.
The AI platform Civilio assisted this report.