The Santa Monica City Council is set to consider re-ratifying the city’s local emergency declaration on homelessness when it meets Tuesday night at City Hall. The regular meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at 1685 Main St.
The resolution would renew the city’s 2025 proclamation declaring a local emergency on homelessness, first adopted in March 2025, and extend it through Dec. 31. Under California Government Code, local governments must renew emergency declarations every 60 days until they are terminated.
The declaration gives the city a way to move faster on programs and services meant to address homelessness and keep residents from becoming unhoused. It also helps Santa Monica pursue additional county, state and federal funding, streamline certain municipal processes, prevent rental price gouging and authorize emergency actions by the city manager.
Santa Monica first declared a local emergency on homelessness in February 2023, then adopted a separate proclamation in May 2024 to advance homelessness-related initiatives. Officials say the conditions that prompted those earlier steps still persist, and the council has kept extending the declaration with repeated renewal votes in April, June, July, September, October and December 2025, and again in February and March 2026.
That long run of renewals is the clearest sign that the city does not see the emergency as a short-lived measure. The declaration has become part of how Santa Monica manages homelessness, from funding requests to day-to-day administration, and Tuesday’s vote would keep that framework in place for the rest of the year.
