4 Redwood City Projects Receive $1M In Funding Through People's Budget

REDWOOD CITY, CA — Redwood City is slated to expand free shower services for unhoused community members, construct bike lanes to El Camino Real, add funds to the city’s housing team budget and create a youth peer mentorship program for drug and alcohol prevention through the People’s Budget, a process through which community members decided how the city should spend $1 million to improve or support the local community.

The four projects, which received the most votes in a community survey, were included in the city’s 2022-23 budget proposal — which was set to be reviewed at a study session during Monday’s council meeting.

The city allocated $460,000 for the bike lanes on 3 blocks of El Camino Real between Maple Street and Wilson Street. It will spend $250,000 each on expanding shower services for people experiencing homelessness and supporting the implementation of housing initiatives. The last $40,000 was proposed to go towards the youth peer mentorship program, providing education and mentorship to middle school students in local schools about substance abuse.

The next five highest-voted proposals were: adding blinking lights to pedestrian crosswalks, creating additional trash cleanup and beautification services, building water bottle refill stations in parks, providing rent assistance and subsidies for low-income residents, expanding mobile mental health crisis services and improving roads.

Redwood City is considering other priorities that community members described in the People's Budget process, according to city staff.

The city council was set to set a public hearing for the budget on June 27, where it will be presented to the council for adoption.

The city received nearly 100 eligible project ideas across 15 categories. Voters ranked their top seven choices, and the winner was determined by ranked-choice voting.

Over 7,000 cities around the world have participated in a similar process.

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