City of Tucson Expanding Homeless Shelters to Neighborhoods - Speak UP!
The City is rewriting the zoning code to put shelters in your neighborhood.
Please watch this video
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nhr2RXay_fA (YouTube)
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1046335061740213
The City of Tucson is quietly rewriting its zoning codes to allow homeless shelters and sanctioned outdoor “safe sleeping” camps in areas where they are currently prohibited. With reduced parking, reduced on-site restrictions and a streamlined approval process that cuts you out of it. This will all be done with No vote and no warning!
Before you trust this City to manage this, look at what they already manage:
● Drive down any street - potholes that have been there for years , patched and re-patched while the City brags about road bonds it has spent and can’t show you.
● Look at the medians - weeds waist-high, trees growing out of the sidewalk, dead trees still standing and trash all over.
● Try to use a City park restroom - Locked, Boarded and welded shut. People doing drugs and living in these restrooms. The city can not keep the park restrooms clean
● Stand at a bus shelter after dark, no lighting because of copper theft, people sleeping on the benches, numerous crimes happening and drug paraphernalia at your feet
● Ride the Crime Bus, a fare-free transit system that has become a rolling drug den with a schedule, where drivers are told not to intervene and riders are told to look away and everyone is told that riding the bus is safe
The City cannot keep a restroom open, it can not mow a median, they can not fix a pothole or keep bus stops or riding the bus safe and now they want you to believe that they will competently locate, permit, inspect and police drug permissive shelters and tent camps next to your home and your kids school and that they will “maintain standards for surrounding neighborhoods.” They have an entire track record saying that. The shelter they open next to you will be run exactly the way they run everything else.
Insurance & Compliance
All operators must maintain General Liability ($1M per occurrence/$2M aggregate) and Sexual Abuse and Molestation insurance, naming the City of Tucson as an additional insured. Applicants must also provide proof of property owner consent if they do not own the land.
Read the fine print. The City's own permitting guide requires every shelter operator to carry $1M/$2M general liability insurance AND Sexual Abuse and Molestation insurance — naming the City as an additional insured. Think about what that means. The City knows exactly what they are inviting in. They are protecting themselves from lawsuits. They are not protecting you!
COULD THIS AFFECT YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD?
Did you receive a letter? Probably not, the only letters that were sent out were to properties that would be within 100 feet of one of the new shelters. One of our members shared this letter with us and we Thank You for sharing!
Whether you support these changes, oppose them, or simply want more information, you deserve to know what is happening in your community.
Feedback Session 3
Where: Park Place Mall Central Exhibit Space, 5870 E. Broadway Blvd
When:
● Friday, October 2, 2026, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
● Saturday, October 3, 2026, from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m.
● Sunday, October 4, 2026, from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m.
RSVP Optional: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/g/wFU8z4z2hH
Community members unable to attend in person are encouraged to join the virtual session or submit written comments to Amanda.Smith@tucsonaz.gov. Feedback gathered during these sessions will inform a draft code amendment, which will be available for public review in the fall. The draft will then go to the Planning Commission for a study session and public hearing, after which the Commission will forward a recommendation to the Mayor and Council for consideration.
Visit the Housing and Homelessness Emergency Shelter Care Code Amendment website for more information.
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You are asking & We are delivering
The Tucson Crime Free Coalition has had a significant number of requests from community members and business owners asking how The City of Tucson works and who to contact with concerns, problems and or questions. We have also found that many residents are unsure of which Ward they live in. To help with this, we have included in this newsletter a City Ward Map so you can easily identify your direct council representatives although we recommend contacting ALL of them with your concerns and questions.
To help residents take action, we have compiled a complete list of the Mayor and City Council along with their contact information. We encourage you to reach out directly and share what you are experiencing. You are more than welcome to include and provide pictures and movies for proof that you have. This can include but is not limited to
● Trespassing on private property
● Encampments
● Fires set on public property
● Street Racing
● Boarded-up or abandoned buildings
● Businesses closing due to on-going crime
● Safety concerns for yourself, your children or grandchildren
● Poor road conditions
● Concerns about the Cities $2,410,000,000 budget and them not being able to control spending
● Free Buses and the problems that has created
● The drug addiction and mental illness problem all over Tucson
We strongly encourage you to email The Mayor and all of the Council, so they can receive a full and accurate picture of what is happening across the whole city and hopefully see that this is not normal. This is one of the most effective ways to communicate concerns - and it ensures you have a record that your voice was heard. We have made this very easy - all you need to do is “copy and paste” all of the email addresses into the To: section of your email.
Copy and Paste these email addresses into the To: section of your email:mayor.romero@tucsonaz.gov, ward1@tucsonaz.gov, ward2@tucsonaz.gov,ward3@tucsonaz.gov, ward4@tucsonaz.gov, ward5@tucsonaz.gov, ward6@tucsonaz.gov, help@tucsoncrimefree.com
Their idea of Infill.
Greg. Thank you for your insightful, completely accurate description of what has happened here in regards to the “homeless” issue. Everything the kings and queens are doing is designed, not to discourage this behavior, but to encourage and facilitate it. It is a big money generator and spender, accumulating money and resources that can better be spent elsewhere. And the ultimate question is: What is a “homeless” person-if you reject a room or housing because you don’t want to abide by a few rules, or you don’t want to give up your drugs, or you just prefer the gypsy lifestyle, are you really “homeless”? Thanks again. Right on. As you point out, the problem just continues and supplies the kings and queens with a distraction so people don’t see how bad the crime is, the money keeps coming in and the money keeps going out. Wasn’t the last count of people living in washes and parks less this year then in previous years, matching the general population decline in the city?
I remember that homelessness was NOT a big problem back in the 1960’s and 1970’s because the police would simply pickup a homeless person for vagrancy, and give them a free phone call to have a friend or relative come get them, or else they went to jail.
A decade later, the government stepped in to “solve the problem” by throwing taxpayer money at it but this actually made being homeless an easier and more tolerable lifestyle choice. It “enabled” this lifestyle choice by giving the homeless people free food, free lodging, and free bus transportation. The government also funded programs which made it a lucrative business to be a tax funded provider of free stuff for homeless people, because those running the tax funded businesses then got paid salaries for managing the tax funded provisions given out to homeless people. Homelessness became an ever growing symbiotic relationship of homeless people and tax funded businesses to help homeless people, all funded by taxpayer money with no real end in sight.
Quoting from the Ward 3 City Council Office newsletter:
“Fall officially began this week and Council Member Dahl and Ward 3 staff made the most of the slightly cooler weather by joining two Team Up to Clean Ups. Thursday’s clean-up was along Grant Road and Stone, near STAR Village. This clean up crew was able to collect 45 bags of trash in just two hours.”
Link: https://www.tucsonaz.gov/Government/Mayor-Council-and-City-Manager/City-Council-Wards/Ward-3/Ward-3-Newsletters/Ward-3-Newsletter?display=article&bulletin_id=69960416&topic_query_param=ward-3
Star Village is located just east of the intersection of 7th Avenue and Grant Road. The Grant and Stone intersection is one block to the west.
Hence, Star Village is just 1.5 blocks east of Grant and Stone, not 6 blocks as was stated earlier in this thread.
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