Turlock shelter plan still in limbo

City Council is supposed to hear recommendation based on results of study

By MICHAEL R. SHEA
mshea@modbee.com

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TURLOCK -- Three months after the city's big homeless study was completed, what's happened?

Not much.

City Hall, the authors of the study, faith-based groups and advocates for the homeless have been waiting for someone else to pick up the ball. Meanwhile, the temporary cold weather emergency shelter has maxed out at 60 full beds and people are being turned away.

With the approaching New Year, city officials have said, some action is expected.

"It's frustrating to be part of this, watching what the City Council is making their priority down there," said Kelvin Jasek-Rysdahl, a California State University, Stanislaus, professor and co-author of the report.

Discussions of homelessness reached a boiling point in May when downtown clergy and business owners mobilized against plans for a $2.9 million permanent shelter on B Street, where the emergency shelter -- open during the coldest months -- stands.

The City Council delayed action on the plan and hired the Center for Public Policy Studies at the university to conduct a $70,000 study of community opinion on homelessness.

The study recommended creating a "grass-roots action committee" to design a shelter plan. It emphasized all parties -- homeless people, city officials and staff, the faith-based community -- working together. The action committee then would make a recommendation to the City Council on whether to build a permanent shelter, transitional housing or do something else.

That hasn't happened, yet.

Asked if there's been any progress, Bill Sturtevant, director of the nonprofit We Care, which runs the emergency cold weather shelter, threw up his hands. "I don't know what to tell you," he said. "It seems to have evaporated."

Police issue tickets downtown

The cold weather shelter was supposed to open Nov. 1, but Councilman Kurt Spycher argued that early November isn't that cold, so the City Council pushed the date back to Nov. 20.

In the interim, police started handing out no-camping tickets downtown to homeless people en masse for the first time in years. A $20 fine was levied, payable at the Turlock Division of Stanislaus County Superior Court.

Three of the five council members -- Spycher, Ted Howze and Vice Mayor Kurt Vander Weide -- have said publicly that they want to shut the shelter down next year.

Many people have put stock in Turlock Gospel Mission, a group of churches that planned to have a family shelter open downtown last month. Plans changed, and now the earliest opening estimate is midsummer.

In the meantime, Turlock Gospel Mission is looking at alternatives, said board member Chris Kiriakou. Starting in January, the group will serve meals "and a message" at various churches around town, he said, and it has hired an interim executive director -- Jeff Woods, a former minister at Covenant Church in Turlock -- after the search for a permanent executive fell through.

City Manager Tim Kerr said the city's next step is his meeting with the authors of the report, Jasek-Rysdahl and Professor John Garcia, in early January to prepare a recommendation for the council, which likely will be the creation of an ad hoc or mayor's committee. That idea was pitched before the City Council three months ago.

Bee staff writer Michael R. Shea can be reached at mshea@modbee.com or 578-2391.