City, county propose 180-bed homeless shelter for Modesto
Stanislaus County and Modesto are poised to take a big step toward providing more services for the homeless through a partnership with The Salvation Army that will cost several million dollars and includes opening a 180-bed shelter with services at the army’s Berberian Center near downtown.
The county Board of Supervisors and the City Council each will be asked at their Tuesday meetings to approve a draft memorandum of understanding among the two governments and the army. Officials would then work on finalizing the agreement with the army if they receive approval from their elected officials.
The Salvation Army’s Western Territorial Headquarters in Southern California could approve the memorandum and other associated agreements March 7, according to Capt. Dwaine Breazeale, the army’s Stanislaus County coordinator.
“At this point,” said Breazeale in a Saturday interview, “it’s not something we don’t want to do. We just need to make sure we are in a position where legally we are protected as much as the city and county.”
The ambitious proposal has lots of moving parts and, according to a county report, includes:
▪ The county leasing 18,000 square feet of the Berberian Center at Ninth and D streets for the 180-bed shelter for five years. The army now uses about half of the center and its operations there include providing 156 shelter beds.
▪ The county hiring the nonprofit Turning Point Community Programs to operate the 180-bed shelter. The county report estimates it would cost $1.5 million annually to operate the shelter, which includes about $1 million to Turning Point. People could stay at the shelter for as long as six months and would receive services, including help getting into housing.
▪ The county placing what it calls an access center on city land next to the Berberian Center. The center would be in modular buildings and serve as a hub for comprehensive services for the homeless.
▪ The county purchasing The Salvation Army’s building at Seventh and I streets in downtown for $1.25 million and moving the army’s administrative offices and social services at that location to a modular building on the Berberian Center property. The county envisions converting the Seventh-and-I site into transitional housing for youths and families. The Board of Supervisors could approve the purchase at its April 2 meeting.
The city and county issued a news release late Friday afternoon saying this proposal reaffirms their commitment to “breaking the cycle of homelessness” and, in the words of county CEO Jody Hayes, this effort is “a true public-private partnership, and local government operating at its most efficient level.”
The release said several companies are working with the city and county on this project and “have pledged financial resources to improving (T)he Salvation Army facility. Stanislaus Food Products, Beard Land Improvement Company, and E.&J. Gallo Winery have expressed their commitment to meeting the needs of this critical population.”
Breazeale said the army would continue to operate its 120-bed emergency shelter at the Berberian Center. (It also operates a 36-bed transitional program there.) The emergency shelter essentially serves single men and women, while the county’s proposed 180-bed shelter would take in couples, pets and possessions.
Breazeale said the two shelters would complement one another.
“Probably the most important thing is it gives us the opportunity to help the city and county to increase capacity to house those individuals experiencing homelessness without any additional cost to us,” he said. “... It’s a win-win for all of us.”
The proposal could face opposition when the Board of Supervisors and City Council consider it. Roughly a dozen downtown business and property owners have been at recent council meetings to show their opposition to expanding the number of shelter beds at the Berberian Center.
They say downtown property and business owners have to deal with human waste and trash left by some homeless people and other bad behavior. They have proposed officials find space at the county’s Hackett Road facilities, several miles west of downtown, for more beds and services for the homeless.
But the proposal could shift where homeless people gather downtown. Some homeless people spend their days near The Salvation Army’s Seventh-and-I building, which provides lunch on weekdays and breakfast on weekends. But if the proposal goes through, those meals and other services would move to the Berberian Center, several blocks to the southeast and on the edge of downtown.
The county report says the work on the Berberian Center could be completed by late summer or early fall. That’s based on the Board of Supervisors on a fourth-fifths vote declaring an emergency under the state Public Contracting Code, which will allow the county to have the work done without going through competitive bidding.
The city and county are working under a deadline.
The 180-bed shelter would replace the tent city that went up in September in Beard Brook Park and now is being relocated a couple of hundred yards away to under the Ninth Street Bridge in the Tuolumne River Regional Park. The new homeless camp is expected to operate no later than June 30, though that might be extended to Aug. 15.
The “Salvation Army provides for the transitional housing needs of those who will one day need to leave the emergency shelter tents under the 9th (sic) Street Bridge before finding permanent housing,” according to the city-county news release.
Modesto allowed homeless people to camp in Beard Brook after a federal court ruling in early September said prosecuting people for sleeping on public property, like city parks, when these people do not have access to shelter beds amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
The Beard Brook encampment has been home to about 400 people, but the county continues to work on other options to increase housing for homeless people throughout Stanislaus County. And those living at Beard Brook, and now under the Ninth Street Bridge, have been offered services, including help getting into housing.
The county would pick up the majority of the proposal’s costs. It envisions spending $4 million of the $7.2 million in Homeless Emergency Aid Program funding the state recently awarded to the Stanislaus Community System of Care, and about $1 million of the $2.5 million in state funding it received about two years ago for homeless programs through the efforts of Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced.
Modesto would provide about $378,000 in infrastructure improvements, and The Salvation Army is raising donations to pay for $330,000 in upgrades and improvements to its Berberian Center.
The Board of Supervisors meets at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the basement chambers at Tenth Street Place, 1010 10th St. The City Council meets the same day and at the same location at 5:30 p.m.
This story was originally published February 23, 2019 at 5:44 PM.
