Modesto could OK zoning for project to turn motel into apartments for homeless
The City Council is expected Tuesday to approve a zoning — or land-use — change for the project to turn the 103-room motel at Kansas Avenue and Highway 99 into studio apartments with services for homeless people.
The Stanislaus Regional Housing Authority is working with Modesto and Stanislaus County on the approximately $8 million project. The authority recently bought American Budget Inn & Suites and is renovating the property with financial help from the city and county.
The authority has renamed the 45-year-old motel the Kansas House and expects it will open and start accepting residents in late February.
“It is difficult to zero in with exact dates with construction,” authority Executive Director Barbara Kauss said, “but that is the goal. It’s the reasonable case scenario.”
Officials continue to emphasize the project is not a homeless shelter but permanent supportive housing. The Kansas House will be an apartment complex, and tenants will have to follow the rules or face being evicted.
There will be an on-site manager, and residents will be placed in the Kansas House based on referrals from the service providers. So it is for homeless people who are doing the work to better their lives. There is no time limit on how long residents can stay, but the expectation is that within a year they would move up to the next rung in housing.
The Housing Authority paid about $2.8 million for the motel, and the renovation is expected to cost about $5.2 million, authority Deputy Director Jim Kruse said. The Housing Authority is contributing $2.1 million, the city $2.5 million and the county $3.4 million toward the project.
Kruse said all 103 motel rooms will be converted into studio apartments, each roughly 275 square feet and equipped with a kitchenette, a shower, a washer and dryer, and a futon that turns into a bunk bed.
About 150 to 200 people could live there, from couples or two friends or adult siblings sharing an apartment to a single parent with a child or two. The manager will live in an apartment there.
Kruse said the lobby will be converted into a community-meeting room, and the laundry room will be converted into an office for tenants to receive case management and other services. The pool will be removed, and it will be turned into open space for tenants with a sound wall to reduce the noise from the heavily traveled industrial area.
Officials have said the Kansas House is a major step in providing housing above the level of emergency shelters. It also increases the shelter and housing inventory as officials this month close the Modesto Outdoor Emergency Shelter, a tent city of about 450 residents.
The City Council meets at 5:30 p.m. in the basement chambers of Tenth Street Place, 1010 10th St.
