With closing of Modesto Outdoor Emergency Shelter, what is next for city’s homeless?
For a 35-year-old man who’s been staying there, the closing of the Modesto Outdoor Emergency Shelter on Wednesday brought to an end his self-described “weird vacation.” For a 61-year-old woman, it was a day of fear and uncertainty as she said she had nowhere to go from the tent city beneath a Ninth Street bridge.
Wednesday morning about 8, between 50 and 75 people had yet to leave the grounds, said police Lt. Mark Weiglein, who was at the scene. Officers and service providers had talked with nearly all of them, who were working with friends or family to relocate them by 5 p.m., he said.
MOES opened in February as a temporary solution until more shelter beds and services came online. A big piece of that was the opening last week of a 182-bed shelter with services at The Salvation Army’s Berberian Center near downtown. The tent city has sheltered about 450 people.
The majority have moved into the 182-bed emergency shelter and the 170-bed Berberian shelter, both at 320 Ninth St., Weiglein said. Some also have gone to the Modesto Gospel Mission on Yosemite Boulevard, the lieutenant said, while others have just gone out into the community. Authorities will continue to work with that population to encourage it to use available services, he said.
“It’s extremely important to understand there are still shelters within Stanislaus County that have vacancies right now,” Weiglein said. “Although the vast majority have sought out shelter and services, still some just refuse any. That’s really the hard thing for us to grasp, is the amount of the population that does just not want any type of service.”
Some say they enjoy living outdoors or don’t do well indoors, he said. Some don’t want to adhere to the rules imposed by most shelters, like not using foul language, having no more than one pet, or not engaging in argumentative behavior.
Tyler Siemens had a different reason for not trying to get in a shelter. He wants to remain uncomfortable, which will force him to rebuild his life, he said. He’s been homeless a year, he said, and MOES made it pretty easy.
“I was homeless just once before, for a week, and it was much harder,” Siemens said as he gathered his belongings Wednesday morning. “This was actually kind of like a weird vacation for me.”
The 35-year-old said he worked for about 17 years — right out of high school — in HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) and sheet metal. He’s had addictions, though now is sober, and became a single father when the mother of his son left them about three years ago, he said.
Siemens said he “fell short” while juggling work and parenting, not doing well at either. As his life slowly deteriorated, he said, he sought help from child protective services and other agencies, got drug tested and was found clean, but lost the place he and his child were living.
He voluntarily had CPS place his son, now age 10, in care, and landed at MOES. Basically, “I took this year off,” with a goal of rebuilding his life at the end of the year, he said.
That time has arrived. He had resigned from his job because his son’s behavior issues required a lot of attention, he said, but he’s been in contact with his former employer and believes he will be hired back.
He’s more worried about being able to “float a household as a single parent again with the rent the way it is.” He also needs to “jump through some hoops” to regain custody of his son.
“I need go back to work and get back doing what I normally do,” Siemens said, adding that he knows he’s an unusual case because “I’m not from this,” meaning a long history of homelessness. He’s hopeful for the future, he said, “but I might be in for a big surprise.”
A surprise is how Wednesday’s closure of MOES came to Joyce Charron, 61, she said. It had been unclear to her exactly when the closure would happen, she said.
She’s unknowingly had pneumonia, she said, and when she passed out at MOES on Tuesday, she was taken to a hospital by ambulance. Once diagnosed, she was given a prescription and discharged, she said, only to return to the camp to find her tent and her two dogs gone.
“They knew I was going to the hospital and had two puppies here,” she said, in tears, “and they said would take care of them and everything would be OK.” MPD animal control was at MOES on Wednesday morning, but Charron had not yet spoken with an officer about her dogs.
Charron has been by herself at the tent city, she said, and was uncertain where she’d be by day’s end. She’s been in Modesto “quite a few years,” she said, having come here to care for her sick mother. Her mother died, Charron’s savings ran out and she ended up homeless about a year and a half ago, she said.
Charron said she has a daughter in Oklahoma and a sister living somewhere in the Sierra foothills. Last she heard, her daughter was going to contact her sister to come get her. But Charron said she also was promised a train ride for her and her dogs to go be with daughter.
“They said it would take a couple of days” to arrange, she said. Asked what she’d be doing in the meantime, she said, “I don’t know. I’m going to try and get my puppies back but they won’t let me go to the shelter with two puppies.”
Assistant Police Chief Brandon Gillespie, also at MOES on Wednesday morning, wasn’t familiar with Charron’s plight but said he would confer with animal control and outreach providers to try to arrange shelter and services for her.
“If she wants to reunite with family and they’re willing to take her,” he added, “we will definitely do what we can to assist her.”
Weiglein said when the tent city closed Wednesday afternoon, it would be for good. No one will be allowed to return for anything they’ve left.
Security is scheduled to remain on site through the end of the month, the lieutenant said, and cleanup crews are set to start work next week.
All debris, plus road material and bark material used in creating the tent city, will be removed, and the property will be turned back over to Tuolumne River Regional Park use, he said.
This story was originally published December 12, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
