How effective are Turlock homeless sweeps, outreach at getting people sheltered?
As the City of Turlock cleared the homeless encampment on West Glenwood Avenue Wednesday morning, six people said they do not want to stay in shelters or do not know where to go next.
How much the city’s 120-day emergency plan has reduced homelessness about 30 days in is unclear, but Kim Silva is among those who have moved to different encampments because of the sweeps.
Silva, 48, started living on West Glenwood near the Travelodge about a month ago after the city swept the encampment on West Main Street by Planet Fitness. Prior to living next to the gym, Silva said she and her boyfriend stayed at the homeless camp along the railroad on South First Street. Union Pacific Railroad cleared the area in the first week of March.
Now moving for the third time in the past six weeks, Silva said she feels police are harassing them. A Turlock resident since 1988, Silva said she has been homeless for about nine years. She and her boyfriend do not know where to move next, Silva said, but do not want to stay in separate men’s and women’s shelters.
“I’m not going to be separated from my boyfriend,” Silva said. “It’s ridiculous. It’s not like one day I woke up and said ‘I want to be homeless,’ you know? I was abused by my ex-husband so that’s why I’m homeless.”
Although the about 30 residents of the Glenwood encampment have accepted services from county outreach workers over the last month, none of them accepted shelter as of the April 6 visit, city spokesperson Maryn Pitt said in an email Tuesday. The city can confirm three people accepted shelter after the sweep at West Main Street where an estimated 50 people lived, Pitt said.
Since the First Street sweep, seven people came to the Turlock Gospel Mission for shelter for the first time, said the nonprofit’s executive director Christian Curby. Yet both Curby and Liz Padilla, founder of Helping Hands Ministry, said many people evicted in sweeps are moving elsewhere on the streets instead of entering shelters.
“Many of the folks that have been moved so far have been able to find places where they can literally dig into the earth so they can remain hidden,” Curby said. “I would guess that a large number are still inside the city of Turlock and have just found other places to be.”
Some people have scattered and found places to hide, Padilla said. She knows one family who moved to Santa Cruz, but Padilla said many are staying in Turlock.
Homeless camp residents raise concerns
Kori Garcia, 39, held onto her two dogs Wednesday morning while her boyfriend packed their belongings into a friend’s car. They planned to set up their tents at the friend’s property, Garcia said. Like Silva, they also moved to the Glenwood encampment from the one on Main Street.
Garcia also said she knows people moving elsewhere on the streets instead of to shelters, which don’t accept dogs. She further raised concerns over the city increasing shelter bed capacities for the declared emergency, such as permitting the Mission to add cots in common areas. The decision may increase the risk of coronavirus outbreaks, Garcia said.
At the same time, Garcia said she declined the COVID-19 vaccine when outreach workers offered it to residents of the Glenwood encampment. None of the residents accepted the vaccine on March 31, Pitt said in an email.
Over three county outreach visits between March 16 and April 6, Pitt said 13 people accepted services for vital document help and 10 accepted medical services such as scheduling a doctor’s appointment. Another 16 people accepted help with issues ranging from Social Security to public benefits like food stamps.
But Garcia disputed the city’s statements that outreach workers visited the Glenwood encampment five times since March. One woman packing her belongings near Garcia said she has only seen outreach workers at the site once in the last six months.
“All the spots they’ve been destroying, they’ve been to,” Garcia said. “But not as often as they say.”
Further north along Glenwood Avenue, a man who identified himself as Robert said he is tired of moving. Before living on Turlock streets, Robert said he lived in Modesto’s tent city, also known as the Modesto Outdoor Emergency Shelter. The shelter closed in December 2019.
One reason he does not plan to go to a shelter is the entrance time requirements, Robert said. When he worked and lived in Modesto, Robert said he had to sleep outside because he finished working too late to enter shelters. Now he plans to set up camp somewhere south along Highway 99.
“They just run us around until they arrest us,” Robert said. “They run us around until we have no choice left to do but to just go to jail. Because there’s nowhere else for us to go.”
Turlock keeps fairgrounds overflow shelter on standby
Meanwhile, Turlock Gospel Mission has yet to open an overflow shelter at the Stanislaus County Fairgrounds because there are still beds available. The We Care Program has about five and the mission has more than 30 beds available on average each night, Pitt said Tuesday.
The city asked the mission to provide 200 additional shelter beds at the fairgrounds, Curby said. The California Office of Emergency Management supplied the cots, Curby said, and the beds are already inside the facility.
When the mission hits a certain occupancy rate, Curby said staff can get the fairgrounds shelter running in a couple of hours. The mission’s shelter currently has 80 permitted beds, so its occupancy rate on average is around 62%. Matt Cranford, CEO of the Stanislaus County Fair, said the mission already has the keys to the exhibit hall, too.
Cranford said the exhibit hall has been reserved for this purpose since last week. Typically the hall can accommodate around 5,000 people standing or 1,000 people for a banquet. The rental contract is set to expire at the end of June, Cranford said.
The mission is renting the facility at $15,000 per month, Curby said, and the fairgrounds told him they usually rent the facility at $1,300 per day. The city plans to reimburse the mission through an agreement that will become public record once executed, Pitt said.
Back on March 16, the Turlock City Council approved spending about $500,000 for the 120-day effort to mitigate homelessness. The budget included $69,333 for lease or rent costs for the mission.
This story was originally published April 14, 2021 at 3:57 PM.
