Gov. Gavin Newsom was correct to blast Turlock for nixing homeless grant | Opinion

With a chance to turn $1 into $267,000, the Turlock City Council instead rejected an opportunity last month to help shelter the homeless by rejecting a grant from Stanislaus County.

Turlock’s We Care program for the homeless needed just a letter of support and $1 from the city to get a $267,000 grant from Stanislaus County. But the City Council, on a 3-2 vote on April 8, opposed the resolution over a demand that the nonprofit provide bathroom access 24 hours a day.

The result: We Care, which has operated an overnight shelter — 5:30 p.m. to 8 a.m. — for 59 homeless men since 2003, will shutter its doors on June 30.

A reopening of the shelter is not ruled out, but raising funds will be a hurdle. A GoFundMe campaign raised only 1% of the requested $267,100.

We agree with Gov. Gavin Newsom that the council dropped a chance to secure funds from the California Permanent Local Housing Allocation program. The governor has allocated more than $24 billion since 2019 to address homelessness.

“Truly a ridiculous lack of local leadership — an absolute moral failure. California has invested billions to combat homelessness. In Turlock, their only shelter is at risk over a single dollar,” Newsom said in an April 27 social media post. “The state has done its part. Local leaders need to step up.”

Turlock Mayor Amy Bublak, who voted against the request, said in an opinion piece that her opposition boiled down to several reasons: We Care spends too much on administrative costs, overnight shelter leaves men with nowhere to go during the day, and more than a third of the sheltered are not residents of Turlock.

“Turlock City Council requested a simple, reasonable condition: that We Care expand access to bathroom facilities 24 hours a day,” said Bublak. “Despite multiple discussions where We Care appeared amenable to this condition, they refused to make the commitment.

“Instead, they chose to attend two council meetings and publicly attack the council majority, believing public pressure and threats would override thoughtful decision-making.”

Addressing the homelessness crisis remains a daunting task for elected officials like Newsom and Bublak. As we have seen, there is no easy fix.

But rejecting $267,000 because you couldn’t get the shelter operators to open the bathrooms beyond its operating hours at a greater expense does nothing to help the situation.

Those who used the We Care shelter will now be displaced, adding to the growing need for shelter in the county’s second-largest city. Turlock had 201 individuals experiencing homelessness in 2024, according to the Stanislaus County Point-in-Time count.

“While we respect the efforts of We Care in addressing homelessness, it became clear that a change in direction was needed,” said Bublak. “We could not, in good conscience, support a grant that did not address core community concerns or deliver greater accountability.”

This change in direction will not help the homeless.

An increase in shelter costs

Corey Mai, We Care director of operations, said no officers get paid and that its funds are used to pay 11 staff workers. The cost of maintaining restrooms inside the building it rents would be $60,000 a year, she said.

We Care agreed to provide a public restroom inside the shelter, but the Turlock council could not round up a quorum in time to meet the county deadline. The shelter’s costs would have increased due to extra hours and security costs, she told The Modesto Bee Editorial Board.

We Care spent $100,000 for an updated kitchen to commercial quality that includes a walk-in cooler. “Now, three months later, they’re going to close it for lack of funds,” said Cathy Doo, who encouraged the council to support the group.

“It is so infuriating to me that they refuse to support the We Care program and are willing to let it fail,” Doo told county supervisors in April. “It would cut half of our budget out of spite.”

In this situation, Turlock’s leaders let down the community.