Redevelopment agency funds are assuring that Manteca’s homeless families will have a shelter to turn to for at least the next 55 years.
The City Council acting as the Manteca Redevelopment Agency commission on Tuesday is considering approval of a $1,243,440 loan to HOPE Ministries to renovate the family shelter at 526 W. Yosemite Ave. just west of downtown.
Since the doors of the shelter opened in 1992 Hope Shelters have assisted more than 2,000 families get back on their feet. HOPE Ministries also operate two other shelters.
Executive Director Dave Thompson said HOPE Shelters’ 60 to 65 percent success rate is due to the programs and assistance those staying there get in terms of how to better manage their finances and lives.
The Yosemite Avenue shelter was built in 1917 during the Great Flu Epidemic to serve as the community’s first hospital. After several years it was converted into an apartment complex.
The shelter needs to be brought up to code, have aging or failed systems replaced, to be made safe and to become more energy efficient.
The building has never been extensively renovated.
It has seven apartment units with 35 beds.
If there is no default under loan conditions, the amount will be forgiven after 55 years of the signing of documents. That means the building must be used as a homeless shelter for the next 55 years.
The funds for the project are coming from the 20 percent RDA set aside the state requires be spent for affordable housing of some type.
The three shelters served 108 families last year that included 226 children. The shelter doesn’t keep a “waiting list” per se but they do field 20 to 40 calls a day from people looking for shelter.
HOPE Ministries is getting by with $150,000 although they budgeted $168,000 to operate the three shelters. They cut back on staff and some assistance programs for clients. They also pared back external efforts such as providing emergency food for the needy or helping with part of a month’s rent payment when a family incurs an emergency expense so it can help avoid them from becoming homeless.
The state cut funding back to zero but in an ironic twist the federal government increased some of its funding since San Joaquin County has been hit so hard by foreclosures. As a result, just under $50,000 comes from emergency grants to help the homeless that also includes $7,600 in pass through federal government Community Block Grant funds divided up by the Manteca City Council.
The remaining $100,000 comes from individuals, churches and businesses in Manteca.
For more information or to help with donations of money or items, call 824-0658.
The City Council acting as the Manteca Redevelopment Agency commission on Tuesday is considering approval of a $1,243,440 loan to HOPE Ministries to renovate the family shelter at 526 W. Yosemite Ave. just west of downtown.
Since the doors of the shelter opened in 1992 Hope Shelters have assisted more than 2,000 families get back on their feet. HOPE Ministries also operate two other shelters.
Executive Director Dave Thompson said HOPE Shelters’ 60 to 65 percent success rate is due to the programs and assistance those staying there get in terms of how to better manage their finances and lives.
The Yosemite Avenue shelter was built in 1917 during the Great Flu Epidemic to serve as the community’s first hospital. After several years it was converted into an apartment complex.
The shelter needs to be brought up to code, have aging or failed systems replaced, to be made safe and to become more energy efficient.
The building has never been extensively renovated.
It has seven apartment units with 35 beds.
If there is no default under loan conditions, the amount will be forgiven after 55 years of the signing of documents. That means the building must be used as a homeless shelter for the next 55 years.
The funds for the project are coming from the 20 percent RDA set aside the state requires be spent for affordable housing of some type.
HOPE Ministries started 19 years ago
HOPE Ministries was started 19 years ago. The original family shelter at Yosemite and Sequoia is the original Manteca Hospital building. The Raymus House – a former rest home on South Union Road that the Raymus family rents to HOPE Ministries for $1 a year – accommodates nine single moms and their children. There is also a six unit transitional housing complex near Doctors Hospital where families can stay up to two years and pay 30 percent of their income in rent.The three shelters served 108 families last year that included 226 children. The shelter doesn’t keep a “waiting list” per se but they do field 20 to 40 calls a day from people looking for shelter.
HOPE Ministries is getting by with $150,000 although they budgeted $168,000 to operate the three shelters. They cut back on staff and some assistance programs for clients. They also pared back external efforts such as providing emergency food for the needy or helping with part of a month’s rent payment when a family incurs an emergency expense so it can help avoid them from becoming homeless.
The state cut funding back to zero but in an ironic twist the federal government increased some of its funding since San Joaquin County has been hit so hard by foreclosures. As a result, just under $50,000 comes from emergency grants to help the homeless that also includes $7,600 in pass through federal government Community Block Grant funds divided up by the Manteca City Council.
The remaining $100,000 comes from individuals, churches and businesses in Manteca.
For more information or to help with donations of money or items, call 824-0658.
