The uptick in homeless in the past several months sleeping in business doorways and shrubbery around town as well as roaming the streets in greater numbers overnight should start dropping before winter arrives.
That’s due to improvements in how the city addresses homeless needs that are now underway.
The Christian Worship Center has donated two portable structures to the city. They will be moved to the parking lot at 555 Industrial Park Drive (the former Qualex photo processing facility) where the city has been operating outreach services since December of 2019.
They will be in place this Friday. The city has already obtained a firm to rebab the buildings for use for overnight shelter.
His Way Recovery, which has been operating the city’s homeless services since August, has now obtained the proper insurance for overnight stays. As soon as the portables are rehabbed they will start sheltering the homeless overnight as Inner City Action did.
The tent the city had purchased has been taken down and sold to Inner City Action.
Meanwhile, His Way has set up various temporary tents and such to continue providing the day-to-day services such as meals, bathrooms, shelters, clothing and outreach services to the homeless as they have been doing without missing a day.
It should be noted even without the overnight sleeping, His Way since mid-August has still been able to persuade eight homeless people to be placed in their addiction recovery program.
The city has also secured additional federal funds they are using to buy portables to use as dormitories for 50 homeless.
The plan is to place them at the Carnegie Court site the city has acquired and hook them up to sewer, water and electricity providing those services are in place by then.
If not, the portables will be placed at 555 Industrial Park Drive until such time as they can be moved to Carnegie Court
The idea is the temporary shelter will operate at Carnegie Court while the design, bid and construction process is underway for the homeless navigation center that the city has $16.8 million in funding to construct. The project could take until early 2024 to complete.
The portable dorms the city is purchasing will either be sold, made available to non-profits that may want to offer homeless services elsewhere in the city, or be pressed into other uses once the navigation center is finished.
City staff has made it clear that a top priority will be to get a 7-foot masonry wall securing the homeless navigation center site from the western half of the 8 acres they have bought that fronts Main Street.
There will be no access to the navigation center from South Main Street. The front portion of the property is targeted for affordable housing and possible a new police station as well.
The homeless number on the street shot up by nearly three dozen when Inner City Action ended its contract and was replaced by His Way. That’s because His Way did not yet have the property insurance coverage for overnight accommodations until recently.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
