State Senator Susan Eggman delivered.
Now it’s the City of Manteca’s turn.
Eggman on Monday presented city officials a ceremonial check for $16 million to build a homeless navigation center.
The $16 million is considered the largest grant by far that the State of California has awarded a city under 100,000 to fund efforts to deal with homeless issues.
Such large grants normally go to larger cities, primarily on California’s coast.
The ceremonies took place on Carnegie Court in front of the 8-acre site the city just recorded the deed for after purchasing the land for $1.76 million. The city used part of $2 million in pass through homeless funding from the federal government that was awarded by the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors.
Eggman, who noted a long-term working relationship with Gary Singh even before he became a Manteca councilman, got the ball rolling.
The city asked for $20 million.
An amount that Singh admittedly conceded was “pie-in-the-sky.”
But what helped deliver the grant was the city’s comprehensive approach to battling homeless built on a navigation center model that also features transitional housing and affordable housing on the same site.
It was the thoroughness of the plan and how to execute it plus the persistence of municipal staff led by Interim City Manager Toni Lundgren that helped Eggman seal the deal with her colleagues in the Legislature.
It represents the largest state or federal grant ever secured for a Manteca municipal project.
And in doing so, it means the city can move forward at a relatively quick pace and not be caught in a situation where they have to cobble together funding and potentially cutback on aspects of the project essential to make it work.
Eggman for her part said she was proud to have been able to secure the funding from two extremely flush years when the state’s treasury swelled from taxes on income gains California’s wealthiest earned during the depth of the pandemic.
“(We were able) to pump it into a project where it will help the most,” Eggman said.
Mayor Ben Cantu noted Manteca’s project is considered to be a model approach by many. Other cities have been in contact with Manteca regarding the navigation center plans and how they have been working on homeless issues for the past three plus years.
City is upgrading
temporary shelter
Lundgren noted on Monday:
*The city’s new homeless and affordable housing coordinator will start Nov. 14.
*That person will oversee a design and build approach to get the navigation center in place. Such an approach allows more flexibility for changes as well as the ability to reduce construction costs.
*Work on the design of infrastructure such as sewer and water lines to develop the back portion of the 8 acres accessed from Carnegie Courts has already started.
The goal is to get a permanent navigation center in place by early 2024, if not sooner.
Meanwhile, the city has secured federal grants to rehab portable buildings being donated by the Christian Worship Center.
They are being used to upgrade the temporary homeless outreach and emergency shelter effort in the parking lot of 555 Industrial Park Drive where Qualex was once housed.
It will allow an improved kitchen operation as well as inside dorms with one for men and another for women instead of the big tent approach that had been used since December 2019.
The city has amassed more than $20 million to advance the project.
That is after the $16 million is combined with:
*$2 million in state homeless pass through money earmarked by the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors to purchase the 8 acres bordering South Main Street for the homeless navigation center location.
*$750,000 in a federal grant secured by Congressman Josh Harder.
*Federal Community Development Block Grants that cities can use to address low-income needs.
*$622,600 the county and city received combined from the sale of the RDA property that will be put toward the project.
The $16 million grant is a tectonic development in Manteca’s seven-year undertaking to find a way to reduce the homeless numbers on the street and work with them so they can again support themselves and secure shelter.
It helped significantly that Manteca invested the time and money into a homeless strategy plus had a site picked out and was in the process of securing. Without doing that, the grant — if obtained — would have been drastically smaller.
This means several things for Manteca.
*The city’s general fund — that supports day-to-day services such as police and fire protection, routine street maintenance, park upkeep and other functions — that already is being stretched thin won’t have to be tapped to build the facility.
*It has enough funds to put in place a “brick and mortar” facility for aspects of the navigation center that aren’t transitionary housing. That means the long-term expense to the city to maintain the facility will be less.
*The city will be able to fund every aspect needed to make it a “model navigation center” including the 7-foot sound wall promised to make the location secure and avoid illegal camping nearby.
Navigation center
is not a drop-in shelter
The $16 million will fund a facility that is not a drop-in shelter such as St. Mary’s in Stockton where those that can’t secure beds typically set up tents and such on sidewalks near the facility.
Instead, the homeless that commit to working to get off the streets will be transported to the site.
The facility will not accept walk-in homeless.
The city’s entrance will be from the east side of the property off of Carnegie Court and away from commercial and residential development.
A homeless shelter per se is not what Manteca needs.
City leaders reached that conclusion after weighing court decisions and what has worked — and hasn’t worked — in other California cities.
Manteca is moving forward with a long-range strategy to address homeless issues that is based on six key conclusions:
*Focusing on law enforcement alone is insufficient.
*Reducing the number of unsheltered homeless will take a multi-pronged approach.
*The needs and the rights of the homeless and the Manteca community overall must be balanced.
*A homeless navigation as opposed to simply a homeless shelter is needed.
*Regional partnerships need to be formed given homeless move around.
*Agreements with Caltrans and the county are needed to make sure all agencies are on the same page.
*The full use of “Laura’s Law” also known as assisted outpatient treatment is needed within the county for sustained and intensive court-ordered outpatient treatment for individuals with mental illness who may be at risk of grave disability, deterioration in life skills and functioning, self-harm, and/or violence towards others.
The assisted out-patient treatment is not an alternate to voluntary treatment. It is a way to get services to those homeless who refuse voluntary treatment working in conjunction with the court system.
Such a program implemented in other counties with local jurisdictions has led to collaboration on getting assistance to those individuals with a mandated focus on the homeless.
The navigation center will include temporary shelter, intensive case management, housing navigation, employment services, meals, medical care, showers, laundry facilities, and support facilities such as a dog park and day room that doubles as a program room to work with clients.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
