Manteca’s ongoing costs to address basic homeless needs is surpassing the $1.1 million mark on an annual basis.

And that doesn’t include the cost of police and fire responding to incidents involving the homeless or the tab for community resource officers dedicated to homeless issues.

The City Council on Wednesday approved spending:

*$200,818 retroactively from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31 of this year to pay His Way Recovery House to run the homeless emergency center at 555 Industrial Park Drive.

*$170,381 to pay Shield Protection Group to provide 24/7 security for the homeless center from Sept. 15 through Dec. 31 of this year.

Multiplying that cost by three to cover 12 months of services, the tab for operating the homeless emergency shelter will exceed $1.1 million on an annual basis.

His Way Recovery had been providing security but will no longer do so starting Sept. 15.

The new contract means there will be an armed security guard at the homeless services site 12 hours a day. The cost of that armed guard is $44 an hour.

In addition, there will be a non-armed security guard on staff 24 hours at a cost of $36.15 per hour.

His Way Recovery did not have an armed security gourd.

As such, the new arrangement may help take some pressure off of Manteca Police as well as increase the safety of the homeless basically from other homeless people.

The city has never quantified the cost of homeless issues when it comes to the public safety budget.

 Manteca Fire in 2021  responded to 878 calls involving homeless individuals out of the 10,230 they handled. That is roughly 9 percent of all calls.

Overall, based on the last official point in time count that placed Manteca’s homeless number at 129 — that means 0.15 percent of the  population segment accounted for 9 percent of the fire department’s calls.

Figures are not yet available for 2022.

Police officers have estimated that more than  10 percent of their calls could be related to homeless issues. That is in addition to a dedicated police community resource officer working with the homeless to help get them off the streets as well as to find ways to reduce their impacts on the community via quality of life concerns.

Manteca is in the process of adding a second community resource officer assigned to homeless issues. The two positions represent another $300,000 impact  on the general fund

While the city would be spending the money anyway on officers and firefighters, it basically represents an opportunity cost

The less calls to respond to when it comes to low-level homeless issues means that public safety personnel can be freed for other calls or tasks.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com