The decision to locate the new police station at 680 South Main Street is expected to also keep pressure on illegal camping near the city’s homeless navigation center.
The police entrance to the new police station will be off of Carnegie Court, just about a block from 555 Industrial Park Drive where the city now intends to locate its homeless services on a permanent basis.
“It will help make sure we stay on top of illegal camping in the area,” Mayor Gary Singh noted last week.
Manteca made a commitment to aggressively go after nearby illegal camping when 555 Industrial was chosen as a temporary emergency shelter for the homeless.
The city has done so for the most part.
Other cities such as Stockton that have emergency homeless shelters have seen other homeless congregate on nearby property and sidewalks in roughly a two block radius.
Manteca officials when visiting a navigation center in Fresno where the homeless are brought to it instead of simply dropping in, were impressed that there were no signs of homeless anywhere near that city’s facility in a business park similar to the Manteca Industrial Park.
That is due to a concerted effort to keep pressure on the homeless not to gather near the center.
It isn’t clear whether Manteca will end up operating a 100 percent navigation center or a combination with emergency shelter with the ability to come and go.
The navigation centers city officials visited required the homeless to stay on site for the most part to avail themselves of services aimed at helping them get off the street and become employable.
Even if it includes an emergency shelter and making food and other services available to the homeless not in the navigation process per se, Singh said the proximity of the police station to the homeless center would make it difficult for officers not to notice illegal camping.
Singh, in the 2022 mayor’s election, advocated placing the police station at 680 South Main so it would be close to the homeless center.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
