Three Modesto City Councilmembers have submitted a “Safe Ground Homeless Vision” to City Manager Joe Lopez, Mayor Sue Zwahlen, and fellow Councilmembers Rosa Escutia-Braaton, Jeremiah Williams and David Wright. Brief and pragmatic, the plan is intended to reduce, “impacts and public health and safety concerns of unregulated encampments on local businesses and residents.”
“We need to get people off our streets and sidewalks, out of our parks, and away from our riverbanks and canals,” said Councilmember Nick Bavaro when asked about the plan. “I receive emails and phone calls every day about homeless people in my district. The problem is that even when they’re chased away, they have nowhere to go.”
That fundamental fact — that homeless people have nowhere to go — has been the driving force in California’s failure to manage its growing homeless population, as sweeps and law enforcement have proven futile despite the expenditure of billions of dollars.
A current case illustrating the problem is playing out in San Joaquin County near Stockton, where $11.2 million will move only “56 to 72” residents of the county’s largest homeless encampment into permanent housing. Known as the “Interchange Complex,” the encampment has been home to anywhere between 200 and 500 people as numbers fluctuate due to factors like Covid and shelter availability.
Residents of Stockton who have lived with the encampment and its attendant problems for years were disappointed to learn that even the $11.2 million state grant will do little to reduce the numbers of homeless people squatting in the encampment that surrounds the crosstown freeway and Highway 5 overpass. Though $9 million of the total is intended for housing, that money buys only around 20 median-priced homes in San Joaquin County.
Even though the $9 million will be applied to multi-unit housing rather than median-priced homes, even multi-unit studios and apartments cost out in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit. Elected leaders in Modesto and Stanislaus County are well aware of such costs. City and county officials followed the approval of $4.1 million in capital costs for 14 units for low-income youth with support for another project that would provide 54 units for $23.2 million. Both projects are near downtown Modesto, less than a mile from one another. Initial costs don’t include funding for management.
State and local leaders have known for years that housing shortages, environmental impediments, and prohibitive costs prevent getting homeless people off the streets yet they’ve almost never chosen alternative measures like permitted encampments and transitional housing and shelter options. Comparing costs between options like permitted camp and shelter sites and Modesto’s and Stockton’s multi-million dollar expenditures should offer object lessons for elected officials throughout the state.
After losing a lawsuit brought on by an illegal sweep of a local homeless encampment, the City of Chico purchased 177 Pallet Shelters for $1.7 million. A year later, only eleven people have moved from the Pallets to permanent housing, despite the desires of many to move on — there simply isn’t enough traditional housing available. Meanwhile, only 15 shelters are unoccupied and 162 people are off the streets who would otherwise be living in parks, sleeping on sidewalks or behind stores, or hiding in alleys and other out-of-the-way places. The cost for keeping those 162 people on safe and secure ground is far less than providing 14 units in a Modesto building that will incur additional costs for management and upkeep.
Modesto City Councilmembers Eric Alvarez, Nick Bavaro and Chris Ricci have chosen to tackle the hard facts about homelessness with a plan that would get homeless people onto safe ground and reduce the harmful effects of their presence on local home owners and businesses. More people would be off the streets and costs for sheltering them in tents and Pallet-like structures would be a tiny fraction of those associated with traditional housing options. Most importantly, they would be off the streets in weeks, not years.
“We can’t end homelessness any time soon, but we can do a better job of managing it,” said Councilmember Bavaro in support of the Modesto Safe Ground Homeless Vision.
Leaders statewide should be watching and listening. Traditional housing and shelter options are too costly and too far into the future. Homeless people need help now and so do those whose quality of life is diminished by their presence in local neighborhoods and business places. Sweeps and law enforcement don’t work. It’s time for pragmatic, humane and cost-effective management of homelessness. The Modesto Safe Ground Homeless Vision offers a way forward.
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Where can we read the specifics of this proposed law? What is the annual budget for establishment and upkeep?
Mr Winston: It is not a law, it is a management plan proposal. There is a link to the proposal in the last sentence of the story. Costs will be determined by a bidding process among service providers. Cost of the Modesto Outdoor Emergency Shelter was $13/day per person. It was underfunded. I would expect current cost for a well managed site to be significantly higher but far less than the cost of current tactics (jail time, sweeps and no positive effect on the problem).
Robert Winston, and Valley Citizen readers,
Although a guesstimate budget cannot be given, a guesstimate, compare and contrast,of cost and time, can be surmised between the unhoused having to wait on future permanent housing v. soon having safe encampments, rather than roaming the community with no where to go, but jail, for the majority of their days.
The following shines a bright spotlight on current costs and time, and, potential future costs and time, before the unhoused may be permanently housed. It also shows how far away affordable housing is for anyone clinging to the American Dream. Poor people, below the median income, cannot afford what is being touted as affordable housing. Low income housing may even be impossible to qualify for, if even available.
I am not saying the following is exactly what Modesto and Stanislaus County cities are up against, but there are or soon will be, very likely, similarities. Then, when more of the UN Agenda(s) set in, with the added costs of building zero carbon buildings, there is no telling what will be impossible. Not that I do not see the value of zero carbon and passive solar housing:
https://youtu.be/nW0nseal70E?si=p8jE8grrmyT7sAtd
Robert Winston, and Valley Citizen readers,
If the site given above is unavailable when you click on it, try this one: https://youtu.be/nW0nseaI70E?si=E6buPrz6MN7L4uoo
If neither work for you, go to California Insider/State-Mandated Housing Coming to Your Town, Christine Epperly.
Apologies for any and all inconvience.
We have to convince the Stanislaus County Supervisors and the City officials that it is even needed. The plan given to City and County is very basic, tents, security, services offered. Designed to be a pilot for more safe camping on other sites with no more than 50 people per site. More than that and it becomes unmanageable. Lessons learned with previous encampments.
When can we speak ? Mr , Cain?
You can email me at [email protected] and set up a talk or meeting.
I am home to senior who have been begging and waiting patiently for a place to live I have been put on the back burner for almost a year the food is only thing that’s good they have no Wi-Fi to network they have no chapel or church to even pray they kick you out during the day and they don’t help you go forward they only feed us and give us clothes they don’t care if we move out or not the area is drug infested it’s bed bugs in the buildings there is no type of benefit I can’t even get a temporary room even though I am a senior with mental illness but I see young drug addicts and hotel rooms with no kids no income not even deserving or qualified to be there I just think
Stockton homeless shelter can do a lot more for their pp. I don’t understand why they treat us seniors bad. We deserve a little more help with our disabilities. Some of us are mentally and some physically, some are just old and have illnesses. DAMM can you help us plz. I really think the mayor should visit me so I can show him better than tell him.