Is Fresno’s next homeless shelter coming to your neighborhood? City OKs action plan
Fresno’s newest funding to solve homelessness is supposed to open the city’s first shelter outside of the southwest District 3 and continues an effort to help women and children living without shelter because of domestic violence.
The City Council approved its part of an $11.8 million regional plan that also involves Fresno and Madera counties, and their joint Continuum of Care. A slew of homeless services and housing are included in the plans.
Fresno County adopted its part of the same effort last week but decided to cut plans for promoting an employee to a homeless administrator job, because it came with a pay raise in annual salary and benefits of $19,369.
The latest wave of plans call for officials to find 55 beds outside of District 3, which is home to the only five shelters in the county. There is much more to be done, according to Councilmember Esmeralda Soria, who serves on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s homeless task force.
“Today we’re looking at a stopgap. It’s not a permanent fix. This issue is greater than the $11.8 million that we’re going to get over the next two years,” she said. “I believe that the city of Fresno, that this (City Council), has a tremendous responsibility to build more affordable housing.”
Newsom has named the state’s homeless problem as a priority and announced emergency plans for $650 million aimed at the problem.
The shelters in Fresno have begun to see how their programs can be successful, according to H. Spees, the director of strategic initiatives for Mayor Lee Brand. Springing up shelters in other parts of the city could also see benefits.
“The intent is to decentralize some of our homeless services,” he said.
Domestic violence
After some prodding, the City Council continued funding for the Marjaree Mason Center, a nonprofit that works with and advocates for survivors of domestic violence. Continuing funding of about $45,000 into fiscal year 2022-23 could shave off a few of the 18 new beds available at local shelters.
The Marjaree Mason Center is a safe haven for adults escaping domestic violence and that often means children are being housed, too, according to Charity Susnick, the center’s director of development. About two-thirds of the center’s shelters are housing children on any given day.
“The reality is an adult faced with living in a violent home or risking their children on the street will, to their detriment, usually always stay in the violence,” she said.
Homeless defined
Advocates for the homeless said the federal definition puts a crimp in what services are actually needed. There are about 2,500 homeless people in Fresno and Madera counties, according to the latest annual tally from the Continuum of Care.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development definition essentially includes anyone who sleeps in a building or other place not meant for habitation, or who is sleeping in a homeless shelter.
That definition does not include the roughly 4,800 children considered homeless by the Fresno County Office of Education, according to Pamela Hancock, the district’s associate director of Foster and Homeless Youth Education Services.
The office’s homeless students definition includes a wider net for homelessness, including those living in hotels or couch-surfing at the home of a friend.
Hancock said students who do not finish high school are 4.5 times more likely to become homeless. Students who are already homeless are about 25% less likely to get a diploma in Fresno County.
This story was originally published February 14, 2020 at 12:40 PM.
