Gov. Newsom awards Fresno $5 million for homeless camps. Here’s how it will be spent
Fresno will receive $5 million in grant money from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to house 100 people living in encampments in the city.
The governor announced Thursday 19 communities will receive a total of $50 million to provide shelter or housing for over 1,400 people living in homeless camps. Of the grant recipients, Fresno’s award was the highest.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said the city will use the money to create what he’s calling the “Village of Hope,” which will include 50 prefabricated pallet shelters, similar to tiny homes. Two people will use each shelter, which will include air conditioning. The money also will be used to build lighting infrastructure, provide 24/7 security and pay about 20 Poverello House employees who will also provide wrap-around services for the people living in the shelters, Dyer said.
The shelters will be low-barrier, meaning there are no requirements for people who seek shelter there. Plus, they can bring their pets.
“I’m very grateful to the governor and his team for recognizing our successes and having the confidence in us to award us an additional $5 million,” Dyer said. “Homelessness is not only my top priority as the mayor, but I believe it is the top priority for members of this community — along with public safety, of course. This $5 million is going to go a long way in helping us solve our homeless problem in Fresno.”
Fresno City Councilmember Esmeralda Soria, who serves on Newsom’s homeless task force, also welcomed the money.
“I’m grateful for the governor’s historic investments to address the homelessness crisis cities are facing today,” Soria said. “The $5 million award to Fresno will help us continue our work to rehouse 100 more individuals and provide wrap-around services to assist the transition to permanent housing.”
Dyer and his team are working with the Poverello House to identify a location for the prefabricated shelters.
Unhoused folks with the highest needs will be prioritized for the shelters, Dyer said. That means people who have been unhoused the longest have substance abuse issues and severe mental illness.
“They’re the hard-to -each, the hard-to-house, the hard-to-employ,” Dyer said.
Dyer said those people would be identified through a process that begins with up to 30 days of outreach, during which time services and housing are offered. The goal of this project is to transition folks into permanent housing within 90 days.
The money comes one day after a woman died and three others were injured in a fire at a San Francisco homeless camp, prompting statewide outrage and a response from Newsom.
“Tackling the homelessness crisis is a matter of life and death,” Newsom said in a news release about the grant money. “California is taking on the unacceptable status quo with a historic response to house thousands of our most vulnerable community members at an unprecedented rate, and swiftly addressing the encampments that pose the greatest threat to health and safety.”
Newsom and his state budgets have invested unprecedented amounts of money into tackling homelessness, with much of the money funneled through local governments. The number of homeless people in Fresno and statewide is predicted to be growing due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Homelessness remains a priority for Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer as well. When first taking office in 2021, Dyer launched “Project Offramp” which helped 600 people living on freeway embankments find housing or shelter.
City leaders estimate that Fresno’s homeless population is about 4,200.
Between July 2019 and December 2021, the Fresno area received more than $144 million from federal, state and local sources to increase homelessness services in 2021. These funds went to the city, the county, the Fresno Madera Continuum of Care, and the Fresno Housing Authority.
The city of Fresno received $60 million of that funding, which it used to add 510 shelter beds in Fresno and provide emergency and temporary shelter and transitional housing. The city only had ten shelter beds in its charge before the pandemic, according to city leaders.