Fresno medical homeless shelter will close soon. Will it be replaced?
Fresno’s medical homeless shelter will close its doors by the end of the year, though its new operator told The Bee its services will be provided at a new facility.
The recuperative care shelter, at 4080 N. Blackstone Ave. in a former Motel 6 building, provided critical shelter for about 250 people recovering from recent hospital discharges.
The closure comes amid a rise in homelessness in the region over the past decade, and major funding changes for unhoused resources.
RH Community Builders, a Fresno-based organization offering a range of services to end homelessness in the Central Valley, took over the facilities operations from LA-based Soul Housing after it abruptly announced the shelter’s closure in mid-October.
Soul Housing funded the recuperative care facility through a contract with health insurance provider Health Net through CalAIM, California’s expanded MediCal program. The closure announcement came after Health Net terminated its contract without cause or transition assistance for the vast majority of their members in its care, according to a Soul Housing news release.
In total, 598 Health Net members were affected across Soul Housing’s facilities — 341 in Los Angeles and 257 in Fresno — and risked losing both medical care and shelter, though the organization coordinated the safe transition of every consenting participant, according to the release.
Soul Housing told The Bee in a statement that they wished Health Net had informed them sooner that a continuity-of-care and transition plan would not be provided for their members. Soul Housing said it reached out to RH Community Builders and asked for help.
“We remain grateful for the unified response from Fresno leadership and partners, all of whom share Soul Housing’s commitment to compassion and care,” the organization said.
The legality of Soul Housing’s swift exit has been under review by the Fresno City Attorney, as the closure also resulted in short-notice layoffs, leaving dozens of workers without jobs.
Blackstone shelter to be replaced upon closure
RH Community Builders could step in on such short notice because it was already contracted to provide an identical service at another Fresno facility. Executive Director Katie Wilbur told The Bee that the provider was already planning to open a second facility of that kind around the end of 2025.
Operating the Blackstone facility was always meant to be a short-term solution to maintain services for program recipients, Wilbur said.
The new facility is scheduled to open near the end of the year, and the Blackstone location will not close prior to the new facility being ready to transfer eligible individuals in need of continued services, Wilbur said.
RH Community Builders is not yet sharing the location of the new recuperative care shelter publicly.
The city, county and service provider partners, including RH Community Builders, have held a few meetings recently to form a memorandum of understanding with the state to address homelessness in the region. The initiative aims to coordinate services more effectively, including mental health, substance abuse and housing transition, Fresno County Supervisor Luis Chavez told The Bee.
“You may not see it with your eyes, but there is changes happening, and there are people getting support and getting into housing, and we just have to keep working every day,” Wilbur said.
This story was originally published November 28, 2025 at 12:00 PM.