SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) – Across the Bay Area, people and businesses were ready to help each other during the lockdown, but a plumbing company that delivered pharmacy medications was likely a first.

Discount Plumbers has been in business for more than 30 years and has a fleet of nearly 50 trucks.

“This is a crazy time for all of us!” says CEO Kevin Griffin.

Even though business is down 40 percent, Griffin says he is still grateful and giving back.

“If you don't want to go out, go to the pharmacy, which not many people are doing right now. We pick up your prescriptions and leave them at your door,” he says.

Griffin first made the unusual announcement to his customer list and then expanded it to everyone.

You get a call or email, and if a truck is available, it goes to the right pharmacy.

Inside, the medication is handed over to the customer after an exchange of signatures and identification.

Alyssa Broduer stayed safe at home. She asked the sanitation service to pick up and deliver her medication.

“I have that. I have that,” says Broduer. “It will be a service that will actually be used. It’s aimed at people who could really use the help.”

“If we have a unit in your area, we just assign it at the end of the day or in the middle of the day, depending on how busy we are,” Griffin explains.

The idea that despite the downturn in business, Griffin is helping those in need.

More from CBS News

Read more

The post Good Samaritan Plumbing Firm Will Additionally Choose Up, Ship Drugs Throughout Coronavirus Shelter In Place appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The streets should not serve as a homeless person’s waiting room for housing, according to San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman.

But to those questioning his focus on temporary shelter, there shouldn’t be a waiting room for housing at all.

Mandelman’s second crack at his “A Place for All” proposal in the last two years has again become a lightning rod for debate over the city’s response to homelessness and whether temporary shelters are the path to reducing encampments.

Backed by business and neighborhood organizations, Mandelman proposes that the city study how it could provide an emergency shelter bed for every homeless person on San Francisco’s streets.

Mandelman, who abandoned a previous iteration of the proposal in 2020, decried the “explosion” of encampments during the pandemic and lamented that city neighborhoods have become “campsites of last resort” for the homeless.

Once again, advocates for the homeless have questioned Mandelman’s proposal, arguing that building out a network of temporary shelters could pull resources away from the real solution to homelessness: more permanent supportive housing and affordable housing.

The Coalition on Homelessness, for example, contends there is no evidence that it would take longer for the city to build and develop permanent housing than to establish new shelters like small cabins, tent cities, shelter-in-place hotels and congregate shelters.

“This plan would not be supplementing or complementing a housing plan because there is no housing plan,” said Carlos Wadkins, a human rights organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness.

Mandelman believes allowing encampments to proliferate is inhumane, citing examples of dangerous fires that have harmed their inhabitants. He believes the city can implement his shelter plan without abandoning its commitment to connecting the homeless to permanent housing.

After a dizzying array of proposed amendments to the bill during a committee hearing on Thursday, it’s unclear whether supervisors — even Mandelman himself — will support the legislation.

Concessions won by Mandelman’s colleagues in the new bill include a 10% cap on the number of spaces at safe sleeping sites – ie tent cities – that the city could include in its network of shelters. The bill also has a 50% cap on the number of beds that can be in congregate shelters, which residents sleep together as opposed to separate spaces like tiny homes or cabins.

Other amendments made by Supervisor Myrna Melgar during a committee hearing on Thursday were targeted at making the bill more inclusive of permanent supportive housing in the city’s planning process. Another amendment was designed to ensure easy access to shelters for residents of every neighborhood in the city via a telephone registration system.

Mandelman’s bill envisages an array of various shelter options for different types of people. It would task the department of Homelessness and Housing Services with devising a plan to establish adequate shelter for all by the end of 2022, then would give the city three years to actually implement it.

It’s an uphill battle, to be certain. The most recent official count in 2019 showed that 5,180 of San Franciscans were sleeping in the streets and not in a shelter.

Mandelman noted San Francisco is “approaching unsheltered homelessness in a way that’s different than many other places do.”

New York City, for example, has a court-established “right to shelter,” which mandates the city provide enough shelter beds for every homeless person. The result is that, while New York City has the country’s largest homeless population, the vast majority are living in shelters and not on the street.

The cost is unclear, and Mandelman declined to provide an estimate on Thursday. The bill includes no funding mechanism, which will be part of what the city studies if the legislation is adopted.

“We don’t know if that is a $20 million cost or a $200 million cost,” Mandelman said.

That’s a sticking point for the Coalition on Homelessness, which alleged it “falsely promises relief for unhoused San Franciscans.”

Although Mandelman has touted his plan’s potential to clean the streets of encampments, the bill does little to explicitly address that issue.

But the consequence of having more homeless residents than shelter beds is a limited ability to conduct sweeps of homeless encampments.

Under precedent set by a federal court’s decision in Martin v. Boise, cities cannot criminalize acts related to a person’s homelessness – such as sleeping on a sidewalk – if the city does not offer them an alternative, such as a shelter bed.

However, Mandelman acknowledged at a press conference on Thursday that his legislation does not directly address enforcement.

The city already does work to clear encampments, advocates for the homeless note, although the city’s stated goal is to connect people living in them to resources like housing and behavioral health treatment.

But to homeless advocates, Mandelman’s bill would open the door to aggressive sweeps.

The bill is scheduled for a second committee hearing on May 26.

The post The short-term shelter debate for San Francisco’s homeless appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The streets should not serve as a homeless person’s waiting room for housing, according to San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman.

But to those questioning his focus on temporary shelter, there shouldn’t be a waiting room for housing at all.

Mandelman’s second crack at his “A Place for All” proposal in the last two years has again become a lightning rod for debate over the city’s response to homelessness and whether temporary shelters are the path to reducing encampments.

Backed by business and neighborhood organizations, Mandelman proposes that the city study how it could provide an emergency shelter bed for every homeless person on San Francisco’s streets.

Mandelman, who abandoned a previous iteration of the proposal in 2020, decried the “explosion” of encampments during the pandemic and lamented that city neighborhoods have become “campsites of last resort” for the homeless.

Once again, advocates for the homeless have questioned Mandelman’s proposal, arguing that building out a network of temporary shelters could pull resources away from the real solution to homelessness: more permanent supportive housing and affordable housing.

The Coalition on Homelessness, for example, contends there is no evidence that it would take longer for the city to build and develop permanent housing than to establish new shelters like small cabins, tent cities, shelter-in-place hotels and congregate shelters.

“This plan would not be supplementing or complementing a housing plan because there is no housing plan,” said Carlos Wadkins, a human rights organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness.

Mandelman believes allowing encampments to proliferate is inhumane, citing examples of dangerous fires that have harmed their inhabitants. He believes the city can implement his shelter plan without abandoning its commitment to connecting the homeless to permanent housing.

After a dizzying array of proposed amendments to the bill during a committee hearing on Thursday, it’s unclear whether supervisors — even Mandelman himself — will support the legislation.

Concessions won by Mandelman’s colleagues in the new bill include a 10% cap on the number of spaces at safe sleeping sites – ie tent cities – that the city could include in its network of shelters. The bill also has a 50% cap on the number of beds that can be in congregate shelters, which residents sleep together as opposed to separate spaces like tiny homes or cabins.

Other amendments made by Supervisor Myrna Melgar during a committee hearing on Thursday were targeted at making the bill more inclusive of permanent supportive housing in the city’s planning process. Another amendment was designed to ensure easy access to shelters for residents of every neighborhood in the city via a telephone registration system.

Mandelman’s bill envisages an array of various shelter options for different types of people. It would task the department of Homelessness and Housing Services with devising a plan to establish adequate shelter for all by the end of 2022, then would give the city three years to actually implement it.

It’s an uphill battle, to be certain. The most recent official count in 2019 showed that 5,180 of San Franciscans were sleeping in the streets and not in a shelter.

Mandelman noted San Francisco is “approaching unsheltered homelessness in a way that’s different than many other places do.”

New York City, for example, has a court-established “right to shelter,” which mandates the city provide enough shelter beds for every homeless person. The result is that, while New York City has the country’s largest homeless population, the vast majority are living in shelters and not on the street.

The cost is unclear, and Mandelman declined to provide an estimate on Thursday. The bill includes no funding mechanism, which will be part of what the city studies if the legislation is adopted.

“We don’t know if that is a $20 million cost or a $200 million cost,” Mandelman said.

That’s a sticking point for the Coalition on Homelessness, which alleged it “falsely promises relief for unhoused San Franciscans.”

Although Mandelman has touted his plan’s potential to clean the streets of encampments, the bill does little to explicitly address that issue.

But the consequence of having more homeless residents than shelter beds is a limited ability to conduct sweeps of homeless encampments.

Under precedent set by a federal court’s decision in Martin v. Boise, cities cannot criminalize acts related to a person’s homelessness – such as sleeping on a sidewalk – if the city does not offer them an alternative, such as a shelter bed.

However, Mandelman acknowledged at a press conference on Thursday that his legislation does not directly address enforcement.

The city already does work to clear encampments, advocates for the homeless note, although the city’s stated goal is to connect people living in them to resources like housing and behavioral health treatment.

But to homeless advocates, Mandelman’s bill would open the door to aggressive sweeps.

The bill is scheduled for a second committee hearing on May 26.

The post The momentary shelter debate for San Francisco’s homeless appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

San Francisco leaders have delayed the potential opening of a new 250-bed homeless shelter in Lower Nob Hill after local residents and businesses objected to the plans.

City officials had proposed entering into a two-year, $18.7 million contract with the nonprofit Urban Alchemy to rent and operate the shelter at 711 Post St., a currently vacant hostel building just north of the Tenderloin and a few blocks west of Union Square.

The shelter would have opened in early February if the Board of Supervisors approved the contract next week. But a board committee voted unanimously Wednesday to have the city spend another month vetting the issue amid outcry from residents near the building who said they were not adequately consulted and had serious reservations about how the project would impact their neighborhood.

The Post Street site has yet become another flash point in San Francisco’s fraught debate over how to make meaningful improvements to its homeless crisis with more than 8,000 people lacking permanent housing. The delay Wednesday comes on the heels of the collapse of a city plan to turn 131-room hotel in Japantown into permanent housing for homeless people after months of community backlash.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who represents the area, asked the board’s budget and finance committee to revisit the proposal on Feb. 2. Peskin said that the city’s community engagement efforts had been so far “abysmal” and that he wants the neighborhood to have more time to evaluate the plans.

“Meaningful and real involvement with the community has been all but absent,” Peskin said, who doesn’t sit on the budget committee. “It has been box-checking government at its worst.”

Supervisors have in recent weeks decried the insufficient shelter, housing and treatment options to get people off the streets in the wake of Mayor London Breed declaring a state of emergency in the Tenderloin. Supervisor Hillary Ronen criticized her colleagues for delaying the shelter in the wake of the emergency declaration.

“I do not understand how the members of the Budget Committee voted to declare a state of emergency in the Tenderloin & then a day later delayed the leasing of a 250 bed non-congregate shelter to serve that neighborhood. Is this a crisis or not? It is & we need to act accordingly,” she wrote on Twitter.

With the state of emergency, Breed hopes to address street conditions, overdoses and crime in the hard-hit neighborhood. The declaration has been controversial because Breed has signaled an intent to expand policing, but her administration is also trying to connect more homeless tenderloin residents with shelter and other services.

Breed’s office views the Post Street shelter as a crucial step in the city’s plans to address homelessness this year. Her administration wants the shelter system’s capacity to reach 2,100 beds by the end of June through a mix of adding new beds and reopening beds closed due to the pandemic. The city is about halfway toward meeting the goal. Breed is also working to create 1,500 units of permanent supportive housing for the homeless.

“Every day we delay this shelter is one where 250 people sleep on the street,” Breed tweeted after the committee delayed the Post Street contract. “We can’t let obstruction and process arguments stop us from helping people in need.”

Breed said city leaders and the public “all agree that the conditions in the tenderloin are an emergency” and “we need to act like it.”

Formerly operated as a youth hostel called the Ansonia Hotel, the Post Street building includes 123 rooms that range from singles to quads. Each floor has bathrooms and showers, and the building also includes community lounges, a commercial kitchen and a dining space.

City officials were drawn to the building’s configuration, which, if used to serve homeless people, would place it somewhere between a single-room occupancy hotel and a traditional congregate shelter.

“This is not a building type or opportunity that we often have,” said Emily Cohen, a deputy director at the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.

But a vocal group of people who live or work near the site have said San Francisco leaders did not provide enough notice about the building’s potential transformation. At the committee meeting, several residents also said they thought the area had already shouldered its fair share of facilities that serve San Francisco’s unhoused population.

Still, some spoke strongly in favor of the potential shelter, viewing it as an urgently needed facility to quickly get 250 people off the streets in the middle of winter.

Supervisor Matt Haney, who chairs the committee, said he understood the range of viewpoints expressed by the community.

“I do believe that these type of facilities are ones that we absolutely need,” he said. “I also understand the need to effectively consult with the neighborhood and the absolute need to consider geographic equity as well.”

Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, another committee member, supported spending more time discussing the project with the community.

Though he said he’d heard from numerous people opposed to the shelter, Safaí didn’t think the city would repeat the scenario that unfolded in Japantown last year.

Safaí also questioned why the city hadn’t moved to buy the site instead of contracting with Urban Alchemy to rent the facility from its owner. He said he’d been in contact with the owner, who he said is willing to sell.

“It seems to me like there’s room here to purchase the building,” Safaí said.

It’s not clear how exactly the city will proceed with the potential Post Street shelter. Cohen urged supervisors to make the delay as short as possible, warning them that a month was “a really long time” to postpone advancing the contract. But Safaí, Haney and Supervisor Gordon Mar voted in favor of Peskin’s proposal to continue the item to Feb. 2.

Peskin said he would work with city staff over the next month and “see what we can come up with.”

JD Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris

The post San Francisco delays 250-bed homeless shelter in Decrease Nob Hill amid neighborhood backlash appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – A new project to house the homeless is moving forward in San Francisco.

A committee within the city’s Board of Supervisors approved a new 250-bed shelter near the Tenderloin on Wednesday.

The delaying of a decision over a new homeless shelter in Lower Nob Hill has ended.

49ers fan in coma after getting beat up outside SoFi Stadium in LA

A vacant hostel building at 711 Post Street is likely the new location for the shelter.

San Francisco Supervisor Ahsha Safai is a member of the budget committee which approved the project moving forward.

There was a delay before getting to this vote because of community concerns over security and shelter rules.

Safai believes most of those worries have been addressed.

The push to house the city homeless has intensified recently.

Multiple injured, 1 dead after shooting outside Oroville convenience store

In December, Mayor London Breed declared a State of Emergency in San Francisco’s troubled Tenderloin district, and after months of backlash, another plan to house the homeless in a Japantown hotel fell apart in October.

Safai says the board is working to act aggressively housing the homeless.

This new plan includes the city buying the building instead of leasing it.

The full Board of Supervisors is set to vote on the project next Tuesday.

The post Plan for proposed homeless shelter in San Francisco strikes ahead appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

At the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance meeting, the supervisors on the committee voted in favor of moving forward with the shelter at 711 Polk Street. The proposal will now go to the full Board of Supervisors for a final vote.

Several members of the Lower Nob Hill Neighborhood Alliance — a group that formed to push back against the proposal — called in to the meeting to voice their opposition to the shelter.

“We are worried it’s going to fail, and it’s going to fail all over our streets,” Susan Walsh, who has lived in the neighborhood since 2014, told ABC7 News.

RELATED: ‘Look around’: Advocates for South Bay’s unhoused residents concerned about delay of homeless count

Walsh said there are already several other homeless shelters in their district, including many in the vicinity around 711 Polk Street, and that the Lower Nob Hill neighborhood is unfairly impacted.

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

“At some point we have to say, wait a minute, there’s a whole big city here,” Walsh explained. “And we don’t see these kinds of facilities popping up like in lower Nob Hill.”

If approved, the homeless shelter would have a maximum capacity of roughly 250 people and would be run by the nonprofit, Urban Alchemy. Supporters say a former youth hostel is an ideal space for a shelter since it’s already set up for communal living.

“I would urge us not to lose sight of the scale of this homeless population,” said one neighbor who called in support of the proposal. “We need shelter and support for people in this community who we’re currently failing. And delaying is a pretty shameful failing.”

RELATED: Has SF hit rock bottom? Former mayor says city’s ‘humanitarian’ ethic is to blame for recent issues

District 6 supervisor Matt Haney is among those in favor of the proposal.

“Shelter and transitional housing are solutions to homelessness and right now we don’t have enough spots for people,” he said at the meeting.

District 3 supervisor Aaron Peskin, who represents the Lower Nob Hill area, joined the meeting on Wednesday even though he is not on the Budget and Finance Committee. He asked his fellow supervisors to delay a vote until some of the concerns can be further investigated and addressed.

“I think it’s critical if we are going to succeed in this case to address the crisis of homelessness on our streets, that the city has to perform superlatively,” Peskin said. “And if we don’t, it is going to make location of these types of facilities in other parts of the city much more difficult.”

The committee chose not to delay and voted to move forward with the plan. A city spokesperson for the proposal said Urban Alchemy will ensure there is an onsite case manager 24 hours a day. The shelter will also start at 150 people and scale up slowly over time.

RELATED: Oakland opens new tiny home village near Lake Merritt for the city’s unhoused

Walsh said she feels her neighborhood is becoming an extension of the Tenderloin. Despite some of their concerns being addressed, she’s concerned another shelter of any kind could make it worse.

“The other day there was a woman walking outside our apartment naked, just naked,” Walsh described. “There were people across the street having sex in the middle of the day and openly selling drugs.”

“That’s how our neighborhood is changing,” she continued. “That didn’t happen. This is all new.”

Copyright © 2022 KGO-TV. All rights reserved.

The post San Francisco’s Decrease Nob Hill residents voice issues over proposal to show youth hostel into homeless shelter appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Plans for a shelter that can quickly accommodate hundreds of people living on the street have stalled, a delay that embodies the challenge the city faces to act urgently to address its deepening homelessness crisis to manage something.

The board’s budget and finance committee on Wednesday voted to withhold approval of the $ 18.7 million needed to keep the shelter going until more outreach is done.

More than 250 adults could have moved to an existing property at 711 Post Street in San Francisco’s Lower Nob Hill neighborhood in a matter of weeks if San Francisco regulators voted for a $ 18 million grant on Wednesday.

The members of the committee recognized the great challenges facing the homeless in San Francisco. Ultimately, however, they cited a lack of publicity and indiscriminate engagement efforts as reasons to wait another month before considering the allocation.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who does not sit on the committee but represents the district where the shelter would be located, said many of his constituents had not received any real notice of the proposal or this hearing. He described his district as a place with a proven track record of using homeless services, but only after a robust public process.

“There was next to no meaningful and genuine commitment to the community,” said Peskin. “It checked the government at its worst.”

It takes time to gain broad community support, time that people who survive on the streets don’t have.

Officials acknowledged the urgency of the situation and the need to act quickly, but asked for more time to work with local actors to win the neighborhood before moving on.

“We are all aware of the urgency of this work,” said Supervisor Gordon Mar. “But I would repeat what my colleagues said that we cannot use this urgency to go through a bad process.”

At the time of the 2019 annual census, the last since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, around 8,035 people were homeless in the city. There has long been a gap between the number of people who need shelter and the number of beds The City can offer. Last year the city had 5,080 emergency shelters and transition beds.

Mayor London Breed’s homelessness restoration plan aims to close that gap. It stipulates that a total of 2,100 beds for adults and transition ages for teenagers will be added by June 30th.

The property on Post Street between Jones Street and Leavenworth Street would help achieve this goal. The residents would have few barriers to entry and there would be no maximum length of stay. However, they would have to be referred to the shelter and anyone staying there would be checked in and out as they left the building.

The existing building, a former youth hostel, offers a unique residential building model, which means that not everyone sleeps in the same room. It has 123 rooms, ranging from single rooms to four-person rooms. Each floor has a bathroom and a shower, and there is ample communal space in the form of a lounge, lobby and reception. It also includes a commercial kitchen, dining area and basement compartment.

Emily Cohen, deputy director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) said this configuration reflects some of the positive qualities of the hotel program as it gives residents more privacy and independence.

“We have to be smart about how we’re adding more beds, and this project gives us the ability to do that and it can be done pretty quickly,” she said.

Under the proposed agreement, HSH would grant Urban Alchemy, a nonprofit that employs people with experience of homelessness or incarceration, $ 18.7 million. It already oversees the operation of a number of street cleaning, homelessness and relief programs across the city, including safe sleeping places, on-site accommodation and secure parking.

Urban Alchemy would not only operate and support the shelter itself around the clock, but also lease the building from February 1 to June 30, 2024.

“We are very excited to be working with Urban Alchemy on this project,” added Cohen. “You have a great track record of opening up new and creative program models with us.”

Based on public comments, the community’s reaction seems polarized.

Some people expressed frustration with the city’s contacting process, which took place during the holiday season and failed to reach many neighbors. They also said Lower Nob Hill did “more than its fair share” in helping the homeless – there is a navigation center just around the corner from the proposed accommodation address – and urged other neighborhoods to provide services.

Others said they feared Urban Alchemy was not equipped to be effective case managers.

Cohen said her agency was ready to put together a working group of local stakeholders to provide answers to questions and address concerns, but she stood up in addition to getting the grant approved as the city prepared to open the property.

“I think the most urgent reason to move forward is the 250 people who would sleep outside while we wait for this process,” she said.

Those who supported the shelter repeated their feelings. They stressed the severity of the emergency on the streets of San Francisco as a reason to act now.

“We absolutely believe that keeping people on the streets for another month is a terrible decision,” said Corey Smith of the Housing Action Coalition. “The situation will not improve after the community meetings.”

Supervisor Ahsha Safai asked if the city could own the building instead of paying someone as a tenant, but was told that HSH’s current strategy was in favor of acquiring buildings that could be converted into permanent supporting housing. This property doesn’t fit well as not every bedroom has an en-suite bathroom, Cohen said.

She pointed out that an overemphasis on permanent supportive housing, which she identified as a long-term solution to homelessness, results in people in need of immediate housing facing few barriers to entry without finding a safe place. For example, if they cannot enter accommodation, they may never be able to move to permanent housing.

“The need for protective beds is one of the most pressing needs we see,” said Cohen. “We’re adding a significant amount of sustained supportive housing, which is incredibly important, but we also need to build up our contingency measures to allow people to flow through the system.”

Although HSH asked the Budget and Finance Committee to reconsider the grant as soon as possible, members voted to wait until the next meeting on February 2nd to discuss the issue again.

cgraf@sfexaminer.com

The post San Francisco homeless shelter delayed as Supes mull neighborood response appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY (CBS SF) – Citing the Omicron variant, Contra Costa County officials are requiring first responders and homeless shelters to receive a COVID-19 vaccine booster or undergo weekly tests.

The order, which comes into effect January 10, applies to law enforcement agencies, firefighters, emergency medical personnel who work or respond to calls in “high-risk facilities” such as hospitals, prisons, care or community facilities. Workers in homeless shelters are also covered by the requirement, as are rescue workers who transport patients in the facilities mentioned above.

CONTINUE READING: 3 sharks enter COVID-19 logs as the team returns to the ice after an unplanned week’s break

Workers who have not received a booster by the deadline must undergo a weekly PCR or antigen test.

Contra Costa County’s new booster need comes amid a surge in COVID-19 cases believed to be driven by the fast-spreading variant. Health officials said the average daily number of new cases discovered in the county rose about 156% over the past week to 313 new cases per day.

The first cases of the variant in the district were only confirmed by health authorities a week ago.

CONTINUE READING: Sierra Storm: Avalanche Closes Highway 89; I-80, Highway 50 will remain closed; Search for missing Northstar skiers

Meanwhile, many residents of the county have not yet received their booster vaccinations, with only 36% of people aged 16 and over receiving the third vaccination.

“The Omicron variant is much more contagious than previous COVID-19 strains,” said Health Officer Dr. Chris Farnitano on Monday in a statement. “Boosting is necessary for the best protection against Omicron infection and transmission. Our hospitals run the risk of being overwhelmed when a large number of our vulnerable residents fall ill. “

Last week the state required all healthcare workers, home care workers, and community care and detention center workers to receive their vaccinations.

MORE NEWS: Pedestrians seriously injured in collision on the Almaden Expressway in San Jose

For more information about the booster and upcoming vaccination clinics, visit the Contra Costa Health Services website or call 1-833-829-2626.

The post Contra Costa Requiring Boosters Or Weekly Testing For First Responders, Homeless Shelter Staff Due To Omicron Considerations – CBS San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

And while many large hotels have been vacant for over a year, a few smaller ones took advantage of state and city incentives to house around 2,000 homeless people in rooms that used to go to tourists. Now there is taxpayers’ money to buy hotels and use them to permanently house the homeless – which will cost millions of dollars. Is it a possible way forward in solving our homelessness crisis?

To answer the question, we decided to visit one of the hotels to take a look at the program, the people and the challenges that lie ahead of us.

In a story you’ll only see on ABC7 News, we took an exclusive look inside one of those former tourist hotels that have been converted into homeless shelters.

RETURN TO TOURISM: How the Bay Area prepares for the tourist season

In return for access to this hotel, which is just a few blocks from Union Square, we were asked not to provide details of where it was located. It was a real eye opener. Before the pandemic, rooms at this hotel ranged from $ 200 to $ 300 a night. That was then. These days you know from the first moment that this is not your average Union Square hotel.

Wand security checks and temperature controls are required of anyone entering.

RELATED: San Francisco Announces $ 90 Million Aid To Aid To Renters In The COVID-19 Pandemic

It’s one of 25 hotels across the city that closed when San Francisco was shut down by the pandemic and was later rented by the city with federal COVID emergency funds to shelter thousands of people at the peak camped on the streets during the pandemic.

79 of the hotel’s 96 rooms are currently occupied.

“It’s a come-and-go situation, people are switching in and out, but we also need rooms on each floor for an office,” said Steve Good, CEO of Five Keys, the nonprofit that runs the hotel.

“It’s all part of a coordinated access system in San Francisco,” says Good.

“When the pandemic really started to take hold well over a year ago, the city had to act quickly to get as many of the 6,000 or so homeless people off the streets and it was a win-win as you had the tourist season completely Thrown off the cliff, we had caterers and food service folks out of business so we had a huge problem with the fear of the COVID threat so the city responded in May and opened a number of hotels and location 35 became one of the Accommodation in the hotel, “says Good.

RELATED: Governor Newsom Signs Affordable Housing Bill

What do you get when you come to a hotel like this: “You all get a private room, some hotels are different from others, but each of these rooms has at least one double bed. It has a TV, a sink, and a full bathroom, “says Good.

Site 35, as they call it, provides food, laundry, and medical care to residents. Everything on site.

“All the rooms that you see are marked with different notations, once a day wellness check, from 9:00 p.m., how many guests are in the room, whether there are special needs such as medical needs, physical needs or dietary restrictions or whether there is a pet, “says Good.

Well said “Site 35” is actually one of the quieter homeless hotels.

But it still has problems.

“Guest disputes. Sometimes there are couples who live together in larger places, sometimes there can be noise at night, something like in every household or apartment, it’s not really different. ”Gut says.

There are also psychological problems and drug problems.

“Unfortunately it’s pretty high. You know drug and alcohol problems aren’t the cause of homelessness per se, but now with Covid and hotels, more than 80 percent suffer from one or the other or a combination of” the two, “says Good.

RELATED: California is removing all capacity limits and physical distancing requirements effective June 15th

What about drug overdoses?

“Unfortunately, that’s a real problem.” Good says.

Drug overdoses are trending to break new records in San Francisco. 700 people died in 2020 and more than 250 people this year. Health officials say it is a by-product of a fentanyl crisis that is gripping the country. The opening up of these hotels to the homeless has likely resulted in them overdosing on the streets.

“We saved 155 lives,” says Good. But they also lost about 20 people to overdosing from 8 locations in San Francisco.

Violence is rare, the staff here are trained in de-escalation techniques. When they need help, they called the police.

“The big thing is trust and respect. They are people, ”says one employee during his meeting.

For the residents here, a roof over their heads is better than being exposed to the street

“It’s beautiful – they really treat us – it’s a blessing to have these people,” said one woman who joined the program after 10 years on the street.

For them and the others there is now a home in every former hotel room. A home that many do not want to leave – even if it means having their own apartment.

Good estimates suggest that only around 30 to 40% of current residents will ever have the sole destination.

“And that could be an optimistic guess,” says Good.

Means a hotel room – can be the best long-term solution to a short-term problem.

The result: the hotel program costs roughly the same as the $ 200 to $ 300 a night a tourist would spend per night.

But “we also provide care, we offer help and support around the clock,” says Good.

VACCINE TRACKER: How California is doing when you can get a coronavirus vaccine

Having trouble loading the above tracker? Click here to open it in a new window.

RELATED STORIES & VIDEOS:

Copyright © 2021 KGO-TV. All rights reserved.

The post ABC7 Information Unique: Inside take a look at former San Francisco vacationer lodge become homeless shelter appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center, housed in fabric and aluminum enclosures made by Sprung Structures, opened in December 2019 despite objections from neighbors in the affluent section of the city. (Marc Lester / ADN)

SAN FRANCISCO — In a neighborhood of $2 million condos with views of San Francisco Bay, a pair of white aluminum-frame tents offer a refuge for the unhoused.

Two hundred miles east in Reno, a fast-growing high-desert city Anchorage’s size, a massive tented shelter recently opened to house more than 500 of the city’s homeless citizens.

As Anchorage continues searching for solutions to its growing and seemingly intractable homelessness problems, it is far from alone. In recent years, West Coast cities large and small have seen steep increases in the numbers of people living outside. Now, some cities are channeling a surge in pandemic federal aid to bolster their ability to shelter the homeless.

With pressure in Anchorage to decommission a mass shelter at Sullivan Arena by fall, the new administration of Mayor Dave Bronson wants to build a city-owned shelter for the first time. The administration has proposed a large new facility on East Tudor Road to shelter and offer one-stop services and support to hundreds of clients. The project represents a major expansion of the city’s role.

“We do police. We do fire. Guess what?” Bronson told a crowd last month. “Now we do homeless.”

Security staff member Stephen Duadua talks with a guest at the Nevada Cares Campus in Reno on June 23, 2021. (Marc Lester / ADN)

In formulating the plan presented to the Anchorage Assembly last month, city homeless coordinator John Morris and other city leaders have borrowed from the strategies of other cities.

Those cities include Reno, whose newly opened shelter approximates the grand scale of the one envisioned for Anchorage, and San Francisco, which operates smaller shelters with many services and amenities known as “navigation centers.”

As plans take shape here, service providers and homeless people in California and Nevada offer a glimpse into what’s working — and what isn’t — in their cities.

Bronson, a conservative, campaigned on clearing Anchorage streets of what he termed “vagrants” and spoke of jailing homeless people for minor crimes.

When the campaigning ended, his plans took a far different focus: His administration announced a plan to construct a $15 million shelter for up to 450 people in a parking lot on Anchorage Police Department property off Tudor, just east of Elmore Road.

For decades, the shelter system in Anchorage relied on people hoping for an overnight cot lining up at shelters run by faith-based nonprofits in the afternoon or evening, spending the night and then leaving in the morning.

The new shelter would take a radically different approach, one that has been implemented at Sullivan Arena over the past 15 months. The idea is to impose fewer rules to bring more people in, and to keep them involved with lots of on-site services, from laundry to medical detox to assistance securing long-term housing.

“This is a sea change,” Bronson said recently.

Both Reno and San Francisco hold lessons for Anchorage.

The Nevada Cares Campus includes a 46,000-square-foot Sprung Structure to provide shelter to Reno’s homeless people. (Marc Lester / ADN)

San Francisco’s shelter seemed to work well in part because of its small size, and residents say it provides comfort and dignity. But there are still few post-shelter options for permanent housing.

A month after its opening, Reno’s mass campus is still working out kinks and city officials are at odds with activists who say clearing of homeless camps in the city has traumatized an already vulnerable population. While not everyone is willing to stay there, those who do say it’s an improvement from the instability of the streets.

Anchorage homeless coordinator Morris said he visited Reno and found the shelter “very reasonable” but hopes to build something that operates more like one of the smaller San Francisco shelters. He stresses the vision is practical, not political.

“Don’t use the P word,” said Morris, half-joking. “Don’t say the P word.”

The P word is “progressive.”

Mae Anonuevo is a guest at the Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center in San Francisco on June 21, 2021. She said she spent more than a decade homeless on San Francisco streets. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Mae Anonuevo sat on a bed neatly stacked with her belongings, her shoes lined up on the floor.

She and her partner had been homeless in San Francisco for more than a decade, she said. They kept their belongings in luggage carts, moving from alley to street corner to alley. It was exhausting.

“There were times that I worked. That was the hardest, being out in the street, working just like you,” said Anonuevo. She’d show up early to work to use the restrooms, always wondering about the belongings she had left somewhere. At the Embarcadero, she can keep the things she cares about — like an arrangement of dried flowers from a friend — with her.

Anonuevo has been living at the Embarcadero SAFE Center, a 200-bed shelter in the upscale waterfront district near Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, since before the pandemic.

The organization that runs the shelters for the city says it strives to give every visitor a “five-star hotel treatment,” said Megan Phalon, site director for the center.

The Embarcadero center isn’t quite that, but it hasn’t brought the blight the neighborhood feared when it opened in 2019. But because of the pandemic, it’s also operating far under capacity.

The Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center is located near condominium towers near the San Francisco Bay waterfront. (Marc Lester / ADN)

San Francisco has one of the most severe homelessness crises on the West Coast, with more than 8,000 unsheltered people in the city at last count. In 2015, grappling with a growing public backlash, former mayor Ed Lee launched “navigation centers” meant to offer a safe, secure shelter for people on the way to permanent housing.

Navigation centers operate differently from a traditional shelter, where people line up outside for a bed and meal in the evening and are expelled from the property during the daytime.

Here, city street outreach teams meet unhoused people, talk with them about their situation and bring handpicked clients to the Embarcadero center — no walk-ins are allowed. Most of those invited are considered “chronically homeless,” meaning they’ve been on the street for many years, said Megan O’Neill, housing manager for Five Keys, the nonprofit that runs the center.

“This is probably not the first shelter that they’ve stayed in,” she said. “The model is really designed to attract people who wouldn’t necessarily be interested in staying in a traditional shelter.”

Many have been kicked out of other housing or shelters, she said.

Meg O’Neill is a housing services director for Five Keys, which operates the Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center for the city of San Francisco. “The model is really designed to attract people who wouldn’t necessarily be interested in staying in a traditional shelter, ’ O’Neill said. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Locked trailers at the Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center allow for guests to store their belongings. Guests can also store items beneath their beds and in lockers. (Marc Lester / ADN)

At the site, the vibe is more college dormitory than homeless shelter. Inside corrugated metal fencing around the perimeter, residents eat lunch in an airy space with offices, modern furniture, books and TV.

In the sleeping area, everyone gets a bed with a thick mattress, rather than a cot. Couples can stay together. People are allowed to bring in their accumulated possessions, which can be securely stored in lockers. Additional items are held in locked trailers on site. Pets of all kinds are allowed — pit bulls and Chihuahuas stroll on leashes in a courtyard strung with sparkly lights.

Guests can grab something to eat whenever they want, rather than lining up for a plate at dinnertime. Medical and behavioral health workers visit. Residents can attend dog training classes, join a gardening club or go to bingo.

The shelter is “low-barrier,” so some of the usual things that might get a person kicked out of a traditional shelter, such as bringing in drugs, won’t get you expelled from the SAFE Center.

The idea is to knock down every possible barrier that might keep a homeless person from coming to a shelter and getting help. It’s worth trying something different, said Phalon.

“I think history kind of shows us what we have been doing, across the board, isn’t working.”

Alex Michael spends time with her dogs, Princess Nefertiti and Queen Isabella, in the courtyard of the Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center in San Francisco on June 21, 2021. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Alex Michael pushed a stroller with her two dogs, Queen Nefertiti and Princess Isabella, through the garden courtyard. Michael said she’d been in an apartment but domestic violence pushed her back into homelessness. She’d been to three navigation centers.

Michael said she was in recovery from addiction and questioned the wisdom of letting people use drugs while in city housing, with little intervention. Still, she prefers the Embarcadero center over the hotel rooms in the Tenderloin district that she’d also been offered. Those were full of drugs and felt dangerous, she said.

“I try to turn it around and think well, you know, if I can walk through this and stay off stuff then I win,” she said. “So, each day gets a little easier.”

The Embarcadero center runs on the harm reduction philosophy, said O’Neill, the housing director. It’s understood that clients who are addicted may end up using drugs onsite, though it is discouraged. All navigation center sites offer clean needles. Staff carry doses of Narcan nasal spray, which can halt an opioid overdose, on lanyards around their necks.

“In the past month I’ve had four, and one we had to bring back to life, we had to actually bring him back to life, he died on the bathroom floor,” said Clinton Martin, an onsite manager.

Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center staff member Clinton Martin carries naloxone, a drug used for opioid overdose emergencies, on his lanyard on June 21, 2021. The center uses a ’harm reduction ’ model that aims to keep drug users safe rather than turn them away from the center. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Staff at the navigation centers have reversed 150 overdoses this year, O’Neill said.

Harm reduction is one facet Anchorage leaders are not interested in emulating.

“There will not be drug use in this facility,” Morris said. “That’s just not what we’re about. It’s illegal, for one.”

The Embarcadero center debuted to hostile neighbors. But nearly two years in, it hasn’t become what neighbors feared.

Wallace Lee, an attorney turned stay-at-home dad who lives nearby, is the spokesperson for a group of concerned neighbors who took the city to court over the location of the navigation center. There were tense public meetings in which Mayor London Breed was shouted down during the debate, and twin fundraising efforts by pro- and anti-Embarcadero navigation center factions.

The place has been relatively quiet lately, which Lee said he attributes to lower numbers during the pandemic and a stable population that has been allowed to stay, without cycling in and out every 30 days.

Wallace Lee was part of a group of Embarcadero residents that sued to prevent construction of the navigation center there. He said he hasn’t seen much evidence that the center’s residents are navigating to permanent housing. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Lee still doesn’t see much evidence that the residents of the navigation center are being navigated to long-term housing.

“One of the things that has bothered us with navigation centers is they’re pretending it’s not a homeless shelter but it really is,” he said.

There’s a lot about San Francisco and the Embarcadero that doesn’t translate neatly to the Bronson administration’s proposal for Anchorage.

A courtyard at the Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center provides a sitting area and a garden. The center had about 80 guests in June. (Marc Lester / ADN)

For one, San Francisco’s homelessness problem is so much larger in scale — more than 8,000 unsheltered people in the city alone — that no single site, like the one Anchorage plans, could address it. The city also spends a staggering amount of money on its homelessness efforts: $300 million directly each year. San Francisco Mayor Breed recently announced an additional $1 billion in funding over the next two years.

Morris said the Embarcadero center isn’t a perfect match, but it’s done a lot right.

He sees parallels in the Embarcadero neighborhood relationship: The SAFE Center countered not-in-my-backyard resistance by making an effort to be good neighbors and adopting an admissions process that didn’t incentivize camping or gathering along nearby streets, he said. The idea of offering all the help a person might need — from medical appointments to help getting an ID — onsite is also appealing, Morris said.

Part of what has made the Embarcadero work is its small size, said O’Neill, one of the managers. Built for 200, only 80 people have lived there during the pandemic to preserve social distancing requirements.

Could the model work for 450 people?

“That’s a lot of people,” she said.

Anthony Jean III, a guest at Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center, said his time homeless on San Francisco streets had been frightening. He said he hoped to be able to move from the center to permanent housing. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Anthony Jean III finished lunch in a quiet, light-filled room at the Embarcadero center.

Jean, soft spoken, was from Florida originally but came to California to attend college, he said. He’d been homeless for years in San Francisco, living a frightening and insecure existence in the Tenderloin district.

“You know, once you’re here in the navigation center for six months or so, you do qualify for permanent housing,” he said. It would be worthwhile to stay if he could get help with housing, he thought.

That may not be realistic.

Phalon, the site director, said San Francisco, which has some of the highest rent and home prices in the country, still lacks options for affordable permanent housing for her clientele. The initial promise of navigation centers was that residents would get into some kind of long-term housing after six months. Years later, there’s still nowhere to go after the shelter for many people, she said.

“It’s not true,” she said. “Six years ago, getting into a navigation center meant you got housing.”

The Nevada CARES Campus, a 46,000-square-foot shelter (curved white structure in lower center), provides shelter for homeless people in Reno and Sparks, combined population of about 350,000. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Reno and its next-door neighbor Sparks have a combined population of about 350,000 people — similar in size to Anchorage.

Once dominated by casinos and the gaming industry, Reno’s economy is changing — a Tesla factory moved in nearby — and property values are skyrocketing, with Bay Area tech exiles choosing the area for its lower density and proximity to outdoor recreation. Amid the boom, homelessness is rising.

“Like a lot of western cities, we’re facing an expanding houseless population,” said Reno city manager Doug Thornley.

When it comes to homelessness, Reno and Anchorage have a lot in common: Even before the pandemic, city trails had been taken over by encampments. An old-style shelter had been deemed dangerous by its own manager and — as with Anchorage’s Brother Francis Shelter — was so overcrowded at the outset of the pandemic it couldn’t continue to operate.

Reno decided to take federal CARES Act money and join forces with Washoe County and the city of Sparks to build a large, centralized homeless shelter campus on land at the edge of a gritty strip of low-slung motels to the east of the neon, casino-filled downtown. The structure cost about $9 million and will cost between $6 million and $7 million to operate annually, according to the city. Private security is one of the biggest operational costs of the shelter, at approximately $750,000 per year, said Monica Cochrane of the city of Reno.

Reno selected Sprung Structures, the same maker of tented structures that built San Francisco’s Embarcadero center and is being considered to construct Anchorage’s shelter. Sprung Structures are made from fabric membranes stretched tightly over an aluminum frame, and can have the same plumbing, electrical, heating and ventilation of traditional buildings. The city council approved funding in November 2020 and the shelter opened in May. The tent itself went up in just 32 days.

The Nevada CARES Campus was built to shelter 600 people in Reno, Nevada. In late June, more than 500 people were staying there.(Marc Lester / ADN)

The structure is huge. Inside double doors, a sea of cots for up to 604 people stretches from tented wall to wall. A high ceiling floods the space with natural light. There are smaller partitioned areas for couples and women. As in San Francisco, dogs are allowed and property can be stored on site.

With hundreds of people staying at the CARES Campus, experiences vary. But on a recent afternoon, several guests said the giant shelter had provided a respite from encampment life.

Linda Sandoval said she lived by the river or in her car for more than three years. “Oh my God,” she recalled thinking as she walked into the shelter for the first time, “it’s a roof over my head, but look at how big it is.”

Sandoval said the center could use more staff to prevent theft and fights, but she appreciates that she can stay with her husband, Daniel, dog Jack, and work with case managers, she said.

Alberto Richard said the look of the Sprung Structure reminds him of an “alien abduction crisis center.” But he said he’d gotten help enrolling in community college and securing housing. He thought he could move in a few days.

Danny Dyer said he landed by the railroad tracks because he couldn’t afford Reno rent.

“There was thieves out there all the time,” he said. “You had to worry about getting robbed. You had to worry about getting beat up.”

Danny Dyer’s dogs jump on him at the Nevada CARES Campus in Reno on June 23, 2021. Dyer said he had been staying by the train tracks in Reno, where he worried about getting robbed and beat up, he said. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Jesse Kramer writes phone numbers and other information in his notebook at the Nevada CARES Campus. ’I’m just trying to get my life together. I know there’s resources, ’ he said of the facility. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Linda Sandoval holds her dog, Jack, at the Nevada CARES Campus in Reno on June 23, 2021. Sandoval said she had been homeless for three and a half years camping by a river or in her car. She appreciates the shelter, she said. ’Nobody likes to live filthy, even if you’re homeless, ’ she said. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Anchorage’s proposal mirrors Reno’s in key ways: Anchorage wants to build a Sprung Structures campus for about 450 people, as Reno has. It needs to do it fast, as Reno did. It will be a welcome-all-comers walk-in shelter, a big difference from San Francisco’s controlled-entry approach.

Still, Morris is emphatic that Anchorage is not trying to recreate the CARES Campus.

“That’s not what we’re looking for,” he said. “This is an opportunity to, yes, accomplish shelter, but also to help people while they’re there.”

Reno has an official count of 780 unhoused people, but providers say the true number is likely closer to 1,000 to 1,500 unsheltered people, similar to Anchorage.

The city also has some of the same issues with homelessness: Before the shelter went up, the Truckee River trail, a prized greenbelt along a river that bisects the city, had become rife with lawless encampments. One, under the Wells Bridge, stretched for blocks, spilling onto land near the railroad tracks.

“That is a thing folks in Reno had made their feelings known about,” said Thornley, the city manager.

Until the city provided enough beds to shelter homeless people, it could not clear camps under a U.S. 9th Circuit court decision that held unsheltered people cannot be punished for sleeping outside in the absence of an alternative. The ruling has shaped policies across the West, including in Anchorage where in 2019 the city began tracking shelter bed availability and halting camp abatement when no beds are available.

In the weeks since the new shelter opened, Reno has resumed “sweeping” camps.

Local activists have protested, saying the new shelter isn’t right for everyone and tearing down camps is cruel.

“This facility isn’t ready, there’s no laundry here,” said Ilya Arbatman, a Reno activist. “I mean there’s a million things that aren’t here — it’s not ready for 500 people.”

A small homeless encampment sits outside the Nevada CARES Campus entrance on June 23, 2021. Some members of Reno’s homeless community said they aren’t interested in staying inside the facility. The city cleared several large encampments in Reno once the Cares Campus opened in May. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Just outside the fence of the CARES Campus, a block-long encampment of tents and shopping carts has developed. The people inside don’t want to go to the shelter, each with a unique reason. But they want to be close to the showers and meals on offer. The campers had been notified they’d be cleared from the sidewalk in days, Arbatman said.

In May, Morris of Anchorage visited the 46,000-square-foot Reno CARES Campus. He said the shelter was “very reasonable” but verged on “warehousing people.”

“We walked in, I walked through the building, I walked back out and said, ‘There’s been a mistake. This isn’t what we want to do,’ ” Morris said.

Matthew Tittor holds his artwork near the Wells Avenue Bridge over the Truckee River on June 23, 2021. The area was the site of a large homeless encampment before it was cleared by the city. Tittor, who camped nearby, said he had no interest in staying at the Nevada CARES Campus. (Marc Lester / ADN)

James McKinney stays in a new sanctioned tent camping facility a few blocks from the Nevada CARES Campus on June 24, 2021. ’I’m a very private person, and I just couldn’t do it, ’ McKinney said of staying at the large facility. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Not everyone will come to the CARES Campus.

At the Wells Bridge, one of the largest pre-shelter encampments had long since been dismantled. In its place, there are burn scars in the scrub around the railroad tracks, syringe caps and ground squirrels.

A few people still wander down to the Truckee River. Matthew Tittor walked up, carrying a painting of a street-racing scene. He knew about the shelter but couldn’t imagine staying inside, “bed to bed to bed to bed,” he said.

The city wants to offer something for people like Tittor, an invitation to help that doesn’t count on someone being willing to sleep in a room full of other people.

At a site a block or two from the Reno shelter, an organization called Karma Box has set up a row of basic tents. There’s security at the entrance, bathrooms and a shaded area for eating.

Courtney Govan walks to his tent at a new sanctioned tent camping site a few blocks from the Nevada CARES Campus on June 24, 2021. He said he prefers it to the large shelter. ’I get my own privacy. I can shut my door, ’ he said. (Marc Lester / ADN)

The safe-camping site aims to get people who aren’t willing to use the shelter to accept some kind of help, in a place safer and more constant than the streets, said Karma Box executive director Grant Denton. Denton is a former meth and heroin addict who spent years homeless in Las Vegas.

Courtney Govan counts himself among the first residents of the sanctioned camping site. Drug addiction has kept him from being the father he’d like to be, he said. He has turned to petty crime to get by, and has made enemies on the streets. The sanctioned camping site tents are in the hot sun, but they allow him some distance from the pressures waiting elsewhere in Reno. He says his friendship with Denton feels like one of the only things he’s got going in his favor.

Back at the CARES Campus, Pat Cashell is thinking about what’s next for the shelter. The facility needs more case managers, a medical clinic and onsite laundry, among other amenities. Cashell, the shelter manager for Volunteers of America, wants it to work.

Pat Cashell spent ten years on the street in Reno. Now he oversees the Nevada CARES Campus for Volunteers of America. It provides shelter to more than 500 homeless people. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Once he was homeless and addicted in Reno, too — while his father was the mayor. His family never gave up on him, he said. When he decided to finally get help, his dad summoned him to his office. He arrived to find his father had called a press conference to announce his son was finally getting help for his addiction, Cashell says.

Former Mayor Bob Cashell died last year, just before the pandemic changed the world and forced Reno to confront its homelessness problems. Pat Cashell doesn’t want to let his dad’s legacy down.

“This will be a place of change,” he said.

The post As Anchorage debates opening a mass homeless shelter, potential classes come from Reno and San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.