Good News Rescue Mission Breaks Ground for Veda Street Village Micro Shelter Site
The Mission is one of three organizations that will operate micro shelters in the City. Together, the projects will eventually add a total of thirty transitional housing placements for the homeless.
Good News Rescue Mission Director Jonathan Anderson spoke to a crowd of more than fifty on Tuesday morning, October 8, as the Mission broke ground at the corner of Veda and Spruce streets in downtown Redding.
The approximately half-acre parcel of land behind some of the Mission’s other buildings is slated to hold seventeen micro shelters. The small homes won’t have kitchens or bathrooms, Anderson explained, but Mission services will be available for their residents just across the street. The homes should be ready for occupancy in January 2025, Redding City Council member and Mission Construction Manager Joshua Johnson said.
The construction costs for the project have been partially funded by the City of Redding, which also used state Encampment Resolution Funds (ERF) to purchase nine of the shelters to be erected at the site. Use of state funds necessitates that the faith-based Mission must follow state housing rules when it comes to operating the micro shelters, City Manager Barry Tippin explained while speaking to Shasta Scout after the event.
As a private nonprofit, the Mission has long set its own rules for serving the homeless. That’s changing, at least for some parts of the operation, as the Mission begins to utilize government money. Tippin said the City is “working closely” with the Mission to ensure that state-funded programs, including both the micro shelters and a temporary day resource center, are “kept separate” from other Mission services to ensure that government money isn’t being used for programs that aren’t in compliance with state rules.
While that might satisfy the letter of the law, Tippin said he’s well aware that it presents a confusing picture to Mission clients, members of the unhoused community who might not be able to easily differentiate between which programs use which rules. That’s one reason, he explained, why the City is encouraging the Mission to form a separate nonprofit organization for city-funded projects.
While Shasta County’s past was about “arresting our way” out of illegal camping, Tippin said, new state laws reducing incarceration have changed that. At the same time, available state funds for homelessness response, Tippin continued, now require providing both accessible services and actual housing.
It’s a change of approach, he indicated, that is requiring an ongoing shift in mindset for Redding’s housed community. As far as Redding’s unhoused community, he said, they’ll have to see the new approach in action before they begin to develop more trust.
“This change in direction and separation of the traditional Mission program and other (city-funded) programs that they’re embarking on will take a little while,” Tippin explained. “But when the (permanent) day resource center opens its doors, hopefully some of that narrative has already started to change. Clearly that needs to occur . . . I believe that will (also) lead to better participation from other providers.”
Veda Street Village is one of three micro shelter housing projects that have been approved by the City of Redding since a “shelter crisis” was declared three years ago to facilitate zoning changes. So far only eight of the mini-residences are up-and-running.
The United Way of Northern California is operating the eight-bed South Market Street Micro Shelter Community off Mark Street in downtown Redding. And a five-bed Goodwater Crossing Micro Shelter site will soon open behind St. James Lutheran Church on Shasta View Drive, pending liability insurance approval, spokesperson Katie Swarz said.
“We have people lined up for our shelters, we just need to get this last thing approved,” she explained.
All three micro shelter sites will use City-approved policies and draw on some city funding, paired with other funding sources. The programs are designed to provide housing with case management services for up to ten months in order to facilitate residents’ transitions to permanent housing settings.
According to data shared yesterday, October 8, by members of the Shasta Advisory Board of the NorCal Continuum of Care (CoC), more than half of Shasta County’s unhoused population has physical or mental disabilities that qualify them for what’s known as supportive housing, meaning housing that comes with built-in social services to provide support. It’s a statistic that reinforces the importance of inclusive policies and strong case management services at all city-funded housing sites.
Finding appropriate permanent housing for previously unhoused residents after their micro shelter stay remains a significant challenge. As noted by the CoC’s Shasta Advisory Board, permanent supportive housing is in very short supply, County-wide.
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“Many newer prisons have based their cell sizes on new standards suggested or set by various institutions, state agencies, and industry groups. For example, a minimum of 80 square feet of living space (of which 35 feet are unencumbered) has been recommended as a minimum standard by the American Correctional Association.”
https://www.bscc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/ADULT_Title_24_Part_2.pdf
I was at the Redding City Council meeting where Jim Dahl made Dave Honey get up and speak in favor of criminalizing homelessness here with a fine or jail time or both! And that’s just what the City of Redding did. What have you done with the blind girl staying at the mission? NOTHING!
Yea for getting 17+ more persons off the streets of Redding…However, if no bathrooms and showers are close at hand then that’s the beginning of a potential failure; especially for privacy and inclement weather. The micro-shelters operated by the United Way on Ellis St. have a shower & bathroom facility within feet of their clients. So will the St. James housing community. I didn’t see anything about a fenced area for clients dogs. Dogs are street folks family and protection. GNRM needs to operate a complete housing scheme….showers and area for dogs.
thanks for doing something for the homeless of Shasta county at least talking about the problem has made some progress.
What do you mean by this?
Although I do agree with Robert that this entire article was nothing more than a photo opp and puff piece in a somewhat pathetic effort to show a more humanitarian side of our corrupt local government, just prior to the elections, that is where my agreement ends. Larger prisons and mental hospitals are not the answer for the ever growing population of unhoused humans, housing however, is the answer. By simply rounding up those that have both given up on everyday society and whom society has given up, and forcing them into places that are guarding them does no one any good. It is costly, and by a keeping people in any form of lockup, you inhibit their ability to pursue change, let alone want it. Let’s focus on getting folks off the street, out of the dirt, and then let’s talk about their “case management.” The thing about it is, the city funding going towards these programs is mostly spent on these “case” workers, I use “” because it is sad that that really is the best determined by our society. What it is, a “case”? I have always been under the impression that a case is something brought against you when you commit a crime. So is not having a home a crime? The truth is to the people that this is all supposed to be helping that not the case, it is very much their life. Sure to most, it might not look like much, maybe that they did it to themselves, or they made a series of pretty bad decisions at some point during their journey, and if you had asked the person whose life we were trying to help, they would agree, but most of the time,these “case” managers don’t. They simply assign them a number and refer to their lives as “cases”.
Here is an idea, rather than micro shelters, for the 8,000 plus homeless in the area, how about I don’t know, utilize existing infrastructure right here in Redding. In fact I’m sure their are already a few residents in some of the easily convertible spaces. There is a large boarded up motel on end of Park Marina Dr, falling to shambles. I know most of the local politicos have to know about it, as they have covered the area in their campaign posters. Why not… and I know the idea may seem just absurd, but turn that into a viable, much more than micro shelter. Each room could fairly easily be converted to a miniature apartment, including it’s very own bathroom. The property is large enough to include offices for “case” workers and a community meeting room in which supportive group services and meetings can be held. It really wouldn’t take all that much to get the building up to code, and turn it from a boarded up eyesore that is for all purposes being used for shelter by a few folks, into a vibrant community with a common goal of not allowing either the building or the people whom live in it to fall back down and continue to deteriorate. I’m sure if we can rezone for a groundbreaking at the prices we as taxpayers are paying, that we can rezone a motel into a shelter. Yes, there may be some push back from the surrounding businesses, but let’s face it that area is already a hub and hotspot for the shelter less people of Redding. If we do not make proactive steps to get everyone their most basic needs, what does it say about the rest of our community? Because the truth is a society isn’t judged by set up photos of elected jackholes in way too expensive of clothing, it is ultimately judged how we treat the those most down and out and lowliest.
Why call them homes when they are not, they are pallet shelters. This money and all the other micro shelter money could have gone to a new Building with better accommodations where women felt safe and family units could stay together and have an office building that’s not some modern coffee shop. But this is not about helping it is about looking like the hero.
No bathrooms. That’s not useful.
And while I applaud the city for doing more for the homeless, I am unhappy that religious groups are getting taxpayer funds.
I agree completely Katy. I envision 5 gallon plastic outside the front doors.
Simply a virtue signal to help the wealthy Elites feel good about themselves at taxpayer’s expense. This is enablement and holds no merit.
What we need is a mental health facility and a bigger jail. Sadly, our current slate of inept and
corrupt board members have failed us by placing their own pet projects and narrow ideology over against public safety.