ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) - The Elk Grove City Council has a good idea of what the community is hoping to see in its proposed permanent homeless shelter.

Now the task is deciding where to locate it.

Council members received a presentation at their Sept. 24 meeting from city staff on conclusion results of Phase 1/ Conceptual Planning of the shelter-siting process, a process involving much community engagement.

That engagement ranged from surveys and three community workshops to individual meetings between community groups that included current and past residents of the current homeless shelter at Calvary Christian Center, along with organizations working in the field.

“We really want to have throughout this shelter process a fair and transparent process,” said Housing and Public Services manager Sarah Bontrager.

The city currently has a lease to operate a homeless shelter at Calvary running through September 2028. Planning for a more permanent shelter began this past July, with staff working with NJA Architecture on not only Phase 1 concepts but also the Phase 2 siting process that runs to next January.

The first phase focused on identifying what services the shelter will need. The number one service identified by community members was mental health counseling but also included addiction recovery and harm reduction, showers and hygiene facilities, and job training and employment support.

The current shelter contract employs a full-time employment specialist to assist individuals with employment services, something they hope to continue at the new facility, according to Bontrager.

An artist’s rendition of the reception area for the proposed Elk Grove permanent homeless shelter. Graphic courtesy of NJA Architecture and City of Elk Grove. Graphic courtesy of NJA Architecture and City of Elk Grove.

Without having a specific location established yet, community members listed aspects of a successful shelter. Those aspects are a shelter with access to public transit, consideration of whether it was near schools or parks, how close it was to hospitals or service providers, and a preference for it to be located on vacant/undeveloped land.

There was “very strong support,” Bontrager said, for family units and a pet-friendly environment, which has worked well in the existing facility to get people to “accept” shelter, along with focusing on building life skills and job training.

Input also included providing an environment that balanced “compassion with accountability,” featured some larger multipurpose space for events and mirrored Elk Grove’s existing spaces.

“Generally, people wanted the shelter to feel connected and integrated into the community rather than isolated, off on its own,” Bontrager said.

Input indicates a low-barrier shelter model, pet friendly with 25 beds for adults (the Calvary facility currently has 35 beds) with five for emergency use, along with four family units separate from the adult spaces.

Also stressed was the desire for a commercial kitchen, something the current shelter does not have, since this would allow for communal dinners and events, and also job training.

In developing conceptual shelter drawings, NJA Architecture Jac Beury and John Vierra visited several current area shelters as well as met with homeless service organizations while receiving community input. The number one concern from these engagements was safety and security for both the community and shelter guests.

Also important was creating restful and transformative spaces for those going through times of trauma, spaces that don’t lead to people feeling institutionalized but rather serve to comfort and to restore dignity.

 

The artist’s renditions above show possible designs for individual and family units in Elk Grove’s proposed permanent homeless shelter. Graphic courtesy of NJA Architecture and City of Elk Grove

“The shared design really matters,” Beury said.

Two proposed floor plans would separate individuals from families, with both having open and inviting indoor and outdoor common spaces. Use of the shelter would be for people with appointments rather than walk-ins, with those arriving at the facility entering a reception area looking more like an office building than an institution.

Family units would be single rooms that could be modified to fit a family’s size, with private showers and restrooms. All living spaces would be pet-friendly, and there would be rooms for instruction and counseling, as well as a computer and job resource room.

With Phase 1 complete, Bontrager said NJA Architecture and city staff are beginning the community engagement process for Phase 2: site selection. Five criteria areas that will be focused on in this part of the process are accessibility, compatibility with surrounding uses, safety and security, proximity to services, and feasibility and cost.

“Site selection is the hard part,” Bontrager said.

So far, the process has whittled down a beginning list of about 130 sites to about 20 in the preliminary assessment phase. Further analysis and public engagement are hoped to reduce this number to eight to 10 sites by November/December, with a final four set for public release in January.

Comments from City Council members after the presentation were favorable. Vice Mayor Sergio Robles said he appreciated the intent to focus on a welcoming and comfortable design, noting what was presented looked more like a wellness center than a homeless shelter.

“That goes a long way (toward healing),” Robles said. “We are putting people first on this.”

Councilman Rod Brewer noted the complex looked like a “campus that could fit into any city.”

Councilman Kevin Spease added that he would like to see consideration be given to the ability to reconfigure the space for other uses should the need for a shelter someday vanish.

 

Graphic courtesy of NJA Architecture and City of Elk Grove.

Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen was not as optimistic, adding that people will always continue to “fall into homelessness” for a variety of reasons.

While praising the community response in Phase 1, the mayor noted that they were aware that the siting phase will likely include “a lot of not-in-my-backyard activism.”

“But we have to do this,” Singh-Allen said about the shelter.