West Sacramento renovating two former hotels, purchasing one next door for new emergency homeless housing
WEST SACRAMENTO -- Two former hotels along West Capitol Avenue near Poplar Avenue are under construction as city leaders work to create one consolidated site for its homeless emergency housing program.
In addition, the West Sacramento City Council last week unanimously approved the $2.5 million purchase of a third hotel next door at 1841 West Capitol Ave. to add to the existing site.
The city hopes the first round of construction for the first two former hotels will be complete by this summer, while leaders work to finalize a contract for the purchase of the third over the next few weeks.
"The alternative would be that these individuals would be out on the street. We have an opportunity now to have these individuals housed so that we can focus on them getting the supportive services that they need," said Raul Huerta, housing manager for the city's economic development and housing department.
A little fewer than 300 people are homeless in West Sacramento and about 100 stay in the city's emergency hotel housing each night, which is full capacity.
"It's a lot more cost-effective to operate sites that are adjacent to each other because we do pay for security, case management, all those wraparound services," Huerta said.
Two hotels are actively operating as homeless emergency housing about a mile down West Capitol Avenue near Capitol Bowl and Sutter Health Park. Those are the former Flamingo Hotel and Rodeway Inn, set to close by the start of the new year.
"Those sites will eventually shut down. They were never meant to be long-term uses for that purpose," Huerta said. "Once these new sites are available and completed, we will start making that transition. It's going to be a slow transition to make sure we can coordinate all those relocations."
The Rodeway Inn will eventually be knocked down and redeveloped into affordable housing with an estimated 114 units.
It is one of the initial steps kicking off the city's Grand Gateway Master Plan Development, a project that re-imagines this stretch of West Capitol Avenue down to the Tower Bridge and Sutter Health Park.
"This has been planned for many, many years and it's just now we are actually getting a jump start on it," Huerta said.
New housing, shops and restaurants will eventually pop up near the ballpark that will be the temporary new home of the formerly Oakland Athletics through their 2027 season.
The city plans to start relocating the homeless staying at the former Rodeway and Flamingo hotels this fall.
"Being able to get somebody stabilized, really the first piece of that is stabilizing their housing," said Taylor Nelson of the West Sacramento Police Department.
Nelson is the division manager for the department's community outreach and support program, on the ground daily reaching out to the city's unhoused. Their role is to not only let those living in encampments know that the city must enforce a no-camping ban, but also to work diligently to connect them to the services they need.
"Developing rapport is a core function of what my team does. It might be that we go out and talk with somebody ten times before they are in a position that they are ready to start engaging with services," Nelson said.
Nelson said the new site will only house West Sacramento's homeless.
"The vast majority of the referrals for people living in these programs are coming through our encampment outreach — people that our team is encountering day after day at homeless encampments within the city of West Sacramento," Nelson said.
Still, the new consolidated emergency housing site will promote a low-to-no-barrier model, allowing pets and people in active drug addiction to obtain services.
"There are absolutely rules that participants must follow to be in this program but we are meeting people where they are at," Nelson said. "That might mean we have somebody that is using and they have a case manager that's working with them to get to the point where they are ready to engage with substance abuse treatment."
The goal is to offer a secure site that not only offers a roof over the heads of the homeless but a helping hand to get them back on their feet and into society once again.
At full capacity, the site will be able to house about 125 people.
