New spot discussed for homeless housing
One in a series of occasional stories about the Friendship Shelter and Jamboree Housing Corp.’s proposed 40-unit homeless facility.
Proponents of a facility that would house 40 chronically homeless people in Laguna Beach will seek the city’s feedback on a location closer to downtown than the site being considered in Laguna Canyon.
During a recent community meeting to discuss the permanent supportive housing project, a resident suggested that officials consider an employee lot behind City Hall, Friendship Shelter Executive Director Dawn Price said recently. That is where a parking structure had been slated to be built until it was dropped from plans for a beautification effort known as the Village Entrance Project.
Representatives from the shelter and developer Jamboree Housing Corp., who are teaming up on homeless housing plans, are hoping to build a facility for clients who have severe mental or physical disabilities and have been homeless for a year or longer or homeless four times in the past three years.
“We agreed to take the idea to the City Council,” Price said. “It would be the city’s decision on whether to consider the location of the former Village Entrance parking structure. At this time, we are moving ahead with the proposed site [in Laguna Canyon] because that is the site the council directed us to look at.”
The canyon location is a 2-acre plot where the city’s overnight emergency shelter — the Alternative Sleeping Location — sits. The ASL, which can sleep 45, would be incorporated into the project and its capacity reduced to 35.
The Friendship Shelter operates the ASL along with a temporary housing facility for 32 adults on South Coast Highway.
In April, the council asked shelter and Jamboree officials to hold public meetings, gather feedback and report back.
The stakeholders looked at several spots in Laguna, but chose the canyon location because it would have the least effect on single-family residences, Friendship Shelter board member Marshall Ininns said around that time.
Several residents said they are concerned about the canyon location, noting that clients would have farther to travel for daily errands and the journey could jeopardize their safety since Laguna Canyon Road doesn’t have a designated sidewalk.
Price said the site near City Hall wasn’t considered initially because the city had rejected the spot in 2009 as a place for the ASL after the public opposed it.
She suggested that a van could be provided to help clients get downtown from the canyon, similar to the service offered to seniors in Laguna, Price said.
“It could be a community-building opportunity. A group of people could grocery shop together,” she said.
Penny Milne, who has lived in the canyon for several years, supports the goal of helping people with mental and physical disabilities, but questions the proposed site near the ASL.
Milne said she worries that residents would be in harm’s way if a flood occurs in the canyon, as has happened in the past.
She also has concerns about the proposed two-story structure clashing with the canyon’s existing makeup of single-family homes mixed with small businesses. Design plans have yet to be prepared.
“We marched and walked to tax ourselves to protect the canyon [from excessive development],” Milne said. “The city promised residents in the Laguna Canyon Annexation Area Specific Plan that development will be small-scale and rural.”
Critics of the 30-unit artist live-work project, which is proposed to be built a few hundred yards from the proposed permanent supportive housing site, raised similar concerns about incompatibility with the small-scale ideal.
The City Council ordered the Planning Commission, with public input, to examine that part of the specific plan in the coming months and more specifically define “rural” and “small-scale.”
The estimated cost of building the 40 units for the chronically homeless is $11 million, Jamboree senior project manager Vicky Ramirez wrote in an email, with funding expected to come from private investors as well as federal, state and county agencies that support affordable housing.
The project would be Jamboree’s largest facility of its kind, said Helen Cameron, said special-needs resident manager for Jamboree which partners with H.O.M.E.S, Orange County’s first provider of permanent supportive housing.
H.O.M.E.S. offers supportive independent living to 63 people in six houses and two multifamily apartment communities, which include 25 units in Anaheim (Diamond Apartments) and 29 in Midway City (Jackson Aisle Apartments), according to its website.
Diamond Apartments in Anaheim opened in 2008 and has seen low turnover among its residents, about two per year, said Shannon Peterson, Jamboree’s supervisor for special-needs residents.
The Anaheim and Midway City facilities are in more populated areas than the Laguna Canyon site and, in the case of Jackson Aisle, residents can walk one block to a shopping center.
Each resident at the Laguna location would have an assigned case manager who keeps regular office hours. The ratio of case manager to client would be no more than 15 to 1. In addition to case managers, there would be resident services coordinators available on-site seven days a week and access to staff around the clock.
At the facilities, residents share household chores and do their own shopping, cooking and medication management. All residents are expected to participate in structured activities outside the home at least 20 hours each week. These would include volunteer or paid work, school or vocational programs, 12-step groups, treatment appointments and religious services.
Councilwoman Toni Iseman expressed concern about the consequences of clients not taking their psychiatric medications.
Only licensed healthcare facilities can monitor a patient’s medication, Cameron said. If a client appears to be a danger to himself or herself, fellow residents can call a special county team of law enforcement officers and psychiatric workers to intervene, she added.
“These are very experienced people who are used to dealing with mental illness,” she said about the professionals. “We’re very concerned for safety, both outside and inside the community.”
Neighbors often look out for each other, Peterson said.
“Other residents will tell us if someone is not doing well,” Peterson said. “People take care of each other.”
When told about the former parking structure site as a possible place for the homeless facility during a phone conversation Wednesday, Rock Martin Custom Jewelry owner Michael McFadden laughed.
“That is ludicrous,” said McFadden, whose business is on Forest Avenue. “It is not conducive to the village atmosphere and would not be pleasant for tourism.”
Laguna resident Carroll McGorkey suggested project planners consider the shuttered Los Pinos Conservation Camp in the Cleveland National Forest as a possible site. The camp was a juvenile detention facility until it closed in 2009.
Orange County has paid nearly $1.5 million for maintenance and security since Los Pinos closed, even though the facility is vacant, said Ed Harrison, public information officer for the county’s probation department.
As McGorkey wonders whether Laguna can hold any more people, he said this could be the solution.
“If Laguna does not have carrying capacity, maybe we can cooperate with other cities and take over Los Pinos,” he said.
[For the record, 9:30 a.m. July 9: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Jamboree Housing Corp. and Friendship Shelter’s proposed 40-unit homeless facility in Laguna Beach would not have on-site staff. In addition to case managers, there would be resident services coordinators available on-site seven days a week and access to staff around the clock.
It was also incorrectly reported that Helen Cameron founded H.O.M.E.S. Inc., Orange County’s first provider of permanent supportive housing, in 1985. Cameron, special-needs resident manager, was not the founder and joined the organization in 1999. ]