San Jose will use $25.2 million in new state funding to change a downtown resort into housing for homeless residents, the city announced this week.
The 90-area Arena Resort on The Alameda will be obtained by the city working with funding from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Homekey system, which aids metropolitan areas, counties and nonprofits acquire inns, flats and other properties and turn them into homeless housing. The system has awarded funding for 10,000 housing units so much, and this week Newsom said he intends to pour one more $150 million into Homekey coffers.
“We’re doubling down on our country-leading endeavours to deal with the homelessness disaster,” he wrote in a information release. “Homekey has been lifestyle-shifting for countless numbers of men and women — and $150 million in added funding will shelter countless numbers much more, giving them with the significant methods and harmless residing disorders they are worthy of.”
Homekey doled out $846 million in 2020. In September, Newsom introduced yet another $2.75 billion would go out more than the study course of two decades — with about $200 million reserved for Bay Location jobs in the to start with year. If accepted by the legislature, the added $150 million Newsom proposed this 7 days will make a complete of $1.5 billion in grants accessible next calendar year.
“We search forward to an additional $150 million as proposed by the Governor to assistance even a lot more units for people browsing for hope, therapeutic and a spot to connect with dwelling,” California Small business, Client Companies and Housing Company Secretary Lourdes Castro Ramírez wrote in the launch.
Other Homekey awards this week went to the metropolis of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, San Joaquin County, Fresno and Vallejo.
In San Jose, the Arena Hotel quickly will residence homeless individuals as effectively as couples.
“In 2016, San José pioneered a new approach to housing our unhoused neighbors by shopping for and changing inns and motels into dignified dwelling lodging for our most vulnerable residents. That design effectively moved countless numbers of San Joséans off the road,” Mayor Sam Liccardo reported in an emailed assertion. “Governor Newsom’s determination to devote in motel conversions statewide as a result of Homekey provides us an prospect to scale this resolution.”
San Jose acquired $14.5 million in Homekey resources to purchase the SureStay lodge in 2020. That hotel, which had been giving vulnerable residents free rooms to shelter in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, has struggled to changeover to a lengthy-phrase housing model where by residents pay out beneath-industry-amount hire. The changeover stalled when a state lawmaker accused the metropolis of proposing rents that have been too significant and alerted the state’s Division of Housing and Group Development, which agreed. The metropolis disagreed with the state’s assertion, but acquiesced to reassessing its hire construction.
