80 Additional Shelter Beds Available During Severe Weather Events

MARIN COUNTY, CA – There will be food and shelter beds for an additional 80 homeless people in Marin County during a severe weather event this winter.

The additional food and shelter will supplement the 190 year-round shelter beds that are available during severe weather events.

Severe weather events include temperatures dropping below an average nighttime low of 38 degrees; when the severe conditions are expected to last for a minimum of three days; and when other conditions exist, such as significant rainfall equivalent to an inch of driving rain, severe wind chills or extreme temperature fluctuations.

Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis will make the severe weather declarations, and alternative shelter arrangements will be made on demand for un-sheltered families.

The Marin County Department of Health and Human Services and Novato-based nonprofit Homeward Bound of Marin will provide the additional shelter at the Marin County Health and Wellness campus at 3240 Kerner Blvd. in San Rafael. Homeward Bound employees will staff the center when it is utilized during severe weather events.

Marin County officials previously worked with houses of worship and nonprofits to provide a Rotating Emergency Shelter Team program between November and April.

Last winter the county and its partners created a system to streamline entry into permanent housing and adopted a Housing First initiative to prioritize placing chronically homeless people into permanent housing.

Marin County's Whole Person Care Division and the Marin Housing Authority brought 73 new permanent supportive housing vouchers online.

Seventy chronically homeless people in the county were connected to permanent housing in the 12 months since the launch of the coordinated effort.

Thirty-eight of the 70 people are former participants in the Rotating Emergency Shelter Team program, Whole Person Care director Ken Shapiro said.

"All the partners in the Marin County homeless system of care are focused on ending chronic homelessness," Shapiro said. "The most humane response to the crisis of homelessness is housing."

By Bay City News Service

Photo: Under the new agreement, the Marin County Health and Wellness Campus at 3240 Kerner Boulevard in San Rafael will be the location of an emergency surge shelter when needed. Photo via County of Marin