Winter Homeless Shelter Approved In Walnut Creek

WALNUT CREEK, CA — The sixth annual Trinity Center evening winter shelter is set to operate from Dec. 14 through March 31, 2021, with Tuesday night's approval of a license for the Walnut Creek-based nonprofit to use the National Guard armory near Civic Park to provide overnight shelter for as many as 50 people nightly.

Trinity Center is a daytime non-residential program providing case management, home and job referral services, two meals a day, clothing, non-perishable food, and access to telephone and mail for people who are either homeless or at risk of losing their homes.

Those who receive services are vetted first, and are considered "members."

The center does not operate an overnight shelter most of the year, but has done so each of the past five winters, the last four at the armory building.

The Trinity Center is not operated by the city. The city of Walnut Creek is involved with licensing the armory, however, because state law allows the state Military Department to license outside use or armories only to either a county or a city.

The Walnut Creek City Council approved the agreement Tuesday night.

The winter program has typically hosted 20 to 30 people each night. But that could change given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Required social distancing may cut that number, Trinity officials said.

Other changes are likely, too, including not allowing volunteers to help, increasing cleaning at the armory and adjusting the transportation of clients to and from the shelter each night, according to a city staff report.

The evening winter shelter is designed to give homeless people living in camps, under bridges, along creek banks and in cars in the Walnut Creek area protection from cold and wet winter weather.

During those four months, the National Guard armory will be open from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. each day; clients are brought to and taken from the Trinity Center armory, and have no in-and-out privileges during the night except for job-related reasons or for medical emergencies.

No drop-ins will be allowed; all participants register ahead of time and are members of Trinity Center.

The need for such services continues to rise. Homelessness was up 3 percent in Contra Costa County in 2019 over the previous year, Contra Costa County Homeless Services data indicates an increasing number of homeless and a continued shortage of emergency beds.

Early data from the county's 2020 "point in time" homeless count in January show the numbers down slightly across the county, Contra Costa Health Services spokesman Karl Fischer said Wednesday.

This year's count turned up 2,277 homeless people, split almost evenly between west, central and east county.

About three quarters of those homeless are "unsheltered," generally sleeping outside, according to county data.

Approval of the Trinity Center license agreement was on the Walnut Creek City Council's consent calendar, and such items aren't usually accompanied by council discussion. But several public speakers Tuesday night praised the armory agreement, with some of them tying it to the police "defunding" discussion taking place in the Bay Area and beyond.

The homeless shelter, several speakers said, is a textbook example of the social services that could benefit from money reallocated from police budgets. More money to the shelter, Mara Flynn suggested, could also mean less need for police.

"Crime will go down if the homeless have a place to sleep at night, and are able to obtain services," Flynn told the council.

Rhiannon Priolini asked, "Why isn't the shelter permanent? Homelessness isn't temporary."

Councilwoman Cindy Silva asked that latter question, too.

City Manager Dan Buckshi answered that the armory isn't available all year round, and that the National Guard still uses it.

In May, Trinity Center moved into the ground floor of a new building, St. Paul's Commons, on Trinity Avenue between downtown Walnut Creek and Interstate Highway 680. The three upper floors of that building host 44 apartments that opened earlier this year. Some of the apartments, built in partnership with the city, Contra Costa County, St. Paul's Episcopal Church and the affordable-housing builder Resources for Community Development, are occupied by formerly homeless people.

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