A proposal is in the works to create one of the largest permanent supportive housing projects in the city. The $41 million building at Seventh and H streets also is poised to become the city's newest single-resident occupancy, or SRO, structure. The infill project would feature sustainable design and materials, so the developers and architects will ask the U.S. Green Building Council to certify it as a sustainable building. But perhaps most unique about the public-private project being devel... Suzanne Artkisser comment-53110 2011-07-10T04:29:52Z 2011-07-10T04:29:52Z "The Homeless" are used to community as they really watch out for each other! When I was homeless, other homeless people HELPED me more than strangers on the street. I think the thing to remember is that this wonderful building will be putting a ROOF OVER THEIR HEADS! Artkisser 2011-07-10T04:29:52Z Ken White comment-27235 2010-05-18T16:57:42Z 2010-05-18T16:57:42Z Your question seems to be "how can I gloss over these 2 things - pride of ownership and long term sustainability (since those will never happen) and what more icing can be put on to make it work, regardless?" but I just don't think it will. As I say - I'm not trying to doom it by my skepticism and I wish it would work. I wish you could instill values into people but some don't want to learn how to fish. On the edges this project seems to have dreamt new icing I hadn't considered... icing which might make this one edible regardless of the cake and I applaud that. Ken White 2010-05-18T16:57:42Z SacRider comment-27223 2010-05-18T06:14:51Z 2010-05-18T06:14:51Z Don't get me wrong I'm ALL FOR getting the homeless off the street, BUT who decided they get to live in brand new cool digs downtown, so near a new supposedly classy development? The worse part of this whole misguided idea is that there's an effort to build out the train station into a cool biz, shop, residential area; and the first thing you do is build a homeless place and health clinic right at the edge of the new development? Make up your mind - do you want to redevelop downtown or just perpetuate the down trodden nature of it? True redevelopment calls for guts, hard decisions, and a determined vision - not cow towing to squeaky advocates and opportunistic developers. There's a level of incompetence here that boggles the mind. These folks are going to be on SSI they are NOT going to be working and therefore have NO NEED to be in the downtown area at all. They can live anywhere, and you can build that clinic anywhere; so why would you park it at the edge of a planned redevelopment? If you want to bring more young professionals and freshly retired people to the downtown area you need to move the SRO's out away from the redevelopment. This land has become too valuable for such a purpose. Lot's of hard working people can't afford to live in new digs downtown - none of whom by the way would pay $500 for a 325 sq ft studio in a bldg half full of formerly homeless people. The point is - living in new digs downtown is NOT a right and should not be deemed as such by the powers that be. I would like to know more about this Portland project like what neighborhood it went into, and how the surrounding area was effected by its presence. Also, How many of these folks are bleeding over from West Sac due to their redevelopment? SacRider 2010-05-18T06:14:51Z Ken White comment-27212 2010-05-17T23:37:24Z 2010-05-17T23:37:24Z "They quarrel, who cannot argue" -GK Chesterton Ken White 2010-05-17T23:37:24Z wilsonmk10 comment-26971 2010-05-13T20:56:43Z 2010-05-13T20:56:43Z So what could you guys get behind - I think I understand your objections - gift of a home vs. earning it; total reliance on taxpayer dollars vs. a plan of long range sustainability - what else would you need to see in order to support a housing initiative? What works? wilsonmk10 2010-05-13T20:56:43Z The Parrhesiac comment-26592 2010-05-10T13:24:59Z 2010-05-10T13:24:59Z Looking at the math - $41 million for 150 units = almost $280,000 per unit in a town where a 1200 SF 3 bedroom home can be easily purchased for $100-140,000, and a condo can be purchased for under $50,000 - and they could easily be managed by SHRA which already has 3-6000 units (they are hard to nail down on how many units they have, they don’t like people to know - even when they are given a public records request) Also keep in mind that in government - budgets NEVER are accurate so the $41 million will end up costing $60 Million - which most likely will be fully financed via future TIF revenue - which means interest on the $40-60 million - which means $100 million for the building - not including maintenance and upkeep. SHRA will forgive most if not all of the loans = But taxpayers will be left holding th bag and paying off Mercy's building in full (they do this in almost every transaction they do) = The taxpayers paying $400,000 + per unit when it’s all said and done. Kinda makes me want to become homeless. The Parrhesiac 2010-05-10T13:24:59Z bbbbmer comment-26588 2010-05-10T06:56:19Z 2010-05-10T06:56:19Z I admire your compassion and sensibility. bbbbmer 2010-05-10T06:56:19Z William Burg comment-26585 2010-05-10T04:51:14Z 2010-05-10T04:51:14Z Having worked in places like this, some people who live there become involved in the community, if there is a place for it to occur, while others generally keep to themselves. Having some kind of facilitation of community, either in the form of community events, or classes, or meals on holidays, or even just a lobby for people to hang out, can help them better places to live. Simply because not everyone will choose to participate doesn't mean things like community rooms don't have a role. It would be nice to think that anyone who moves into this building is someone who could be retrained back into the workforce, but that isn't necessarily the case. How would an 80 year old who needs a walker or wheelchair to get around be retrained into the workforce? Many people in SROs are just able to be independent with Social Security or SSI, but not able to return to work. It is nice to have the option, for those that can take advantage of it. The intent of this sort of building is to create permanent housing for people whose housing options are now sharply limited--so limited that millions have no housing at all. It is a housing type that has long been demonized, even though it was once very abundant in every city, even cities far smaller than Sacramento, because it filled an essential economic role. Residential hotels were so demonized that people assumed that their very existence created poor people (even though residential hotels weren't always just for the poor)--and by demolishing them, we wouldn't have poor people anymore! But what happened was the housing was demolished and replaced with nothing, and millions simply lost their homes, creating a new, permanent, dehumanized underclass--the homeless. Creating more housing like this turns the homeless back into human beings. Someone living in a unit like this isn't homeless anymore--they have a home. It may not be much, just a studio or a small one-bedroom, but it's enough to call home. This is a 150 unit complex--hardly a huge megaplex. We could use a baker's dozen such units in the central city (and maybe a few in surrounding neighborhoods, if we could find any that wouldn't howl in horror at the very concept), to replace the several thousand residential units that have been lost through the past few decades, along with the thousands of units of housing across the economic spectrum that will be needed to finish the process of breathing life back into Sacramento's downtown. I do agree with Jim's point above: it is far simpler and often cheaper to make use of existing residential units than building new buildings from scratch. A lot of currently-vacant office space downtown used to be residential hotels, or higher-class hotels shifted to residential hotel use, that is currently underutilized or even sitting vacant, could be converted back into residential space. Several existing residential hotels are sitting vacant and should be converted back to residential use--the Ridgeway, the Clinton, the Wendell, the Biltmore. But I'd disagree with his assumption about the neighborhood. The building's immediate neighbors are the city main jail, the law library, an electrical substation, a parking structure, and a parking lot. It's a couple blocks from the Alkali Flat neighborhood, which is a neighborhood definitely in need of more housing and already very affected by homeless folks. William Burg 2010-05-10T04:51:14Z The Parrhesiac comment-26583 2010-05-10T04:03:04Z 2010-05-10T04:03:04Z TAB it is not a gift from heaven it is a gift from the tax payers. I have long been an advocate for the homeless; I myself mave been homeless. However I am also an advocate of pragmatic and realistic solutions that don’t stick it to the tax payer. These are not mutually exclusive propositions either. A huge homeless megaplex will have HUGE overhead that will necessitate decades of tax dollars to support - eventually costing HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of our tax dollars. It will also create an insane bureaucracy that will probably cause almost as many problems as they solve. It would be cheaper to simply purchase hotels or apartment complexes on the open market. America's Homeless Industrial Complex (HID) is a mutli-billiuon dollar racket that has a very low success rate. The do gooders that typiclly are involved, are mostly concerned about job security and expansion of programs so they can get a raise. This project will do little or nothing to adress the issue of chronic homlessness. The chronic homless, at best may stay a short time, but when they have to follow any rules they will go back outside. One has to feel sorry for the poor suckers that own homes in the neighborhood - their property values are going to plummet now that the neighborhood has been identified. The Parrhesiac 2010-05-10T04:03:04Z bbbbmer comment-26575 2010-05-09T23:20:13Z 2010-05-09T23:20:13Z I wonder if the perceptual problem is that to some, there seems to be an awful lot of money being thrown at the problem of homelessness, and to the issue of poverty and all its cultural components altogether, when so little seems to result, with particular attention to permanency. I believe this focused approach is a good one, and will help many, by concentrating gateway housing and necessary services in one place, providing comprehensive services rather than leaving the homeless individual to fend for themselves in seeking currently disparate services. This program I believe will put such services at arm's length, and help immeasurably those for whom reaching out to such ancillary services is currently made much harder. But I also believe, as stated earlier, and as someone else stated, that more permanent long-term housing, for those in need of shelter alone, rather than comprehensive intervention, would be qualitatively better if disperately located and not concentrated in one place. To place all such persons in one place could ghettoize an area and not aid the stemming of cultural issues which contribute to homelessness. bbbbmer 2010-05-09T23:20:13Z TAB comment-26574 2010-05-09T23:06:43Z 2010-05-09T23:06:43Z I am disabled and was close to living in a card board box on the river. This is the best offer for the homeless i have seen since living in Sacramento. Why are most of you dragging a gift horse in the mouth thru the wastelands?. Why such negativity to those who want to help the homeless? You disgust me. I applaud Mercy and those who want to make a difference in our community and to help the homeless and disabled. This is the best of the best and I hope this becomes a reality. I understand everyone's concern above, but the bottom line is "lets go with the flow and handle any problems if any when they arise after the building is built. How about it guys? Thank you Suzsanne for the best article you have ever written. And thanks to the gentleman who wants to donate computers, your the greatest. I am so excited for the homeless and those caring individuals who want to help them with a hand up. This is a gift from heaven. TAB 2010-05-09T23:06:43Z bbbbmer comment-26572 2010-05-09T21:29:26Z 2010-05-09T21:29:26Z I think there's a role for both, a focused 'center' of sorts providing intensive services for the homeless who need many kinds of help, as well as decentralized basic housing and income services, for those needing less, Certainly the preponderance of need is in the latter category, but for many, a focused program could be more effective to stem what currently seems to be a system with disparate services all loosely associated with no focused effort on permanency. Hopefully both working in concert with stop this problem more effectively than the current hodge podge. bbbbmer 2010-05-09T21:29:26Z The Parrhesiac comment-26568 2010-05-09T17:29:08Z 2010-05-09T17:29:08Z This project will primarily make huge profits for the Homeless Industrial Complex and the those that suck at the teet of huge no-bid-insider-good-o'l-boy-government-contracts. Smaller, dispursed co-op living would be more effective and would distribute the concentration of the homeless. This format has worked well in other communites that have tried it. The Parrhesiac 2010-05-09T17:29:08Z Ken White comment-26321 2010-05-05T09:50:16Z 2010-05-05T09:50:16Z Someone once responded to one of your posts that you were an unalterable hatemonger with nothing better to do that crap on every single comment you find. I thought then that they were exaggerating and should have apologized but now I see they had probably read more of your posts than I had at the time. You are every bit as small as they insinuated. Try reading my post again to see if you can actually find a reason to accuse me of the thinking you've ascribed to me. Better yet, stop commenting on every single thread in the entire site or at least try responding to the content rather than slinging generic sarcasm. Ken White 2010-05-05T09:50:16Z bbbbmer comment-26280 2010-05-05T03:57:07Z 2010-05-05T03:57:07Z Gee, so I guess we shouldn't attempt such projects at all, given such potential sustainability impediments... It's all fine to express platitudes about 'those other' people, but ALL humans are pretty much driven by the same needs and desires -- a roof and a meal and the basics of life... All else is fluff... But also we ALL have the same proclivities -- some have energies and talents that are superior in one area, others have strengths in other areas -- it's in the pooling of such benefits that we create a sustainable community and thus civilization.... 'Pride of ownership' is to the extent that we can all express that 'we did this thing ourselves', and not merely bloviated it into being by stating something like -- "there, you poor people, make it work, but we're not going to help you...."... "It takes a village" to MAKE a village with all the human dimensions possible -- the more the merrier -- rather than an elite proclaiming its superiority over others who may be weaker and/or have strengths that are latent or in areas not as obvious as others, including those who have been defined by our current social complexities as somehow unworthy... We are ALL 'worthy'.... bbbbmer 2010-05-05T03:57:07Z Ken White comment-26240 2010-05-04T22:02:08Z 2010-05-04T22:02:08Z A well written informative article, first of all. Exactly the non-BEE stuff I like to see on SacPress. "A sense of community cannot be imposed." -Tom Armstrong Thank you Tom, that brilliant statement need be the only words in your post or mine, but as pontificators are wont to do: As (above) poster Tom states, as succinctly as any of our founders and framers, pride in and duty to your community cannot be installed into you like some factory option. I won't pretend to continue speaking for Tom as I continue, but I hope he agrees. Ownership in private property - be that time, money, land, a car, or any other liberty - due you because you worked for it and earned it inspires the pride that only ownership may provide. People are inherantly selfish which may strike some as an accusation. I suggest you could as soon accuse fish of being wet - a fact but hardly worth discussing. We are not merely selfish and are not always selfish but to overlook it is to misunderstand the fundamental nature of man. Overlooking this fundamental nature, socialism is derived from the notion that - if you instill in people the sense of community (something we know you cannot do) - that each will work toward the common good. Thus, these projects where residents AND organizers are expected to respect something which they do not own, to help their fellow man when they generally lack enough help for themselves. Essentially, to spend other people's money and time as wisely as if it were their own. Experience has proven (with generations worth of evidence) that they do not respect these things. Without constant taxpayer money used actively and efficiently to look after the residents (people who should be learning to look after themselves) these projects fail. This is not my wish, or schadenfreude ... it's just true. I sincerely hope this is different. It sounds as though the planning around the edges on this one is better than average, though I feel the fundamental concept is as flawed as it has ever been. I'm going to allow my hopes to ride on this one and will donate 2 computers to their lab as well when its finished. I think if this one fails, however - we'd have to say there is simply no good way to do this. I'd personally like to see a halfway-house style project where half the units are low-rent for low income families (who must supplement with community chore-work on the project) and half are for jobless/homeless participants who MUST study and work (for their own benefit, to obtain marketable skill) to retain housing. Ken White 2010-05-04T22:02:08Z ahornblower comment-26233 2010-05-04T19:32:57Z 2010-05-04T19:32:57Z These are very real and valid concerns that have not proven to be the case in the other project mentioned in the article for which Mercy Housing was the developer & ongoing property manager. Quinn Cottages has been operating a dozen years as a transtional housing project, and most visitors today say it's a place they wouldn't mind living ... the only real test of a housing program. Our community is lucky to have such capabilities! ahornblower 2010-05-04T19:32:57Z Top Cat 2808 comment-26204 2010-05-04T15:53:59Z 2010-05-04T15:53:59Z The building, its features, and the ideas associated with it are all very interesting, but I very much share Paul Carhartt's concerns. Five years after its built and occupied, what will it be like? Will it be a pleasant place for the residents? or will it be noisy and unsafe? Also, poor people vary. A sense of community cannot be imposed. Some people who would become residents will be private and quiet and others noisy and obnoxious. Making the place where you live (and for many that's where you get away from everything) also the central place for socializing isn't what most people want. That is not the kind of life that most people seek for themselves. For many it's best not to know one's neighbors very well. Top Cat 2808 2010-05-04T15:53:59Z