Antioch officials Thursday unveiled the city’s transitional housing motel, aimed at getting homeless people off the street.
The city says it’s the first city-funded transitional housing site in Contra Costa County. The center will provide mental health and substance abuse support while giving formerly housing-challenged people a roof over their heads.
The former Executive Inn Hotel at 515 E. 18th St. in Antioch will be known as Opportunity Village.
The center will cost Antioch $2 million annually and potentially house up to 135 people a year.
At Thursday’s ribbon-cutting in front of the motel, Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe praised the work of homeless advocate Nichole Gardner, Antioch’s director of public safety and community resources Tasha Johnson, and Gary Tia, associate director of the non-profit Bay Area Community Services (BACS).
Thorpe also praised former city manager Ron Bernal and former council member Joy Motts, who Thorpe said “had the political courage to get this done when other people ran for the hills.”
“Joy and I went to visit homeless shelters and that’s when I learned that, if I wasn’t willing to stay at a homeless shelter, then we have to provide something better,” Thorpe said. “And it’s easy to not do anything and still get re-elected.”
“We can’t let perfection be the enemy of progress,” he said.
Johnson said the motel was “historically known for various criminal and harmful activity.”
“But from this day forward, it will now be known as a place of opportunity, a place of hope, and a place of community,” Johnson said.
BACS will partner with the city to operate the site. Tia said homelessness has become an epidemic across the nation.
“People need help,” Tia said. “This is another brother or another sister or a family member who needs a little more. We’re here to help them.”
“I’m grateful that we’ve been able to develop a few resources here that will help people back on their feet,” said Tia. Help people find jobs, help people find opportunity again, to participate in a life they want to live, a life they deserve. Housing is a right we should all have, just like food and water.”
Acknowledging the ongoing racist and homophobic texting scandal involving Antioch police, Thorpe said the city is going through a maturation process.
“Like any growing city we have had our challenges and we’ll continue to have our growing pains,” Thorpe said “These challenges and growing pains are not divisions. It’s a robust community coming together and learning about each other because they care about the future.”
Here’s what will happen next. The homeless will double in Antioch. If you build it they will come. No one has the right to sleep in a park or on a sidewalk. That makes them vagrants. So ship them back to where they came from. Build a tent city in a hidden place and keep the locals in it.. Keep them off of the streets.
I will tell you what I would do but it would never get done. I would build an enclosure with barracks, showers and a cafeteria.I would prevent drug dealers from entering and give mandatory treatment to drug users. Every one would have safe storage for their belongs. It would be staffed with non woke people who were guidance councilors, who would rehabilitate. Non of that will get done though because it would work and be cheaper in the long run. This problem is not going away.
RICARDOH,
.
The problem is that in many cases, if not most cases, the Courts have decriminalized “homelessness” and “drug addiction,” defining them as a “status.” A homeless person can be cited and/or removed from public property if they refuse to go to a shelter, but they can’t necessarily be cited or removed if the shelters don’t have available space. Drug possession or drug dealing can be treated as a crime, but drug addiction can’t necessarily be treated as a crime.
That is why I said what should be done will never happen. We are living in crazy times very unfortunate.
And the neighbors are dancing in the streets.
Hmm No mention of metrics of success or anything related to personal responsibility. This shelter could be based on the New York homeless model where the shelters are just a kickback tool for politicians and cronies
I give it a week before they are absolutely overwhelmed with homeless – then what will they do? …what a joke..
People need help, but the problem I see it that they don’t want to follow certain rules and be told what to do. I’d like to see the homeless govern themselves by setting up their own rules and guidelines. Instead of public officials running the show, let them run their own show. They can have elections where they will elect the right person for specific jobs, and they should be able to police themselves. It will give them a sense of responsibility, which will result in self-respect, and pride, which is certainly lacking in a lot of them. If they had any self-respect, they wouldn’t be sleeping out in public view. They are human beings, and I assume, most of them are American citizens, and if treated as such, I’m willing to bet at least a small percentage of them will get off the drugs and/or alcohol that has so damaged their life, and will be on the road to recovery and success. There is a percentage of the homeless that are US military veterans, who should never be forgotten. They served their country with pride, and too many people want to sweep them under the rug. As a veteran myself, it makes me sick. We can send billions of dollars to Ukraine, but we balk at helping our own.
@Dawg:
The real problem is this “substance abuse support”. If you think it means “we’ll support you to kick the drug habit”, you’re very wrong.
What they are really doing is so-called “harm reduction”. It started back in the days of AIDS transmitted by heroin users, when it meant needle exchanges and methadone clinics. Nowadays, there are still IV users, but a lot of the common drugs (fentanyl, meth, weed) are smoked. So “harm reduction” has morphed into “we’ll help you to keep the drug habit and not die too quickly”. As in “we’ll give you narcan, fresh straws and foil”.
Because the idea is that the person has an autonomy over their body and should be allowed to decide on their own whether they want to continue using. Ignoring the obvious – that if a drug addict could decide on his/her own whether they want to continue using, he/she wouldn’t be a drug addict. And if you try telling people in “substance abuse support” business that what they are really supporting is drug dealers and drug cartels… Let’s just say it won’t go well with them.
What?
Hamsterdam!
No wonder there’s so many on BART, they’re all getting out to the end of the line for a suite at the Opportunity Village!
That place has been filled with the dregs for years. Neighbors will probably see less of them now that management will supposedly not allow drugs and alcohol.
Yeah, the County (behavioral health services) bought the old Motel 6 a few years ago for the same purpose, and it’s incredibly difficult keeping many unhoused people housed. They refused to stay. They’d disappear when no one was watching. They complained that living under a roof felt like they were being incarcerated.
Yeah the county bought motel 6 in Pittsburg and had to close 6 months after opening because every room was trashed and multiple od deaths its a regular drug den at night and how will a hotel with 30 rooms house 135 people it won’t also how is Antioch going to pay for thus since they have a 6 million dollar deficit
Imagine living nearby, with your family.
What an absolute nightmare.
My sister in law is upset beyond belief. She is aware how this is going to effect her neighborhood and the resell value of her home.
Regarding … motel was “historically known for various criminal and harmful activity.”
The main reason homeless people decline shelter space is the shelters tend to have rules that inhibit criminal and harmful activity. If this project is to become a success in terms of number of clients served then the motel will most definitely continue its tradition of being known for criminal and harmful activity.
Call them what they are. Lazy, drug addicted bums. They are responsible for a crime, pollution, and create a danger for everybody in the community. The more you feed them, and the more you take care of them, the more of these parasites will show up. If I mentioned here, what I would do with them, I would be banned.
“THE BLACK KNIGHT”
BING, BING BINGE=MC2!!!