Quick Take
Construction on the 34-unit “tiny village” homeless shelter at Westview Presbyterian Church in Watsonville is set to begin next week. It is anticipated to open at the end of the year.
After nearly a year of delays, construction on the 34-unit “tiny village” homeless shelter at Westview Presbyterian Church in Watsonville is set to begin next week.
The project, funded by an $8 million state grant set to expire next year, is a collaboration between Santa Cruz and Monterey counties to address homelessness along the Pajaro River levee. The building permit was recently approved by Watsonville’s planning department and work is expected to start next Monday, said Roxanne Wilson, homelessness services director for Monterey County.
The 34-unit “tiny village” was first proposed in 2023. It will be made up of 26 individual single-bed shelters for residents experiencing homelessness along the river that separates Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. There will also be two double units and four Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant units. Residents will have access to two laundry rooms, four shared bathrooms, a kitchen and a storage area — which will all reside on Westview Presbyterian Church’s property.
The City of Watsonville is requiring repairs to the entrances and exits of the Westview church’s parking lot to help minimize any traffic issues, said Wilson. Contractors will begin restriping and repaving the parking lot first. The preassembled individual shelters will not be arriving until August, she said. After the units have been installed on the property, contractors will put in electricity and other utilities.
Construction is anticipated to finish in mid-November, said Mike Kittredge, homelessness prevention and intervention services director for nonprofit Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County. Wilson anticipates the shelter to open by the end of the year, she said.
The city is also charging the project nearly $250,000 in impact fees, which Wilson said is high in comparison to similar projects she’s working on. Impact fees are a one-time fee used by the city for paving roads and other infrastructure improvements related to a development. Wilson said her team is analyzing how the city came up with the total. The fees do not need to be paid until it’s time to get the certificate of occupancy, and won’t affect the building schedule, she said.
Wilson said there is “a huge sense of relief” to finally get to the point where construction on the project is starting. “There have been so many times in the past year where we were faced with the question on whether or not this project was going to ever come to fruition,” she said.
Many neighbors had disapproved of the “tiny village” project being located near a residential area just a few streets away from downtown Watsonville. Resident Catalina Torres previously filed two appeals against the city’s approval of the project’s zoning application, arguing that the project would only lead to more “homelessness-related” crimes in the neighborhood. Both of her appeals were denied, by the city council and planning commission, respectively.
Wilson added that there were aspects of the project that were added along the way, such as adjusting the fence height to accommodate requests from city officials, which required her team to look for more grants to fund those changes.
The bigger picture, Wilson said, is that the two counties — Santa Cruz and Monterey — are continuously working together to find ways to supplement funding where it’s needed to complete the project and to address requests from the City of Watsonville.
In May, Community Action Board unveiled plans for how it will operate the shelter to the city council. The shelter will use a housing-first approach — a strategy that prioritizes housing for someone experiencing homelessness. The “tiny village” will also be a closed campus, with one entrance and exit, and a no-visitor policy.
The nonprofit also said the shelter will be hiring professional security guards who will be on site 24/7 for the first four months of operation to understand how much security will actually be needed.
“It’s go-time and as we’re developing the site, we will also be working on developing the program and making sure that it is everything that we had imagined it to be,” said Wilson. “And really demonstrate what a well-run, well-supported program can look like in the city of Watsonville.”
Kittredge told Lookout that Community Action Board, in collaboration with Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency and Monterey County, will be conducting a levee cleanup on Thursday with people who live along the river levee. The cleanup is meant to help residents tidy up their space and get rid of any unnecessary items but won’t require residents to vacate the levee, said Wilson. Levee residents who volunteer their time on Thursday morning will be paid a $50 gift card for a two-hour shift picking up trash, said Kittredge.
The cleanup was organized in response to a larger cleanup led by PRFMA, meant to clear up all shelters, trash and vegetation on the levee, forcing residents out of their homes. The encampment sweep, originally scheduled for June 30, was delayed due to bids from contractors exceeding PRFMA’s budget allocated for levee maintenance. A new date for the cleanup has not been decided yet, and would need approval from the agency’s board. The next board meeting is scheduled for early August.
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