Elk Grove plans to open a temporary winter shelter for the city’s unhoused, starting later this year and lasting for five months.
Officials on Tuesday announced the plan for the vacant Rite Aid drug store at Elk Grove Boulevard and Waterman Road. The city-owned site would open Nov. 1 through March 31, officials said.
Dubbed an “Enhanced Winter Sanctuary,” the site will be able to house up to 30 people and will provide opportunities for people to access social services, resources and housing, said Elk Grove housing and public services manager Sarah Bontrager in a statement.
“Having available shelter options for seniors and other vulnerable people experiencing homelessness provides compassionate care to those who have an especially difficult time during the winter months, when weather conditions have led to deaths in other communities,” Bontrager said.
Guests will be selected via a referral system and will be vetted by a social services agency. Pets will be allowed. Families with children will be referred to motel voucher programs.
The site will be monitored by Elk Grove police. Drugs are not allowed. Registered sex offenders and people with serious behavioral health challenges will not be permitted entry, city officials said.
new homeless shelter in California excepted for…
So nice that they are concerned about “weather conditions have led to deaths”.
EXCEPT…
Reminds me of the AGRM rescue mission I used to work at under the auspices of the Lord during the winter months when PFRs were not allowed…for safety and insurance purposes, of course.
Hmm, they said, “compassionate care” but what they needed to say was “compassionate care for some people”.
There aren’t even going to be (gasppppp) children there!! And “The site will be monitored by Elk Grove police.”
This is why charities and government-stolen charity should never be supported. This was made possible by “The voter-approved 1% “quality of life” sales tax hike”. People should always vote against giving more money to government. Every time. They steal the money and then they do irresponsible, criminal BS like this. There are plenty of groups and people who fight against this kind of corruption. Align yourselves with them and support them.
If this kind of nonsense happens where I live I do what I can to shut it down. Or cause it as many problems as possible. Someone needs to visit this place during its “open house” and picket it. If I want to help homeless, I’ll identify the decent ones myself and everyone else can simply be as homeless as any PFR is.
Vote for smaller government always.
So, to be clear, children will not be present at the shelter. So why the exclusion of individuals previously convicted of sexual offenses?? 😖
Maybe Price Club, since PFR are members, will be welcome there. F Roberts.
You know what the leading cause of homelessness is (and it isn’t sex offenses)…it is drug addiction. Drugs are epedemic among homeless populations. But for some reason they don’t seem to be concerned with people who have offenses for selling drugs (which by the way have a very high recidivism rate). And you know one thing that can lead to relapse of people on the registry? not having a place to live, the despondency of rejection by people who don’t know anything else about you.
“Having available shelter options for seniors and other vulnerable people experiencing homelessness provides compassionate care to those who have an especially difficult time during the winter months,
Pets will be allowed. <— but some humans are not allowed – that says it right there; they can freeze for all we care.
How compassionate to leave people out in the cold just because of their status as a registrant? How is this not cruel and unusual punishment? If it sounds like punishment, looks like punishment, it’s punishment. A special place in Hell for these non compassionate inhumane beings!!
Safety has nothing to do with it. Insurance and public relations do. Imagine the lawsuit if a registrant sexually assaulted someone in the shelter. The plaintiff would be howling about negligence. If a non-registrant assaulted someone, it could be argued it was an unpredictable event. Insurance companies are in the business of limiting their liability, and have no incentive to increase their exposure (whether true or not) for registrants.
Notice that registrants are lumped together with “people with serious behavioral health challenges.” The tacit assumption is that they are one and the same, and are throwaway persons. Although I’d be surprised if the mentally ill were not provided with some other compassionate option somewhere. Of course there is always a jail cell or a nice warm civil committment room for registrants.
When I was homeless I went to A men’s rescue mission for food and shelter and was turned away by pastor of the church because of my 290 status
That one really hurt, I remember thinking Daam, I must be a really bad person, it’s hard not to believe there lyes when your not even allowed in a homeless shelter
If there’s ever been any doubt that – at least in some jurisdictions – the official government position on… [people forced to register] is that they just want them all to die… you really couldn’t have a more on-the-nose example.
“Not meant to be punishment.”
Yeah. Right. Sure.
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”
Dogs are welcome but not humans on the registry.
Hey! You! 🐕Your fine. Get up in here! What? You said your owner is a 290 registrant? We don’t allow “sex offenders” inside this shelter 😁 So that includes your owner. We don’t want his kind up in here. 😰He can go sleep under a bridge somewhere.
This is a completely winnable court case. They are using tax money to fund this. They cannot exclude anyone for any reason because tax money is being used. I suppose if Elk Grove wants to give a pass to everyone registered to not have to pay taxes, then this might be possible, but for right now, this action of exclusion is completely illegal.
So not all pastors follow church guildlines to exclude reg people. When a pastor disobeys God’s command to love by not allowing reg people to attend because of “insurance purposes”, he is showing not only that he really doesn’t believe what he says he believes, he is out of line with God’s Will. I think that opens the door to start suits to punish the insurance companies so they start to drop the policy of excluding reg people so the pastors will start obeying God again. It is a huge problem. Also, we should start suits every time this situation happens in Elk Grove when people could die because they are exlcuded because they are on a list. I say sue the ….. out of them till the insurance companies cry “uncle”.