A more permanent, temporary homeless shelter is shaping up in Banning

Banning has installed fencing around the area that will soon become the Opportunity Village Shelter, which will replace the Ramsey Street Village homeless shelter that was destroyed by a fire in January 2021.

Forty people were displaced when 19 of 20 housing pods burned down, and one other was severely damaged.

The infrastructure for water fountains and electricity has been set up, and the pallet shelters, office and security trailers should arrive on site in the next week or so, along with the first of two combination restroom and shower facilities, and laundry facilities.

A second shower and restroom facility is slated to be delivered later in the process.

The city is partnering with Riverside County and the Banning-based nonprofit Faith In Action and Coachella Valley Mission to ensure services will be available on site to help the temporary residents of Opportunity Village move along and receive the help they will need to find permanent housing solutions.

Opportunity Village will provide 40 beds; the city believes that there are between 60 to 80 homeless individuals currently staying in Banning.

Faith In Action has helped provide local homeless individuals with sleeping bags and tents, assistance in obtaining identification cards and lost social security cards.

Residents selected to live there are expected to move on after 90 days, and must agree to not consume drugs and alcohol while living at the premises, Schulze explained.

An item on the council’s consent agenda was pulled by Mayor Pro Tem Colleen Wallace, who wanted to make sure that citizens understood why the city was spending more than $200,000 for security on Opportunity Village.

Grant funds approved by the Emergency Shelter Grant Fund, insurance reimbursements and the city’s housing funds would pay Riverside-based Good Guard Security, Inc. $244,944 annually to provide 24-hour unarmed guard services at the homeless shelter.

Unarmed security officers would be paid $28 an hour.

Security is not necessarily needed to break up fights or resolve disputes among residents at the shelter, though guards could intervene in those situations; rather, their presence is more preventative.

“We frequently see all kinds of stuff dropped off by community members at the entrance to Bryant Street right now, or alongside the village. Some people are trying to help,” while others are just dropping off junk or contraband, Schulze said.

Mayor Kyle Pingree explained that “We get complaints every day. I get them out in Coachella, I get’em in Mecca, I get’em in Desert Hot Springs. This is an exit strategy. The only thing we can do: we have rules we have to abide by. We can’t kick people out of our city if they’re homeless unless we have a bed to offer them. This is the step towards getting them off the street and into permanent housing, getting them into a permanent job, off drugs; and if they don’t want to abide by that, then we as a city can do something about that.”

Having a single facility that provides “wraparound services” such as mental health and job assistance may not look attractive for any city, but it makes helping homeless individuals easier, rather than trying to track them down in encampments spread throughout town, Schulze said.

“Quite frankly, neighbors complain about the smaller encampments” that spring up near residential areas; having a single location where the city can get a large number of homeless people off the streets benefits everyone, he said. “There are a lot of different service providers, there are a lot of different needs,” acknowledging that many homeless individuals struggle with addiction and mental health issues. “The Ninth District Appellate Court made the ruling that requires us to offer a bed before we can tell someone they cannot be on public land. We can have our parks filled with homeless people, and not be able to do a darned thing about it unless we have a bed to offer them.”

Only then can the city pursue “an aggressive strategy” to move them out of Banning if a homeless person refuses to accept the city’s assistance, Schulze said. “It’s extremely frustrating to have to spend public dollars this way” when the city is stretched thin to fund other services for its residents who pay taxes.

The security contract was included in the city council’s consent agenda.

Also among the consent items, which were pulled for discussion, was a $79,967.50 contract with West Seneca, NY-based National Restroom Trailers for a five-station, 23-foot shower, restroom and laundry trailer with a 750-gallon waste tank.

The city also approved an agreement with Beaumont-based SoCal West Coast Electric, which is transitioning its headquarters to Banning, to install conduits and circuit breakers at Opportunity Village for $81,256.

The items were approved unanimously by the three council members who were present for the meeting: Mayor Pingree, Mayor Pro Tem Colleen Wallace and Councilman David Happe.