A finalized version of the city’s contract with the Salvation Army was not immediately available Monday, but was described as being largely similar to the draft proposal. Santa Cruz County has utilized the local Salvation Army several times in recent years as a homeless shelter operator, most often as an overnight winter shelter provider. The draft contract called for the program to provide “healthy, safe and secure sleeping quarters nutritious meals access to bathroom and shower amenities and permanent housing exit-focused linkages and referral services.” The contract, according to a draft version provided to the City Council in December, would allow the group to operate an all-day, all-night 75-space camp on the south lawn of the National Guard Armory in DeLaveaga Park for a stretch of six months, spending up to as much as nearly $1.2 million in the process. “I want to be very clear for the community that as we talk about establishing additional shelter, we’re wanting to get out of the business of the current environment that we have at the Benchlands and move to a more meaningful, higher standard of shelter at these other locations,” Huffaker told the City Council during a March 8 quarterly homeless update.Īt the same time city leaders shared plans to “demobilize” the benchlands encampment last week, Huffaker announced that his team had completed a months-in-the-works managed encampment contract with the Salvation Army. Earlier in March, two larger side-by-side unsanctioned camps - one “Camp Paradise” on city-owned land along the east side of the San Lorenzo River, the other “Hell’s Trail,” on state-owned Caltrans property beside Santa Cruz Memorial Park cemetery, were emptied of occupants and bulldozed. During a rough count by Sentinel at the end of last month, there were some 285 tents set up along the San Lorenzo River from the Water Street bridge to the Soquel Avenue bridge. Meanwhile, the benchlands camp has remained rooted in San Lorenzo Park through the COVID-19 pandemic, a fence-enclosed county-run camp, a community blockade, a federal court injunction, a major relocation and flooding in the past two years. “One of our major goals for this summer and we have set the timeline for July of this summer for a full closure of the Benchlands, as we stand up additional shelter sites.” “The council will remember that we discussed this as part of the Homelessness Action Plan,” City Manager Matt Huffaker said during a Santa Cruz City Council April 12 meeting. A camper’s tent is pitched along the water Tuesday across the San Lorenzo River from downtown Santa Cruz. SANTA CRUZ - The city has set an end date of July for its largest concentrated homeless encampment, hosting nearly 300 tents lining the San Lorenzo Park Benchlands.
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