Red Bluff’s shelter nearing completion

In December 2021, the Poor And The Homeless Tehama County Coalition, or PATH, broke ground on a new shelter for the homeless called the Homeless Navigation Center.

Today residents can see the building coming into shape from when it broke ground in December.

“(It’s been) pretty fast,” PATH Board Member Allene Dering said. “I haven’t been out there to see it for a couple of weeks, but they were putting up the inside walls last time I saw.”

The building is located at 400 and 402 Reeds Avenue in Red Bluff. The construction is expected to be done middle of December, and the shelter may be operational by the time the city fills its new homeless liaison position within the Red Bluff Police Department.

But it will also fill a void that Dering said has existed since Covid-19. The pandemic forced churches not to allow the homeless to stay overnight.

Now with the navigation and shelter center nearly built, it will fill that need within the community.

The building will be a one-stop hub that utilizes a low-barrier housing-first approach that includes meals, showers, laundry, and mail services.

PATH Board Member Allene Dering notes that while they are building a permanent housing structure, they have a day center on Antelope that the homeless can access, particularly during the day and in the heat.

That center is open from 8 a.m. to  5 p.m.

And she said transitional housing programs for men and women who aren’t ready yet to be in traditional housing. The transitional housing programs allow people to access them for up to two years while they go to school and continue to work towards permanent housing.

The shelter will have 64 single beds, but PATH hopes more bunk beds will bring that number closer to 80. The navigation center will provide 24-hour service 365 days per year and additional provisions for supplementary services provided by partner agencies.

“We are hoping that everybody can make use of it and just come together and then find hopefully more permanent housing for everybody,” Ledford said at the December groundbreaking.

At that same groundbreaking, PATH President E.C. Ross said a ribbon cutting for the new building would happen sometime this year.

Originally a playground was a part of the navigation center program. PATH Board Member Allene Dering said because construction took so long and prices increased, the playground had to be cut. PATH has found a way around that thought, for $100 a piece that will go toward building the playground.

“Buy as many parts as you want to, then we will have a playground,” Dering said.

During the groundbreaking ceremony, Ross acknowledged Louisiana Pacific and Serria Paffic for helping to secure the navigation center property. He thanked Tehama County, Red Bluff, Corning, the Board of Supervisors, and City Councils who have been instrumental in making this happen.

Dering revealed that the navigation center had been decades in the making.

“We almost have it in other places, but God said no, this is not where I wanted it, So we didn’t have it there,” Dering said. “And finally, this place came about because it with all of the with all of the donations and everything.”

She thanked the whole community, stakeholders group, volunteers, paid staff, and everybody who worked hard to make this possible.

In the last year, the city has designated Samuel Ayer Park, on a trial basis, as a site where the police can ask the homeless can go to camp.

That decision played a part in moving the Civil War Days from Samuel Ayer Park and Dog Island to Cone Grove Park.

It’s expected that people can be moved to the Navigation Center or elsewhere once the center is finished.