Catholic Charities’ long-awaited $53 million Santa Rosa homeless services hub, Caritas Center, opens

There is one communal bathroom with a tub per two families.

Both floors feature a common room with a TV, seating area, small kitchenette and laundry room.

The shelter will serve as a temporary home for dozens of families. Prior to the pandemic, families typically stayed in the shelter for six months, but stays have been longer with the health crisis, Holmes said.

Catholic Charities hopes to reduce the number of families experiencing homelessness to what Holmes described as “functional zero,” meaning homelessness can be prevented in most cases and when it does happen it’s infrequent and brief, with the increased capacity in Caritas Center.

One-stop service center

Unsheltered residents will be able to access shower and laundry facilities, receive mail and connect with case workers at a 6,000-square-foot drop-in center in the building’s west wing. The center has bike and storage lockers and pet kennels.

It features a quiet room where crisis managers can take someone who may be having a behavioral health crisis and can help deescalate the situation or where they can meet privately with victims of assault.

Catholic Charities currently operates its drop-in center out of a small home that wasn’t intended to serve the 2,000 people the organization sees annually, Holmes said.

The Nightingale Recuperative Care Center has 38 beds for people recently discharged from a hospital who need continued medical care. It features small sleeping pods with two people to a room to create more privacy, rather than housing people in a more traditional, congregate setting that can be a deterrent to some people seeking help.

A health clinic with six exam rooms operated by Santa Rosa Community Health is on the second floor. The organization will provide primary care and low-level emergency services, and three mental health clinicians will be on staff.

Having health care on site will limit unnecessary and expensive emergency calls and keep people engaged in services, Holmes said.

The top floor will feature a transitional housing area with space for up to 14 beds for single adults who haven’t yet found housing. They will be allowed to live rent-free at Caritas and will be required to volunteer in the drop-in center as part of a peer-support program.

The west wing will also provide a central location for Catholic Charities staff, who currently operate out of a small Morgan Street office and at sites across the county.

Holmes said various security measures throughout Caritas will ensure clients’ safety. Electronic doors activated by key fobs provide secure access to the building and separate the family shelter from the adult wing. Bedroom doors are opened with a key pad. There will be staff posted at entrances and on each floor round the clock and security cameras installed throughout.

Caritas Center was approved by the City Council in March 2020 and construction began in January 2021. It was largely funded by a $34 million capital campaign, tax credits and construction loans, with financing provided through Poppy Bank. Among the donors were the Sonoma County Vintners Foundation, St. Joseph Health and Kaiser Permanente, which each contributed $1 million.

‘Huge moment of hope’

Caritas Center will be the first point of access for many unsheltered people living on the street to connect with Catholic Charities services and services provided by other agencies who will also have space on-site.

People could be referred to shelters like Sam Jones Hall, Santa Rosa’s shelter operated by Catholic Charities, and placed on the centralized housing list.

“The idea is to have a one-stop shop to get all of their needs met when they come through our front door,” Holmes said.

The homeless population in Sonoma County grew 5% during the pandemic.

A point-in-time count of people living outdoors and in shelters in February found 2,893 homeless residents, likely an undercount, according to figures released by Sonoma County. That’s up from 2,745 unhoused people identified during the last count in February 2020.

The number of people living outdoors or in vehicles increased by 23% to 2,088.

Caritas Center was designed to serve more people and provide a better standard of care, Holmes said.

Often social service agencies inherit older buildings that are inadequate to serve clients’ needs. While the old hospital building has been a good home, it doesn’t “reflect the dignity” of the people served, she said.

“(Caritas) cements how we want to address homelessness and how we want to provide services,” Holmes said. “We want to provide services from a place of dignity and respect for the person, want to provide it in a way that is trauma informed, and built for the people that we served.”

Holmes added Catholic Charities hopes it will become “a beacon for the state and the nation for how we can provide care if we want to get serious about addressing homelessness.”

Operations begin Monday with the opening of the drop-in center.

During a recent tour, crews hurried to put the finishing touches on the inside of the building, installing furniture and testing out the elevators as the smell of fresh paint filled the air.

Catholic Charities will move in staff and other services in phases. Small groups of families will begin to move in starting in October, Holmes said.

For Holmes, who takes over as CEO on Monday, this has been a labor of love seven years in the making. She was at a loss for words for how to describe what it meant to see the project nearly complete.

“There were so many times when we didn’t know how we were going to take the next step,” she said. “It’s a huge moment of hope.”

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @paulinapineda22.