New homeless shelter draws praise from Costa Mesa, Newport Beach officials

The newly completed homeless shelter in Costa Mesa resides in a typical boxy, warehouse-type structure, similar to all the other buildings on a street named Airway Avenue because it parallels a runway at John Wayne Airport.

The shelter’s name is not designated on the outside, just the street-facing address — 3175 B — painted in the same bluish grey trim that tops the one-story, white washed building. The name isn’t all that fancy anyway — Costa Mesa Bridge Shelter.

All that said, when it opens early next month the shelter that will serve as a temporary home for as many as 70 men and women figures to be a special place.

Leaders from Costa Mesa and Newport Beach — the cities that built the shelter — said as much during a ribbon cutting and early preview tour on Tuesday, March 23.

Some noted the difficulty of building the project. Others suggested it’s a great first step, and underscored how it will help homeless people and residents who are touched by homelessness. All hinted at huge expectations.

 

Costa Mesa City Manager Lori Ann Farrell Harrison described the two years that her city has been in the process of opening a permanent shelter “arduous.” That journey began after Costa Mesa — along with several other cities and the county — were sued in federal court by homeless advocates, and it was shaped by longstanding complaints from residents upset about homelessness in their city.

But, Harrison said, the journey led to an “absolutely breathtaking” space created inside an outwardly nondescript building.

The first homeless people to move in will be about 20 individuals transitioning from Costa Mesa’s 50-bed temporary shelter at Lighthouse Church of the Nazarene that the city began operating just shy of two years ago. People who’ve been living on the streets are scheduled to start arriving at the new shelter in May.

Phil Eyskens, pastor of the Lighthouse Church, offered a blessing. He asked that the new bridge shelter partnership be so successful that other cities will think, “My, oh my! Can we do something like this?”

Shared costs and hopes

The new shelter is the result of a partnership between the two neighboring cities.

Costa Mesa, which purchased the property in 2019 for $6.9 million and spent $4.5 million on capital improvements, has use of 50 beds. Newport Beach, grappling with rising tensions between homeless street people and city residents, decided late last year to kick in $1.6 million toward the building, along with a five-year commitment of $1 million in annual operating costs. In exchange, the city gets use of 20 beds.

Other funding includes a $300,000 contribution from Hoag Hospital and a $2.5 million homelessness grant awarded by the county.

Newport Beach Mayor Brad Avery, first elected to his city’s council in 2016, said the past few years have included periods of being overwhelmed by residents angry over a homeless crisis that had spilled into the city’s transit hub near Fashion Island and its Civic Center.

Avery recalled how some residents shouted out the cruel suggestion to “just round them up and take them to the desert.”

“It was a dark time,” he told the crowd. “The lowest point in my time on the council has been over this issue.”

Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley, who this month was elected to represent the 2nd District on the Orange County Board of Supervisors, said the ribbon cutting would be her last public act as her city’s mayor.

She called the shelter perhaps the most rewarding project she’s worked on. Homeless people, she said, will be helped by the shelter and city residents will be helped by being able to regain the use of public spaces, such as parks. The next step, she added, is the more crucial move of finding people permanent housing.

“That step is what I can’t wait to get to work on,” said Foley, referring to her start as a county supervisor after she is sworn in on Friday.

Foley also briefly shared with the crowd of about 50 people that her own “dysfunctional” childhood frequently included moving among the homes of neighbors and friends to escape what she described as an “abusive household.” That history, she said, is something that influences her public life. Then, acknowledging that the Costa Mesa council has declared April as “Let’s Be Kind” month, she gifted coffee mugs emblazoned with the words “Cultivate Kindness” to the officials in attendance.

“I hope that this shelter is the start of many acts of kindness in our city.”

Little touches, big difference

Two beds are set aside near the intake area for homeless people who might be brought to the shelter late at night, so as not to disturb people sleeping in the men’s or women’s dorms. Shelter residents must be referred by outreach teams from at least one of the two cities or the county’s Health Care Agency. Mercy House, a nonprofit that operates homeless and housing programs in Orange County, will manage services.

The shelter’s purpose and design took shape with input from residents and neighboring businesses, a process that was at times contentious. It led to a collaboration of local nonprofits, grassroots volunteers and church groups that formed Costa Mesa’s Network for Homeless Solutions. Others also contributed, including the Costa Mesa IKEA store, which designed and furnished the interior, and sent in volunteer employees to assemble the furniture.

As she toured the shelter, Vanessa Flores, the IKEA representative who organized the makeover, took mental notes. Her crew had outfitted the place with some homey touches — potted flowers on dining hall tables; designs on the walls; sheets, comforters and carefully folded towel sets on the dorm beds (four to each semi-private pod). They included framed photos of sights and scenes in Costa Mesa.

Flores wants to replace the black industrial-looking storage bins beneath the beds with something more homelike.

“We can still add things,” she said.

The shelter also boasts a stainless steel commercial-grade kitchen, outfitted with a walk-in refrigerator and freezer, and something called a “tilt skillet” that will allow kitchen manager Bill Nelson to easily steam 50 pounds of vegetables at a time or cook up 50 gallons of marinara sauce.

Nelson, a Lighthouse Church pastor and an aide with the city, was presented with an apron that read: “Dressed to Grill.”

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