Caritas Center: A New Tool in the Fight to End Homelessness
When the three-story, 49,000 square foot Caritas Center opened in downtown Santa Rosa earlier this month, it became the largest homeless service center in Sonoma County. Through it, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Santa Rosa will have new tools and partnerships to dramatically reduce and prevent homelessness throughout the Diocese’s multi-county service area. Already impacted by a worsening regional housing crisis, North Bay housing precarity has been exacerbated by recent wildfires; the 2017 Tubbs Fire alone destroyed 6% of Santa Rosa’s housing stock.
Catholic Charities had previously operated out of various 100-year-old structures at the project site, which significantly limited the number of clients who could be served each year. A former hospital building hosted the Family Support Center, and the Homeless Services Center operated out of a converted bungalow. These functions are now relocating to the purpose-built Caritas Center, joining other local service providers to create a one-stop services center for families and adults experiencing homelessness.
The project’s wrap-around services are intended to “help participants navigate their journey to permanent housing, while also preventing at-risk people from falling into homelessness,” Catholic Charities announced in a press release. “A 192-bed family shelter, childcare, healthcare clinic, drop-in center, and 38 recuperative beds are available in a facility built from the ground up with critical, life-changing services in mind.”
Caritas Center programming was carefully arranged according to their distinct functions, with three separate entries and circulation cores. To the east, a Family Support wing includes intake offices, expanded emergency housing, a dining room with commercial kitchen, daycare services, an educational space, and private accommodations for families. To the west, the Adult Services wing provides daytime dignity services, case managers, and a licensed medical clinic, and hosts the Nightingale Program recuperation shelter. Each wing wraps around separate courtyards, and the steel braced frame open structure offers long-term flexibility for future programming changes. A central chapel is available for access by anyone.
The services center will soon be accompanied by Caritas Homes, 128 concurrently developed affordable apartments and townhomes for very- and extremely-low-income households, including at-risk residents, built in partnership with Burbank Housing. The Homes will come online in two phases, allowing continuity for Catholic Charities’ provision of services. The combined, 2.3-acre Caritas Village promises to play a transformative role in securing housing for all.
This ambitious undertaking “cements how we want to address homelessness and how we want to provide services,” Catholic Charities’ incoming CEO Jennielynn Holmes told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. “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 that Catholic Charities hopes Caritas Center will become “a beacon for the state and the nation for how we can provide care.”
“By replicating this model, we can dramatically alleviate if not end homelessness, not only in the county, but across the state and beyond.”
