Homeless advocates ask Expo for a place to sleep

By KEVIN COURTNEY
Register Staff Writer

Homeless advocates are again looking for a temporary location for a winter shelter, with Napa Valley Exposition a possible site.

Time is running short, said Charlene Horton, program director of the Napa Valley Shelter Project. A shelter is needed by mid-November when rain and cold weather are likely, but leads on a new location are few, she said.

  Oct. 28, Jim Featherstone, assistant director of Napa County Health and Human Services, will ask the Expo’s board of directors to use one of their buildings from mid-November to mid-April.

The county has been turned down twice before by the Expo. Fair officials previously cited opposition from a charter school that rented space at the fairgrounds and concerns about bingo players who come and go at night.

The charter school has since left the fairgrounds, reducing the possibility of conflict with shelter users, Horton said.

A winter shelter is needed for some 30 to 50 people who otherwise would be living out of doors during bitter weather, Featherstone said.

Featherstone said he doesn’t sugarcoat the characteristics of winter shelter users. Most are comfortable with a homeless lifestyle and use drugs and alcohol, he said.

That said, the winter shelter has caused few law enforcement problems wherever it has operated, Featherstone said. No drugs or alcohol are allowed in the shelter. Anyone causing trouble is removed, he said.

The winter shelter started about 10 years ago, operating at First Presbyterian Church and First United Methodist Church before moving to an empty fire station on Jefferson, then for the past five years to Napa State.

The state hospital plans to remodel the shelter building for its own uses, resulting in the need for a new location, Featherstone said.

After five months of looking for a new site, Featherstone said the Expo appears to be the county’s best hope.

Most landlords don’t want to rent to an operation that will be gone in five months, Horton said. Serving the homeless also causes concern, she said.

“People get frightened when they hear that homeless people are going to be living near them,” Horton said.

Virtually any building with bathrooms would work, Featherstone said. A warehouse could be quickly adapted for shelter use. Showers and kitchens aren’t necessary, he said.

Joe Anderson, the Expo’s CEO, said he had taken no position on the winter shelter request. “I need more details before I make a judgment on it,” he said.

Two of the fair board’s nine members were serving in 2000 when the board rejected a lease. At that time, board president Don Carr voted against leasing, saying that a shelter was incompatible with other fair operations.

Director Myrna Abramowicz voted to rent to the winter shelter, saying, “If we don’t serve the community to the lowest common denominator then we’re not doing our job.”

While waiting to make his pitch to fair directors on Oct. 28, Featherstone continues to look for other locations. “I’m hoping that necessity is the mother of invention,” he said.

The Napa Valley Shelter Project, which is part of Community Action Napa Valley, oversees a shelter for adults behind South Napa Marketplace and a shelter for families on Old Sonoma Road.

Those shelters are full in the winter and do not take people who are under the influence.

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