Always a difficult operation to find a location for, the winter homeless shelter will be moving to Napa Valley Exposition starting in mid-November.

The Expo’s board of directors approved the shelter rental on a 6-3 vote Tuesday after being briefed on security measures intended to separate the homeless from bingo players, RV park guests and people at community events.

The county will pay $19,584 to rent Merlot Hall from Nov. 11 to April 30. The Napa Valley Shelter Project will set up bunks for up to 50 adults who would otherwise be camping out of doors during wet and cold weather.

Joe Anderson, the Expo’s CEO, said the shelter contract imposed tight security requirements. There will be no homeless loitering near the bingo hall or crab feeds, he said.

Clients will be processed at the Hope Center in downtown, then walked over as a group, entering the Expo from the gate on Burnell Street. The homeless will be confined to Merlot Hall. An outdoor smoking area and walkway to restrooms will be fenced in.

The shelter will have three staff on duty during evening and morning hours and two during sleep times. One employee will monitor the patio, Charlene Horton, director of local shelters, said.

“It’s a lock-down situation,” Jim Featherstone, deputy director of Napa County Health and Human Services, said in an interview. “When you’re in, you’re in.”

Eric Lehman, a member of the Expo board, worried that the winter shelter would be a “time bomb waiting to go off,” with problems such as alcohol or drug use or clashes between shelter users and other fairgrounds visitors. He ended up supporting the rental after Anderson assured him that any problems would be promptly addressed.

The Expo has the right to cancel the shelter contract with 15 days’ notice if there are problems that cannot be resolved, Anderson said.

This was the second time that the Expo’s board of directors had approved renting to a winter shelter. A contract was negotiated a year ago, but the county decided to move to a warehouse on Jordan Lane instead.

Citing safety concerns, commercial and residential neighbors on Jordan Lane protested the proposed winter shelter to both the Board of Supervisors and the Napa City Council.

The winter shelter on Jordan operated last year without incident, Horton told fair directors.

Since first opening 12 years ago, the winter shelter has operated at five locations. In each instance, neighbors voiced fears that were not realized, she said.

The county had a lease-purchase agreement for the Jordan Lane site, with the intent of making it a permanent winter shelter, Featherstone said. When the property proved unsuitable for other social service programs, the county ended the lease, he said.

Many of the people who use the winter shelter are hard-core homeless, but they know they will be kicked out if they violate rules, Horton said. Anyone ousted from Merlot Hall will be escorted from the fairgrounds and staff will notify police, she said.

Expo board member Mark Gasster said the Expo had a responsibility to provide this humanitarian service. “They’re not all bad people. They’re just in a bad circumstance,” he said.

In keeping with their votes a year ago, directors Don Carr and Janet Kirtlink voted against the winter shelter. They were joined by director Marjorie Preston, who feared that people would not want to come to the Expo if they knew a shelter was there.

Directors will be notified immediately if there are any problems affecting other Expo rentals, Anderson said.

The county, which pays for the shelter, had wanted a three-year lease on Merlot Hall. Anderson said he insisted on a one-year trial to see how things go.

The winter shelter will occupy a building that was for many years home to a charter school. In 2000, the fair board rejected a request to put a shelter at the Expo, bowing to concerns from school parents. The school, Stone Bridge School, is no longer at the Expo and now shares a campus with Salvador Elementary School.