Over $130 million dollars in new housing grants were awarded to public entities around the state, including $43 million in total for three Bay Area cities and San Mateo County.
The cities of Richmond, San Francisco and Sebastopol will receive a portion of the money, which comes from round three of the state’s Project Homekey grants. The program funds local purchases of hotels and other properties to convert them into affordable housing with supportive services. Services include medical and mental health care, job placement and other support services.
The new funding is projected to create 533 permanent supportive units that will house a total of 4,886 people around the state, according to the governor’s office.
“We are proud to stand with local partners who are serving their communities by providing much-needed housing to alleviate homelessness,” Newsom said in a statement on Wednesday. “We’ll continue to support local governments who are doing the work to ensure everyone has a place to call home.”
San Mateo County will receive $13.9 million from the new grants that will be used to develop a property the county purchased at 721 Airport Blvd. in South San Francisco. The project will create 45 permanent supportive units for people experiencing chronic homelessness or who are exiting homelessness, according to the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development.
The city of Richmond will receive $14.5 million to purchase a hotel at 425 24th St. that will create 48 supportive units.
The city and county of San Francisco was awarded $8.2 million. The grant will fund the acquisition of a multi-family mixed use property at 42 Otis St. that will create 24 affordable units for youths exiting or at risk of homelessness.
Sebastopol was awarded $6.4 million to fund the new construction of a development dubbed Gravenstein Commons on state Highway 116, known as Gravenstein Highway North in the area. The project will create 21 affordable housing units for people exiting homelessness.
The Homekey program has exhausted $3.6 billion in grants from the state to local entities that supported 259 projects, including 15,850 homes, expected to serve more than 172,000 people over the lifetime of the projects, according to the governor’s office. It will soon transition to a new phase of funding that will be known as Project Homekey+.
Gustavo Velasquez, Director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development, said the program was born out of the pandemic emergency, but proved to be successful way to create more supportive housing.
“Originally an emergency measure to help curb the spread of COVID-19 among unhoused Californians, Homekey has grown and evolved into a model for supporting our families and individuals in need of housing such as deserving veterans and others experiencing behavioral health challenges,” said Velasquez.
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