The units will have heat, air conditioning and electricity, with porta-potties on site and access to three meals a day and showers at the Mission.
Justin Wandro, the director of development at the Mission, said residents who live there will receive support from case managers to help them get into permanent housing. Residents will be allowed to stay at the site for up to 10 months.
"The idea is we can take someone who is experiencing homelessness, on the streets, maybe in our emergency shelter, move them into a place where they've got more of their own space, and it's a next step for them as they transition off the streets, help them get stabilized with supportive services and then ultimately move them into permanent housing," he said.
The site is about a third of an acre and is owned by the Mission. It's located near downtown Redding on the Mission鈥檚 campus, which includes an emergency shelter, recovery program and academic center. The Mission will oversee the site, which they鈥檙e calling Veda Street Village.
Funding for the project came from a mix of city grants and fundraising. The site work cost $230,000, while the cost of the buildings themselves was $98,000.
According to the from the Northern California Continuum of Care, which includes Del Norte, Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra and Siskiyou Counties, chronic homelessness increased in far Northern California by about 32 percent in the previous year. In January 2023, the region had approximately 2,500 homeless people.
Wandro said this shelter is meant to give homeless residents a sense of agency as they transition to permanent housing.
"What we love about it is it restores, really, a sense of, 'Here's this place of safety and home for me', and it becomes their own place where they get to get themselves ready to move back into permanent housing of some sort," he said.
Because of the size of the buildings, they are meant for individual people, not families. Wandro said residents might have a bed and a desk in their shelter and use it as a place to sleep and securely store their belongings.
He expects the site will be ready for people to move in by the end of the year. In the meantime, prep work will include removing trees, leveling the site and setting up the shelters.
