Navigation Center to provide shelter, transition support for people who are homeless
The City of Hayward is developing a new Navigation Center with case-management services to shelter up to 45 homeless adults at a time, and help them find and successfully move into permanent housing.
The new Center will be located on vacant City land at the corner of Whitesell and Depot roads in the City’s industrial zone, with nearby Alameda County Transit bus service connecting to South Hayward BART.
The Center is intended to respond to a long-standing need. According to the most recently completed point-in-time count and survey, there is believed to be at least 400 people experiencing homelessness in Hayward. At the same, there are only two permanent shelters for homeless people in the city—and those are limited to families and women with children.
The new Navigation Center will be modeled after Berkeley’s successful STAIR program, which provides service-rich transitional housing for up to six months and graduates seven individuals a month into permanent housing. The Hayward Center include on-site laundry, bathroom, shower and other facilities, and offer all residents 24-hour access and one meal a day.
The estimated cost is $2.5 million annually, plus $500,000 in one-time upfront startup expenses. Initial funding will come from city revenue from the sale of former California Department of Transportation property, and other state and federal sources. The new Center is expected to open by next winter—in late 2019 or early 2020.
