news story / By Bob Doran

Hopeless Endeavor?

A homeless services center wants to move, but it can’t escape controversy

(March 20, 2008)  It’s a question that’s been nagging the city of Arcata and those who run the nonprofit Arcata Endeavor since the organization formed nine years ago. What’s the best place to offer services for those who are most in need, who don’t have the money for food, who don’t have a place to sleep or bathe or even to use toilet?

After years of searching unsuccessfully for an appropriate place to move from its location near downtown, the Endeavor has come up with a tentative plan for a new location, but it’s not getting rave reviews.

Arcata Endeavor director John Shelter at the site on St.Louis Rd. proposed as a new location for a homeless services center. Photo by Bob Doran.

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In a last-ditch effort to establish what is called “site control,” the organization recently announced that they’d signed an agreement with former City Councilmember Dave Meserve to purchase two parcels at the end of St. Louis Road, next to the Craftsman’s Mall.

Establishing site control will allow the Endeavor to apply for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding that would help pay for the property and finance a new building. Site control is also required to apply for a Federal Emergency Shelter Grant (FESG) to fund program services, facility construction, rent and any costs related to its program mission: moving the homeless into permanent housing and helping them transition to independent living.

Will the council sign off on the plan at a Wednesday, March 19, meeting? It’s not likely if they listen to residents living near the proposed site, who organized opposition almost overnight. An ad hoc neighborhood group called the Coalition of Arcata Families for Appropriate Community Planning claims it has over 300 signatures on a petition against the move.

NIMBY-style opposition has been a constant according to Endeavor board member Rudy Ramp, who got involved with the Endeavor when it was a small organization distributing food boxes, government commodities and whatever else they could find, at the Arcata Presbyterian Church. When the operation outgrew the church, it approached the city for help finding a new location and securing CDBG funding. When the city faced resistance for every site suggested, it ended up settling on the current location between the ballpark and the intermodal transit facility, land the city already owned. A five-year lease was signed in 1999, with the idea that the Endeavor would move to a new place when it ran out.

“We never gave much serious consideration to finding another site until the lease agreement was about up,” said Ramp. In 2004, the city gave the Endeavor a two-year lease extension and more CDBG funding ($500,000) and resumed its search for a new site.

Endeavor board president Roger Herick explained during a March 11 meeting at the Arcata Presbyterian Church that the search did not go well.

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