SANTA CRUZ >> New state legislation designed to fast-track approvals for low-barrier service-oriented homeless shelters such as one proposed for Watsonville sailed through its first committee this week.

The Interim Housing Act or Senate Bill 1395, would ease building efforts for housing-oriented navigation shelters in communities that have declared the existence of shelter emergencies. Bill author Sen. Josh Becker, D-San Mateo, described, in particular, a growing approach to addressing homelessness with “nonpermanent or relocatable housing communities built on underutilized vacant land” while permanent housing is under construction.

In June, the counties of Santa Cruz and Monterey, in partnership with the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency and the city of Watsonville, announced receipt of an $8 million homeless encampment resolution grant. The funding was set aside to build a 34-unit micro-home village shelter project, tentatively planned for parking lot of the Westview Presbyterian Church on First Street. The effort to relocate people living along the riverbed was designed to parallel extensive ongoing levee construction and repair efforts, a project currently between the design and construction phases.

Placement of the prefabricated 64-square-foot Cubez units was initially expected by the end of 2023, with a priority for people living in tent encampments along the Pajaro River levee. In counts conducted prior to the March 10, 2023 levee breaches near Pajaro, Monterey County officials estimated some 70 people were living in the riverbed.

It was unclear how or whether the passage of the pending state bill, co-sponsored by DignityMoves, Bay Area Council, SPUR and the Office of San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, would affect the Watsonville project.

The shelter effort, dubbed “Recurso de Fuerza” or “Resource of Strength” by Monterey County-interviewed levee denizens, remained in the planning stage, according to updates in recent weeks. According to Watsonville city spokesperson Michelle Pulido, who spoke with the Sentinel last month, the city was awaiting the submission of a revised set of plans from the project’s developer.

“No additional public meetings are planned for the shelter, as it is allowed “by right” and does not require a public hearing for approval,” Pulido said of any upcoming public events related to the project.

The shelter project has received attention and concerns from both housed and unhoused Watsonville residents. In June, Watsonville Councilmembers Casey Clark, Jimmy Dutra and Ari Parker sought a special meeting on the issue to hear more details of the proposal and a public information session at the church last year drew a packed house of interested residents.

Monike Ilene Tone, part of the Pajaro River homeless community for more than 13 years, wrote to the Sentinel in August to say she did not support tiny home-style shelters, where authorities would be able to “pick and choose” who occupied the homes. Tone also objected to regular law enforcement sweeps of the levee encampments, particularly where disruptive bulldozers were brought in for camp cleanups and churned up the riverbed in the process.

“We need to have permanency not put into a place that is transitional,” Tone wrote. “We don’t need to go through any more than what we have already.”