Irvine approves plans to build its first-ever homeless shelter

The Irvine City Council took a major step Tuesday toward addressing homelessness by authorizing the purchase of two properties for a future shelter site.

Council members voted 4-1 to allocate $20 million to acquire and upgrade the two adjacent buildings in the Irvine Business Complex along Armstrong Avenue.

City officials are looking to transform the nearly 4-acre site into Irvine’s first bridge shelter for homeless and at-risk people that will incorporate medical care, financial literacy and job training services.

Dubbed “The Sanctuary,” the shelter is described in a staff report as “a crucial piece of infrastructure” key to the city’s planned multipronged approach to homelessness, which officials are calling “The System.”

“This is really setting a new standard in how a city can address its homeless and at-risk population,” Councilwoman Tammy Kim said. “Unlike any system currently in place, I really think this initiative really is going to set us apart because it’s comprehensive.”

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The number of homeless people living in Irvine varies by different measures.

According to this year’s Orange County Point in Time homeless count, 50 people are living on the streets of Irvine.

During Tuesday’s council meeting, City Manager Oliver Chi noted that 124 people are receiving homeless services and that 300 Irvine Unified School District students are homeless.

What is more certain is how many shelter beds the city provides for homeless people: zero.

“We definitely need to be taking care of our homeless population,” Councilwoman Kathleen Treseder said. “I hear from residents. They notice that the population is increasing. As far as I understand it, it’s mostly elderly folks and women with children. We need to make sure that they are taken care of.”

A previous effort by county officials in 2018 to consider opening an emergency homeless shelter in Irvine drew fierce opposition from residents.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors responded by scuttling their shelter plans in the city.

Tuesday’s council meeting proved a stark contrast to past protests with only a handful of residents speaking on the proposed shelter, some in support, in an otherwise empty council chamber.

“The location of this is in a place where it makes the most sense,” Kim said. “It is the furthest away from residential, it’s furthest away from our schools, in case there’s any concerns.”

Chi said that the Sanctuary wouldn’t be a traditional shelter but a “radically different” overarching campus.

Designs for the Sanctuary were otherwise sparse, including how many shelter beds it would accommodate.

Councilman Mike Carroll, the lone dissenting vote against the shelter purchase, seized on the lack of details in criticizing the real estate deal — and the urgent timeline given to council members to approve it.

“You should not casually put your vote down for $20 million on a facility that could bring a lot of difficulty to our city, if it’s not fully fleshed out,” he said.

Carroll raised concerns that the shelter plan did not go through any city commissions, including Irvine’s planning commission and was similarly dismayed about not hearing from any apartment residents near the proposed site.

He suggested that Irvine should instead pursue a collaboration with Tustin on a shelter site near the Irvine Business Complex but just outside its city limits.

“We cannot rely on other cities to take care of our homeless population,” said Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan, as she noted past efforts to work jointly with Tustin did not pan out.

By approving the purchase, Irvine made a $1 million nonrefundable deposit on the properties two days after the vote.

The city is slated to close the deal and solicit proposals for a medical provider and operator of the shelter by next month.

At the Irvine City Council meeting on Nov. 26, council members are also slated to consider an anti-camping and quality-of-life law, another prong in its “System” approach to addressing homelessness.