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Mountain View’s cold weather homeless shelter has for years provided a warm place to sleep at night during the winter months. Now the city and county are working to expand its operations to six months out of the year, providing more services to the unhoused.
Since 2017, Trinity United Methodist Church in Mountain View has opened its doors to unhoused women and families, offering shelter and services in partnership with Santa Clara County and HomeFirst, a nonprofit agency. The catch is that the shelter only operates a few months out of the year, typically mid-November through March.
The county is looking to extend the cold weather shelter program so that it can run from mid-October until mid-April, but it needs some help from Mountain View.
On Tuesday, Oct. 8, the City Council is expected to approve a three-year agreement to allow for the temporary use of 15 parking spaces at Lot 7 on Hope Street for shelter participants and staff.
The agreement is similar to one that already exists – it just would have a longer period of operation. If approved by the council, the parking spaces would be set aside for the shelter’s use from 3 p.m. to 9 a.m. starting Nov. 1 and ending April 15. The spaces would then be reserved from Oct. 15 through April 15 over the next two years.
The designation of 15 spots for the shelter is not expected to adversely impact peak daytime parking availability, according to the council report. There are 94 parking spaces in the lot, with up to 75% of them filled during business hours, it said.
The cold weather shelter can accommodate up to 50 individuals or about 10 families. HomeFirst anticipates that the shelter needs eight parking spaces for families with vehicles, based on a similar program in Sunnyvale. It is not requesting parking spaces for single women because they tend to rely on public transit, according to a HomeFirst report. It has set aside seven parking spaces for shelter staff, partners and volunteers.
In addition to parking spaces, the shelter also needs a provisional use permit for its extended operations. A public hearing for the permit is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 9.
