What's at stake?
The City of Fresno will be able to create more housing units for its at-risk population after an announcement of additional Homekey funds last week.
The City of Fresno will receive an additional $9.6 million from the state’s third round of Project Homekey funding to develop new affordable housing.
The funding is expected to go toward the City Studio housing project, which will develop 33 permanent affordable units for the city’s at-risk residents at the old Travelodge hotel at Blackstone and Saginaw Avenues.
The city is partnering for the first time with the faith-based Fresno Mission to manage the program. Fresno Mission hosts social services for residents at their City Center complex — just a few feet east of the development, city leaders announced late last week.
Fresno Mission CEO Matthew Dildine told Fresnoland that the units are expected to be filled with the residents they serve at City Center. Recalling when the city first approached the charity about possibly managing the project, Dildine says it was a simple decision.
“I’m looking out of my office and I can see the property from my window,” Dildine said. “We certainly didn’t want somebody else doing it, since it’s right on our block that we’re trying to transform here at City Center.”
Project Homekey is a state-run program that provides funds to cities “to sustain and rapidly expand housing for persons experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness.”
In total, Fresno has received about $31.5 million from the state since the program began in 2020, according to the California Housing and Community Development Department’s Homekey Awards Dashboard. The city was previously awarded about $21.9 million for a partnership with Valley Teen Ranch to build an affordable housing project in northwest Fresno.
“We have seen an exceptional amount of support from our partners at the state level, and I’m grateful for their continued assistance as we work to help people out of a life of chronic homelessness,” Mayor Jerry Dyer said in the statement.
The funding announcement marks the seventh hotel property that the city has acquired through Homekey funding. Five properties were acquired in 2022, with most being located on Parkway Drive— a strip of hotels and inns that runs along Highway 99 on Parkway Drive and Golden State Boulevard near downtown.
Though no formal opening date has been announced for the City Studio development, all Homekey projects have a 12-month deadline after funding.
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