BALDWIN PARK – One person came to mind on Saturday, Sept. 24, when state Sen. Susan Rubio, D-West Covina, celebrated the opening of a new project designed to help the homeless.
Surrounded by elected officials from all over the San Gabriel Valley, Rubio said she could not forget her conversation with an unhoused 22-year-old named John.
After living on the streets for about three years, John found a place in a tiny home, modular bridge housing designed to be a temporary stop to permanent housing.
“He told me one person kindly bought him shoes so he didn’t have to walk around barefoot, but they got stolen,” Rubio said. “That person bought him another pair, but they got stolen again. Think of someone walking barefoot in this heat wave and not being able to keep even a pair of shoes on his person.”
On Saturday, Rubio led a group of lawmakers and officials to celebrate the opening of Serenity Homes, the second set of tiny home villages, and the first specifically for families, in Baldwin Park.
Esperanza Villa, the first tiny home village of its kind in the San Gabriel Valley, includes 25 tiny homes and is at 14173 Garvey Ave. It opened in November 2021. Serenity Homes sits a little over a mile from the first community, at 13167 Garvey Avenue, on the former site of a Mr. Rooter plumbing company. Residents for the tiny homes are being selected with help from agencies in Baldwin Park and Los Angeles.
“As a longtime resident and former member of the Baldwin Park City Council, I could not be more proud of the leadership our city has exemplified in tackling the issue of homelessness,” Rubio said. “Today’s grand opening is a testament to the creative and compassionate solutions we can come up with when cities band together and work collaboratively to address the homelessness crisis. This $30 million will help the San Gabriel Valley accelerate and expand access to affordable housing that is critical to our region’s future.”
Located on city-owned property acquired earlier this year, the site consists of sixteen 144-square-foot Boss Cubez family modules, fully furnished with a curated selection of IKEA furniture and accessories. The furniture store donated nearly $30,000 worth of furniture to the site. Each family module includes a full-size bed, twin bunk bed, six-drawer dresser, lamp, mirror, portable table, shelves and storage, shoe rack, and other amenities.
Emmanuel J. Estrada, mayor of Baldwin Park, welcomed officials from Arcadia, Azusa, Glendora, La Puente, Monrovia, San Marino, South Pasadena, Temple City, as well as Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut to the opening.
“It’s truly remarkable to be opening a second tiny home village within a year,” Estrada said. “Serenity Homes will serve as a model for how cities can expand homeless services and better address the unique needs of unhoused families. This is one of the best projects in the region. It shows we can get it done for the most vulnerable in our community.”
The new village comes just days after the latest homeless census were released, showing that two of the biggest drops in the San Gabriel Valley came from El Monte and Baldwin Park. El Monte had 433 in 2020, but only 230 this year. Baldwin Park reported 556 in 2020, 275 this year. The countywide count was conducted in February, and the results were released in early September.
This year countywide there were a total of 69,144 unhoused people, a 4.1% increase over the 2020 count that was taken in January of that year, meaning about two months before the pandemic was declared.
Service Planning Area 3 is the largely comprised of the San Gabriel Valley. It has 4,661 homeless individuals — not including Pasadena — an uptick of 2%. Of those, 2,618 (56%) are Latino, an 18% increase, and 1,155 (25%) are white with no change in that percentage.
Pasadena, along with Long Beach and Glendale, does its own count. Pasadena’s total this year was 512, down from 527.
El Monte has taken part in Project Homekey during the pandemic — and Baldwin Park recently erected a village of tiny homes.
The opening also comes as across the county, many officials are considering how to reform the county’s response to the crisis. A county Blue Ribbon Commission was tasked this year with taking a hard look at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority before crafting recommendations to fix what supporters of the commission such as County Supervisor Kathryn Barger “systemic dysfunction within Los Angeles homeless service system.”
Barger met with San Gabriel Valley municipal officials last week in the first quarterly meeting with county officials to discuss the county’s framework to deal with homelessness. She said the new framework has already “defined some important next steps,” such as allocating more access to Measure H dollars.
The Baldwin Park project touted on Saturday is intended to provide temporary bridge housing for about 90 days to six months before families are placed into permanent accommodations. Residents will be offered on-site services such as case management and health and mental health services, three meals a day, restroom, laundry, shower trailers, and an on-site computer room to help with homework and job training.
The Long Beach-based nonprofit, City Net, will provide staffing and security 24 hours a day.
“It takes courage to implement something like this because it isn’t easy, even though it’s best practice,” said Brad Fieldhouse, founder and president of City Net. “(Tiny homes) are creative, innovative, and relatively low-cost. It really should happen everywhere.”
During the ceremony, Rubio, who authored legislation to create the San Gabriel Valley Regional Housing Trust (SGVRHT) in 2019, presented a $30 million check to the trust in funding secured in the 2022-2023 state budget. Rubio secured $20 million in the 2021-2022 state budget to support the construction of affordable housing developments and homeless housing in the region.
The city of Baldwin Park, the housing trust, and the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments spearheaded this project.
“We could not be more excited for this day,” said Claremont Mayor Jed Leano, chairman of the SGVRHT. “Being able to celebrate another milestone with the opening of the San Gabriel Valley’s first bridge housing site dedicated to unhoused families on the same day as receiving this significant state funding of $30 million only makes me even more hopeful for the future.”
Donors to the project included local nurseries, lighting companies, Habitat for Humanity, the Kiwanis Club of Baldwin Park, Southwest Carpenters’ My Brother’s Keeper program, Baby 2 Baby, Kaiser Permanente, and Waste Management. A group of 20 volunteers from Ikea stores in Covina, Burbank, Carson, and Costa Mesa, helped build the $30,000 worth of furnishings the store donated.
“It’s about community partnerships,” said Vanessa Pasillas, IKEA loyalty manager. “We’re always working to have a great relationship with our communities, which is part of our values and mission. This is a way we get to do that.”
