Amid a worsening homelessness crisis in the Bay Area, Fremont officials are trying to determine potential locations for the city’s first homeless navigation center, but a group of residents are calling for the city to take one possible site off the list.

At a packed meeting Tuesday evening, hundreds of people showed up to hear a report from city staff about criteria for selecting a location for the center, which is intended to house about 45 homeless people up to six months at a time, while case workers help find them permanent housing.

The city says it’s looking at about a dozen possible sites for such a center, and a list of locations will be presented to the council July 9 for discussion, though a final decision likely won’t be made until September.

However, the city’s consideration of a grassy parcel of church-owned land on Niles Boulevard has drawn the ire of some residents, dozens of whom showed up Tuesday to speak out against it, saying locating the center there would endanger kids who go to school nearby.

Michael Sanz, a resident of Niles, told the council he’s concerned about who would occupy the center.

“Mental illness, sexual deviancy, drug dependence,” he said. “Putting a homeless shelter there is at best idiotic, at worst criminally negligent,” he said.

An online petition raising concerns about the site has been signed by more than 3,000 people as of Tuesday night.

“Good cause, bad location,” a man named Mohan, who didn’t give his last name, said.

“My neighbors are a very compassionate lot, we care about our fellow man, and we want to help. But this location…is not a good location,” he said.

Jamie Almanza, executive director of Bay Area Community Services — a nonprofit contractor chosen by Fremont to run the future center — told the council wherever it’s located, the center would be a “low-barrier” one, intended to help as many as possible, including those with drug or alcohol abuse issues, or mental health issues, that may be exacerbated by a lack of shelter.

“It brings homeless individuals off the streets into a very warm, supportive environments,” she said.

In addition to providing case workers to residents to help them find housing, the center would help connect residents with medical and other supportive services. Almanza said while drug and alcohol use is discouraged at the center, it wouldn’t be prohibited.

In order to be eligible for the program, Almanza said, “You have to really have one thing, which is a focus on ending your homelessness and becoming housed.”

A similar navigation center operated by the nonprofit in Berkeley has been open less than a year, and has helped move 78 of the 94 people it served so far into permanent housing, according to city staff reports.

Some residents also suggested the active railroad adjacent to the Niles Discovery Church property at 36600 Niles Blvd. would pose a danger to occupants of the center, especially those with mental health issues.

“So what happens if they unintentionally wandered out to the track without any support?,” asked Poornima Devaraj, a resident.

“Do we have a plan for it? Let’s be honest, I don’t think we’ll be able to monitor them.”

Others who spoke in support of locating the center at the Niles church property said the fears some have of what might happen if a center was located in the area are overblown, because homeless people already live in the area.

“As a parent, I don’t think pretending homeless people don’t exist is an option for me. It’s traumatic to see homeless people suffering, but it’s more traumatic to leave them suffering and not act,” Lisa Newstrom, a Niles resident and parent, said.

“I appreciate the concern for the danger of the tracks, but many homeless are already living on the tracks,” she said.

“The homeless are already here, if your kids ride their bike past a homeless person who’s passed out drunk, well that is the world we live in,” another resident, Nancy Coumou said.

“The thing I like most about the Niles Discovery Church location…is that there’s a welcoming church community that’s not scared to death of these people,” she said.

Any potential navigation center site will need to be within a half-mile of a bus stop with service to BART stations, and within a half-mile of food services, which the city defines as any “retail shop that primarily sells foods, including but not limited to convenience stores, grocery stores, delicatessens, country stores, and markets.”

The site would also need to have water and sewer connections abutting the property, be outside of a fault trace zone, and have no other known major environmental issues, such as being located in a flood zone, city reports said.

The council also directed staff to include the costs of each potential location in the criteria, and to consider proximity to schools.

At the July 9 meeting, the council will provide feedback to staff on which properties are “most favorable and feasible,” and staff “will conduct neighborhood outreach to obtain community input and comments” about the favored locations after that.

The council could vote on a final site for the center in September, city reports said.