HomeAid Orange County spent more than a year searching for a building to turn into an emergency shelter that could serve as a safe, temporary haven for homeless families with children.

The organization scoured Orange County before finding the right place in a light industrial area, close to public transit and near the Orange Police Department: an empty building whose owner held indoor workouts for his daughter’s softball team.

HomeAid bought the Citrus Street building for $1.7 million and began converting it into a shelter in September.

On Thursday, July 20, the newly christened Family CareCenter on Citrus Street will be officially dedicated and ready to begin housing an expected 10 to 15 families at a time who will sleep in semi-private quarters where batting cages once stood.

Construction continues in what will be the kitchen area for HomeAid’s Family CareCenter in Orange. (Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

The new HomeAid Family CareCenter that in Orange will be about to house 10-15 families per day. (Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

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Bricks with donor names engraved on them line the entrance for the new HomeAid Family CareCenter in Orange. (Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

Edward Cruz, left, and his coworkers, put together a playhouse for kids that will be staying at HomeAid’s Family CareCenter in Orange. The shelter is specifically for families with children. (Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

Scott Larson, executive director of HomeAid Orange County, stands in will be the front lobby of the new HomeAid Family CareCenter in Orange. (Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)



Luis Castanon, left, and Jerry Silva install acoustic panels that also serve as decorative wall art, in what will be the living quarters of HomeAid’s Family CareCenter in Orange. (Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

Scott Larson, executive director of HomeAid Orange County, stands in front of the new Family CareCenter in Orange. (Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

The CareCenter is believed to be the first homeless shelter of any type established in an Orange County city under what is known as the SB2 zoning permit process, a designation under a state law enacted in 2007 to encourage and ease the creation of emergency shelters.

Families – defined as at least one adult with a child under the age of 18 – could begin stays of up to 45 days starting on Friday. The shelter, to be operated by Mercy House, will not take walk-up clients; residents will be referred by agencies that work with homeless families or come through the county’s Coordinated Entry System. Preference will be given to families with ties to Orange.

Advocates of the homeless and city officials hope the shelter will be a bridge to more stable housing for families who may be sleeping in tents, living out of their vehicles, or can no longer afford a motel room with no place else to go.

The need is illustrated by a one-time survey conducted in May: Over a three-day period, a collaborative group of eight nonprofits identified 189 families around the county that were either homeless or needed housing assistance of some sort. CareCenter offers the most beds, up to 100, among only a handful of emergency shelter options for homeless families.



Orange Mayor Theresa “Tita” Smith, executive director of Catholic Charities and a social worker by training, said she can attest to the number of families in Orange County who find themselves without a place to live — typically because of some crisis.

“It’s usually an emergency situation,” Smith said, citing such calamities as job loss, health issues and disabilities, divorce or the death of a breadwinner.

“I guess I can’t emphasize enough that when families are on the street it’s not because they are flaky,” said Smith, who sits on the county’s Commission to End Homelessness.

HomeAid, a charitable arm of the Building Industry Association of Orange County, is working with a $1.3 million grant from the Children & Families Commission of Orange County to help pay for program operation and maintenance. A $5 million campaign to cover the cost of purchase and renovation has raised about one-third of the goal, including a $1 million contribution from Pacific Life Foundation.

HomeAid sees the 10,000-square-foot emergency shelter as a gateway for families to get off the streets and connect to other resources with the hope of stabilizing their precarious situation. It is outfitted with such touches as a kitchen and dining area where volunteers will serve meals or families can make breakfast and snacks, a self-serve laundry room, and a playhouse and computer lab for children.

Residents must vacate the premises during the day, but can leave belongings behind in their sleeping quarters and utilize lockers for whatever might need to be more secure.

“We want them to feel welcome,” said Scott Larson, executive director of HomeAid Orange County and also a member of the Commission to End Homelessness. “We want them to feel their needs are taken care of, then figure out that next step.”

The next step would be to move into housing, which could mean working with programs such as those that provide temporary rent subsidies or the longer-term permanent supportive housing. Family CareCenter is turning to the expertise of the Irvine-based nonprofit Families Forward, which has focused for years on helping families like those the shelter will serve.

Families Forward will assess each family’s situation — including income, credit reports, tenancy history and support network — to determine what they can afford and other options. Families Forward has trained “housing navigators” whose full-time job is to develop relationships with landlords and locate potential rental units. The nonprofit also owns some units that can used as bridge housing.

The bottom line is coming up with a housing plan that will be sustainable, said Elizabeth Andrade, director of housing and program services for Families Forward: “We don’t want to move them out after 45 days and then have them return to homelessness.”