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Over its first full year, the spacious Huntington Beach homeless shelter that opened in late 2020 provided harbor for hundreds of Huntington Beach residents.

“It has been a very successful program,” said Jason Austin, the city’s director of Homelessness and Behavioral Health Services. “The statistics speak for themselves.”

By August, according to newly released data, more than 100 people slept at the temporary shelter – a large, sturdy tent-like structure on Beach Boulevard – every night, totaling 30,871 throughout the year.

Of that number, the city tallied 277 “unduplicated” occupants in 2021. “If someone left and came back, that counted only once,” Austin said.

The 11,600-square-foot dome can hold 174 beds. However, Austin said, beds have been reduced to 127 during the coronavirus pandemic to allow for extra distancing.

Called a “navigation center,” the shelter is intended as a way station for people while they look for a more permanent solution – with support services provided on site to help them on their path. Forty-five occupants were able to find permanent housing last year.

“We don’t want it to be your new house,” Austin said. “It is a temporary stopping point. We hope people will move out within a few months, but sometimes it takes a bit longer.”

Nor is the structure, although well insulated and durable, meant to to stand forever. Within about five years, the city plans to replace it with buildings for affordable housing – the original goal when the City Council approved the purchase of the property in February of 2020.

The navigation center serves three meals a day, dishing up 72,296 in 2021. It also provides showers, laundry service and counseling.

“A shower and clean clothes make an incredible difference for someone who is dealing with a lot of vulnerabilities,” Austin said.

Day-to-day operations at the shelter, including janitorial services, are handled by Santa Ana-based Mercy House.

Debuting in December of 2020, the canvas structure replaced a crumbling century-old house on the three-acre parcel – which is wedged between strip malls, medical offices and apartment complexes.

It is the first big tent used to shelter homeless people in Orange County. Los Angeles and San Diego are among several cities nationwide with fabric navigation centers designed ready-to-install.

In 2021, the city’s homeless task force made 4,441 outreach contacts to the 300 or so unhoused people living in Huntington Beach.

The shelter allows Huntington Beach police to enforce anti-encampment ordinances. In 2018, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a city cannot “criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors” if nothing else is available to them.

Fortuitously, Huntington Beach got some help funding the shelter. The County of Orange contributed $2 million to the project to earmark 30 beds during the pandemic, through May 2021. Today, all beds at the navigation center are for city use.

“The whole point of a navigation center is to get people off the streets and into a safer situation,” Austin said. “We are doing that each and every day.”

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