As costs rise, Palo Alto's transitional housing project seeks to reduce … – Palo Alto Online

News
by Gennady Sheyner / Palo Alto Weekly
Uploaded: Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:19 pm 10
Time to read: about 3 minutes
The proposed design for Palo Alto Homekey includes three-story buildings with 88 apartments for unhoused individuals and families. Rendering courtesy LifeMoves.
Looking to contain rapidly rising costs, the nonprofit looking to build a residential complex for unhoused individuals near the Palo Alto Baylands is preparing to eliminate numerous proposed amenities and to solicit donations from the community.
LifeMoves, which is spearheading the project at 1237 San Antonio Road, informed the city earlier this month that its projected costs for the Palo Alto project have once again gone up. Even though the project last year received $26.6 million from the state’s Homekey program to build the complex, the nonprofit is now requesting additional funding from the city and a deadline extension from the state.
The revised plans eliminate the proposed photovoltaic system and electric vehicle chargers, which is expected to save $1.3 million. It also eliminates one of the two elevators, reduces the number of offices for support services from 16 to nine and brings down the number of on-site parking spaces from 24 to 21. The community dining area, which was initially envisioned as 2,000 square feet, is now proposed to be 1,200 square feet and the total area for support services would be reduced from 6,340 square feet to 4,940 square feet.
The new plan retains all 88 of the proposed apartments, which includes 24 units for families and 64 for individuals. It would, however, reduce the number of common bathrooms from five to four.
While these elements are expected to save about $2 million, the 88-unit project is still facing a $6 million funding gap, according to LifeMoves. While the organization is expecting to chip in additional funds from its own coffers and from donations, the city is considering adding $2 million to address the shortfall, according to a report from City Manager Ed Shikada.
Help sustain the local news you depend on.
Your contribution matters. Become a member today.
“We have a funding gap, which is perhaps symptomatic of construction cost increases as well as industry supply chain issues,” Shikada said during a March 20 update to the City Council.
The city has numerous options for meeting the additional obligations. One is to use the $1 million it was planning to spend on facility operations in the current fiscal year. Because project construction has yet to commence, that money can now be repurposed.
The project can also get a boost from Measure K, the business tax that Palo Alto voters approved last November. The measure specifically targets three areas: public safety, transportation and housing. This, according to staff, makes the measure a suitable source of funding for the LifeMoves project.
“Since this project aligns with the intentions adopted by the Council for Measure K, those revenues could be a potential funding source for the City’s contribution as this project relates to affordable housing for unhoused neighbors.”
For Palo Alto leaders, the Homekey project represents an important step to address the city’s housing crisis, a perennial council priority. The city is following the lead of Mountain View, where the nonprofit quickly constructed an interim housing facility for the homeless at 2566 Leghorn St. in 2021. That project, which was also funded by Project Homekey, was hailed by Gov. Gavin Newsom as a model to be emulated.
Stay informed
Get the latest local news and information sent straight to your inbox.
Stay informed
Get the latest local news and information sent straight to your inbox.
Despite the early plaudits, the nonprofit has struggled to find permanent housing for its Mountain View clients, according to an investigation by the Mountain View Voice, the Weekly’s sister paper. Only 26% of its clients were able to move on to stable housing, placing them near the bottom among shelters countywide, according to county data cited in the Voice report.
Despite the challenges, LifeMoves is hoping to expand the model to other Bay Area locations, including in Palo Alto and San Jose. For the Palo Alto project, the nonprofit has recently brought in a new development team led by Devcon, a contractor with its own in-house architect. The move, according to Shikada’s report, was made to “address economic uncertainty, inflation, and supply chain concerns which have caused increased project costs.”
The contractor helped LifeMoves identify project features that could be cut or deferred until additional funding materializes.
“With proposed savings, the team was able to bring the capital cost estimates down significantly, while still resulting in a safe project that meets the original Council intentions and parameters of the State Homekey grant,” the report states.
Most Viewed Stories
■ Police seek suspect after woman was sexually assaulted at Cal. Ave. pedestrian underpass
■ Man arrested for sexual assault in Cal. Ave. tunnel may be Princeton alum
■ Once polarizing, bathrooms to become fixtures in Palo Alto parks
■ Cyclist, 37, dies after collision with car on Cañada Road near Filoli estate
■ Judge denies Elizabeth Holmes’ request to remain free while appeal is resolved
Most Viewed Stories
■ Police seek suspect after woman was sexually assaulted at Cal. Ave. pedestrian underpass
■ Man arrested for sexual assault in Cal. Ave. tunnel may be Princeton alum
Follow Palo Alto Online and the Palo Alto Weekly on Twitter @paloaltoweekly, Facebook and on Instagram @paloaltoonline for breaking news, local events, photos, videos and more.

by Gennady Sheyner / Palo Alto Weekly
Uploaded: Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:19 pm

Looking to contain rapidly rising costs, the nonprofit looking to build a residential complex for unhoused individuals near the Palo Alto Baylands is preparing to eliminate numerous proposed amenities and to solicit donations from the community.
LifeMoves, which is spearheading the project at 1237 San Antonio Road, informed the city earlier this month that its projected costs for the Palo Alto project have once again gone up. Even though the project last year received $26.6 million from the state’s Homekey program to build the complex, the nonprofit is now requesting additional funding from the city and a deadline extension from the state.
The revised plans eliminate the proposed photovoltaic system and electric vehicle chargers, which is expected to save $1.3 million. It also eliminates one of the two elevators, reduces the number of offices for support services from 16 to nine and brings down the number of on-site parking spaces from 24 to 21. The community dining area, which was initially envisioned as 2,000 square feet, is now proposed to be 1,200 square feet and the total area for support services would be reduced from 6,340 square feet to 4,940 square feet.
The new plan retains all 88 of the proposed apartments, which includes 24 units for families and 64 for individuals. It would, however, reduce the number of common bathrooms from five to four.
While these elements are expected to save about $2 million, the 88-unit project is still facing a $6 million funding gap, according to LifeMoves. While the organization is expecting to chip in additional funds from its own coffers and from donations, the city is considering adding $2 million to address the shortfall, according to a report from City Manager Ed Shikada.
“We have a funding gap, which is perhaps symptomatic of construction cost increases as well as industry supply chain issues,” Shikada said during a March 20 update to the City Council.
The city has numerous options for meeting the additional obligations. One is to use the $1 million it was planning to spend on facility operations in the current fiscal year. Because project construction has yet to commence, that money can now be repurposed.
The project can also get a boost from Measure K, the business tax that Palo Alto voters approved last November. The measure specifically targets three areas: public safety, transportation and housing. This, according to staff, makes the measure a suitable source of funding for the LifeMoves project.
“Since this project aligns with the intentions adopted by the Council for Measure K, those revenues could be a potential funding source for the City’s contribution as this project relates to affordable housing for unhoused neighbors.”
For Palo Alto leaders, the Homekey project represents an important step to address the city’s housing crisis, a perennial council priority. The city is following the lead of Mountain View, where the nonprofit quickly constructed an interim housing facility for the homeless at 2566 Leghorn St. in 2021. That project, which was also funded by Project Homekey, was hailed by Gov. Gavin Newsom as a model to be emulated.
Despite the early plaudits, the nonprofit has struggled to find permanent housing for its Mountain View clients, according to an investigation by the Mountain View Voice, the Weekly’s sister paper. Only 26% of its clients were able to move on to stable housing, placing them near the bottom among shelters countywide, according to county data cited in the Voice report.
Despite the challenges, LifeMoves is hoping to expand the model to other Bay Area locations, including in Palo Alto and San Jose. For the Palo Alto project, the nonprofit has recently brought in a new development team led by Devcon, a contractor with its own in-house architect. The move, according to Shikada’s report, was made to “address economic uncertainty, inflation, and supply chain concerns which have caused increased project costs.”
The contractor helped LifeMoves identify project features that could be cut or deferred until additional funding materializes.
“With proposed savings, the team was able to bring the capital cost estimates down significantly, while still resulting in a safe project that meets the original Council intentions and parameters of the State Homekey grant,” the report states.
It would be nice to know the new estimated total cost. Were previous estimates pulled out of thin air, or were they based on actual planning? Is no one responsible for such overruns?

Also, cutting the number of parking places to 21 for 88 units plus staff seems like a good way to prevent people from leaving the complex, as the only public transit nearby seems to be the morning/afternoon only ACE Orange shuttle to the train station.
Yes why aren’t these being built near public transportation? Many of the unhoused do not have working automobiles. Too late now but how can you expect people to get to the jobs they need im order to transition out? And lack of qualified staff who can afford to live in the area to support those who need help is exacerbating an already stretched thin system. The previous report on Life Moves challenges with their MT View program is concerning and I have supported them for many years. It feels like an endless cycle of failure.
Here’s a twist: how about Permanete very low income family housing i.e. Mayfield Place for instance. 85% completed and was still approved to open 2017 by City & Stanford. No parking. Interiors made of plastic, fiberglass, vinyl & plastic. Think hospital width to get wheeled beds & wheelchairs around, but not people. Washers broken, no resident access to the community room (shut/dark/locked) broken appliances, mail and package theft. And we are locked in w fobs, and and heavy exterior iron gates (seriously) ! A two year-old or someone in a wheel chair could not push the gate open or escape thru window that opens out 4 ft above floor. Flooding in stairwells, mean ill trained managers who yell at rent paying , hard working families. I have determined that Mayfield Place was not designed, nor built or has the amenities for life. Cramped space, cheap quality HH appliances that break after a few months: the paint is so cheap and chalky , primmer was not dry and interiors sprayed become primmer was dry. So yes it rubs away w warm water and a rag. Interior door have a 1/4 inch space around frame and made of cardboard. Now temporary housing get less shared bathrooms and such necessity is called an “amenity”. LM’s is a mess. Never answer the phone, no flllow-up, assigned case managers cough and sniffle , constantly interrupt. And get this. The organization does not have a mechanism in place to submit documents online. The receptionists quit, the VM is full or there is no-one is there working in person. 212, the county, Kaiser, the city of PA shove any Santa Clara County family housing emergency/crisis need off to LM’’s. So when it’s expeditious it’s Silicon Valley yet when it becomes a resident and a real human need. Shoulders shrug, links go no where, no qualified certificates, professional help: instantly it’s Santa Clara County. What a sham. When ever I read on city, County , state websites klick here for emergency housing: I slam my lap top cover down. White noise !!!!
More highly paid “social workers” earning while sitting in their underwear all day saying no to people in need, unless they are doing side jobs for dash. This whole 88 unit transitional housing was never meant to consider humanity. it was just designed to warehouse people. Costs will keep rising since there appears to be no hard plans in place. Just pie in the sky meant to get people elected and re-elected. Are there no contracts in place? Sounds like no. If there were, we could expect cost overruns but the fact that not a single teaspoon of dirt has been turned, contractors are just going with the flow of inflation. Our city leaders have NO business dictating lifestyles to the poor and undignified. But they do. I could buy 88 home depot sheds for less, and contract with a portapotty company for less and have it built and ready for occupancy in a month. Forget the showers. Communal bathrooms should be allowed with a single caveat: at least 3 social workers have to live on site to provide 24 hour, 365 day coverage and use and clean the bathrooms. Then “they” (whoever they are) would have a real sense of what they have built and the horrible conditions they are putting on the backs of the poor. as if 88 units would even amount to the size of a head of a pin of difference. As to what @Native has described, they build stuff not meant to last five years and then the city throws lavish parties and retreats to pat themselves and each other on the back. Im in palm springs today. They have the same problem PA does. Except there are fewer accessible parking options and they have ACTUAL MEASURABLE tourism. PA needs to stop acting like its a tourist hub, and recognize that all of the empty office space could easily be converted to housing. But if they did, they would have to admit theres a housing problem. The ghost of Leland simply will not allow it.
@MyFeelz I have tons of typos in my post. Does “dash” deserve it’s noun name as in an upper case ‘DD’ as in Door Dash?! How about the depot to home = Home Depot Corp !? I contemplate will the two remaining shared showers i.e WC’s at Life Moves Mnt View, have quiet close toilet seats. Or is that a cost over-run ‘amok’?! I was recently a visitor at the “new” Stanford hospital. Wowza! Take away: When a architect for medical facility decides to build way up and out, defying gravity, what’s left? A bunch of oxygen deprived, short of patience nurses and anxious ridden patients that God is calling from above way too soon. Screw the above our earth view. Patients need real, human care. Not computer driven algorithms, flat screen tv’s and steak dinners.

What about about a modular 88 “unit” (I.e converted shipping container) for the acute, unhoused? . The upper echelons of yes/no/maybe decisions are well grounded in their own SFH’s and careers and sadly, attitudes. Everything else and everyone else is in limbo and can just float away in our current economic climate induced, Pandemic storm. Or if necessary, be shoved out of sight and mind. My Typos be damned. Our Bay Area humanitarian crisis is real. Yet when the 5th largest, richest economy in the world is crying “poor” in supply chain, material costs, land or other, what world Health Organization, Amnesty International, Southern Poverty Law Center or USA ACLU will give Calif pity or a flying hoot,? when entire cities or countries are suffering displacement, war & genocide? The reality. Newsome cannot and will not run for US President when his state, his place of birth is mired in such curb side un appeal & despair. Seriously. Would residents of Mississippi vote for a candidate so I’ll equipped to undo Prop 13, Block Grants, wage caverns. He, who cannot curtail run-away real estate & house his own residents. Like throwing the “book” at a criminal, our statevgovernance keeps throwing money down a toilet without a “quiet close”.
Added note: not only are social workers saying “no” the phone goes unanswered. And Cities like PA continue to refer thier links to said agencies. While those agencies get money from said cities. I tried to get a hold of LMMountain for six months in 2020 and no return call nothing. Ghosted. And the city just kept on with their links, surveys and referrals to said agency. Pity. And so so so much cares act money was funneled to LMMountain View. And the city got 12million dollars from the Cares act for what? Pay their own labor or electric bills? Or did that 12M go to the Palo Alto Mystery Museum?
@Native, ROFLMAO. I get you. acronymitis wont fix any of our local NIMBY buffalo barricades. Personally, I would rather die than end up at Lelands hospital. Someday, and soon, there will be a reckoning where Lelands operating room will meet a judge who is unaffiliated, and thus not beholden, who will bust apart the almighty status quo. Sorry to hear you had to go there, hope you got the dime tour. Just for “fun” I recently went to a local agency. They had all of the local aid agency splattered on the walls, none of them newer than 2017. B.C. (before covid). All covid proved was the highly paid social workers never needed office space, or clothes to show their status. Im wondering what all those agencies are doing with the money they no longer have to pay to warehouse their employees. bonuses?
Native to the Bay’s complaints about poor quality construction at Mayfield Place, which hailed itself on completion in 2017 for being the first affordable housing built in Palo Alto in years, are faint echoes of the outrage directed at the general contractor, Segue Construction, following the deadly collapse in 2015 of an apartment balcony at one of Segue’s projects in Berkeley. The State of California concurred in a multi-million dollar settlement agreement that inferior materials had been used and revoked Segue’s license.
@Native I wish to compliment you on your style, that harkens from Dolly Parton and further back, Mark Twain. Dolly never missed a cliche that didnt fit, and many of her songs are a critique of all humankind while at the same time, a catchy melody that makes you listen to find yourself in her lyrics — who is part of the problem, and who is the solution? Is the TRUTH a cliche? Mark Twain’s inventive way of stringing words together was not to be repetitive. His standup folklore would be called harangues in todays parlance, but when there is more bad going on instead of good, his way of striking a comedic chord made people pay attention. Two people from dirt poor origins reporting on humankind’s current conditions, with truth that resonates with people who are willing to READ or LISTEN and not dismiss the point. I am missing the mention of many others with similar original style but just wanted to bounce in here to say I read you loud and clear, and again remind you and similar people suffering LIHTC style that there are remedies available just by Googling “LIHTC”. Go to the first CA state website that pertains to tax credit buildings (which Mayfield IS such a program) and search within for “COMPLIANCE”. There are remedies and I am pretty sure everyone on the contact list is sitting at home, in their underwear, ready to take yo]ur call. Don’t wait too long, because when the heat of summer has everybody by the cojones, the State (and City) employees will all be at the beach. Horrible cell reception there.
The San Francisco Chronicle went through a period when they were printing people’s stories on the front page – Homeless people and people that got interim housing. They came from different states and different cities. WE don’t do any favors for people that leave their home cities where they know what the resources are and have family. Advocacy groups are promising something that they cannot deliver. This city has limited types of jobs. We do not have a commercial industry. Where would these people find work? They need to be in larger cities like San Jose that at least have a higher variety of jobs.
Advocacy groups should get funding where they can combine the housing and jobs requirement. There has to be a viable job opportunity to bring people here.
Don’t miss out on the discussion!
Sign up to be notified of new comments on this topic.
In order to encourage respectful and thoughtful discussion, commenting on stories is available to those who are registered users. If you are already a registered user and the commenting form is not below, you need to log in. If you are not registered, you can do so here.
Please make sure your comments are truthful, on-topic and do not disrespect another poster. Don’t be snarky or belittling. All postings are subject to our TERMS OF USE, and may be deleted if deemed inappropriate by our staff.
See our announcement about requiring registration for commenting.
Home
News
TownSquare
Blogs
A&E
Community Calendar
Sports
Home & Real Estate
Visitor Info
Send News Tips
Become a Member
Print Edition/Archives
Express / Weekend Express
Promotions
Special Pubs
Obituaries
Circulation & Delivery
About Us
Contact Us
Advertising Info
Place a Legal Notice
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
 
Mountain View Voice
The Almanac
TheSixFifty.com
Redwood City Pulse
© 2023 Palo Alto Online
All rights reserved.
 
Embarcadero Media
 
PR MediaRelease
Spotlight
Mobile site
© 2023 Palo Alto Online. All rights reserved.

source