A tiny village of tiny homes that formally opened Monday is designed to give transitional shelter to unhoused residents of Pajaro, an unincorporated community in north Monterey County.
The housing center is called HOPE Village and is referred to as a navigation center because it pairs social services with housing. It is in the city of Watsonville, just across the Santa Cruz County line to the north of Pajaro.
The project was funded by both the counties of Monterey and Santa Cruz in preparation for construction on the Pajaro River levee. The work is expected to cause displacement of unhoused people living on or near the levee, according to both counties.
The expansion work is needed to fortify the levee after it failed on the Monterey County side in 2023, causing devastating flooding to the community. Nobody was killed, but all of the town’s roughly 3,500 residents were displaced for weeks. Every home suffered damage, and the town sustained about $300 million in property damage.
“Our priority was to get people indoors and connected to services as quickly as possible.”
Robert Ratner, director of Santa Cruz County’s Housing for Health Division
HOPE Village is a single-story complex consisting of 30 modular units with a total of 34 beds for single people or couples and is designed to give residents a sense of privacy, unlike congregate housing, according to Monterey County.
The first residents moved in in February, but a ribbon-cutting was held Monday in a grand opening celebration meant to coincide with national Affordable Housing Month.
Few barriers, no time limits
The homes are designed to have low barriers to entry, meaning people won’t be turned away for substance abuse or behavioral or mental health issues that sometimes delay housing placements, according to the counties. The center is also open 24 hours a day so residents can come and go without time restrictions.
“Our priority was to get people indoors and connected to services as quickly as possible,” said Robert Ratner, director of Santa Cruz County’s Housing for Health Division.
The navigation center has case management that includes help with finding employment and permanent housing, as well as connecting residents to other care services. HOPE in the center’s title stands for Housing Opportunity Programs and Employment, according to Monterey County.
There are also multiple community spaces and a shared laundromat, according to DignityMoves, a nonprofit organization that works to end homelessness by advocating for supportive interim housing, according to its website.
Roxanne Wilson, the homeless services director for Monterey County, said the project was a result of collaboration between multiple stakeholders, including Westview Presbyterian Church, which owns the property where the site is located at 118 First St., and the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz, which operates it.
“This project creates a more humane and coordinated response to homelessness while helping prepare the region for the upcoming Pajaro River levee expansion project,” Wilson said in a statement.
Decades of neglect
The Pajaro River levee was identified as inadequate by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study as early as 1963, according to the Pajaro River Watershed Flood Prevention Authority, highlighting a lack of attention to the community, which has a large residential base of lower income agricultural workers.
Federal and state lawmakers spent the ensuing years trying to get funding for the extensive fortification work and cut through various red tape holding up the repairs.
Earlier this month, a bill from state Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, passed the state Senate. It would give the Pajaro River Watershed Flood Prevention Authority — which oversees flood management and is the local partner agency for the construction work on the levee — more flexibility in hiring contractors and speeding up work.
“Communities along the Pajaro River have experienced repeated flooding over many decades, and the devastating 2023 floods made clear the importance of continuing to strengthen our flood protection infrastructure,” Laird said in a statement when he introduced the bill.
The bill, Senate Bill 1055, is now in the Assembly.
The roughly $600 million levee repair and upgrade work is being done in five phases. The first phase is under construction and the other four are in the design stages, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Construction on the first phase is scheduled to be done in fall 2027.