Redondo Beach will add a crisis response program to its homelessness outreach services because of grants that will also grow the city’s transitional housing network.
The City Council this week approved a $1.3 million grant from medical provider Health Net to expand the city’s Pallet Shelter program and start an alternative crisis response program to get resources to people experiencing homelessness.
Redondo Beach tallied 71 people without permanent shelter in the city during its 2023 survey of the homeless population.
In recent months, the city has been working on adding 25 units to its Pallet Shelter site on Kingsdale Avenue, near the South Bay Galleria, which would increase the number of aluminum cabins from 20 to 45. The shelters are of 64-to-70 square feet.
The Redondo Beach Pallet Shelters initially opened in 2020 with 15 units, and the city later added five more. Since the initial shelters opened, 99 people have lived there, with 55 having found permanent housing elsewhere, said Joy Abaquin Ford, the city’s quality of life prosecutor.
Now, public works employees will build another 25 new shelters in a vacant lot adjacent to the existing site. The new transitional housing units could go in by June, City Attorney Mike Webb said previously.
Health Net initially vowed nearly $770,000 for the Pallet Shelter expansion, matching an $800,000 grant from LA County Supervisor Holly Mitchell’s office for the $1.5 million project.
The additional $570,000 from Health Net will establish the crisis response program.
The crisis response program will be a continuum of care for folks who have gotten the city’s help finding transitional to permanent housing, Abaquin Ford said.
Service providers will respond to non-violent mental and behavioral health service calls, and will offer trauma-informed care, crisis de-escalation, in-person intervention and transportation to immediate behavioral health services.
