BERKELEY — For years, the Berkeley City Council passed laws, fielded public comments and hashed out local and occasionally international policies inside its chambers in the old downtown city hall. No more.
Starting next Tuesday, the whole two-story building will serve a different purpose: giving homeless people a roof over their heads during the cold rainy winter.
The council held its last meeting on Tuesday at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, during which it instructed the city manager to convert the building to a temporary, makeshift winter shelter. The council is to decide at its next Meeting on Dec. 4 whether to put $60,000 toward operating the shelter.
The Dorothy Day House, which operates other shelters in Berkeley, plans to have the new one up and running by then, when the the next round of storms is expected to hit, said executive director David Stegman. The organization hopes to house 50 to 60 people a night in the building, which will open whenever it’s raining or the temperature drops below 40 degrees for a total of up to 45 days until spring.
“It would have sent a horrible message to the city of Berkeley if we left a big building vacant and boarded up at a time when homeless people need to get off the streets and nonprofits are desperately looking for affordable space,” council member Kriss Worthington said in an interview.
Worthington said the city needed a winter shelter location and vacant city hall made made sense. The city had allowed the North Berkeley Senior Center to be used as a shelter, but it’s scheduled to be renovated and unavailable during the rainy season. The city at one time also used the former Premier Cru wine company’s warehouse as a shelter, as well as the Frances Albrier Community Center at San Pablo Park.
The city of Oakland operates an emergency shelter during the rainy season at the St. Vincent De Paul center and Santa Clara County operates a winter shelter in Sunnyvale.
Berkeley estimates there are 917 homeless people in Berkeley, 664 of whom live in cars, on the streets or other places not meant for habitation, according to a 2017 homelessness point-in-time count.
While it’s unusual to use city halls for homeless shelters, other cities have tried similar approaches. Seattle earlier this year converted its City Hall lobby to an overnight shelter that accommodates about 100 people.
There also was a push in San Jose to convert a closed City Hall Annex to housing for the homeless, but Santa Clara County, which owns the building, said it was uninhabitable. County supervisors voted to demolish the building.
Having Berkeley’s old city hall regularly used also will prevent break-ins, Worthington said.
Earlier this year, city officials decided to hold public meetings at the Berkeley Unified School District board room at 1231 Addison St. because the old city hall chambers was too small, the seats were uncomfortable and the building is due for a seismic retrofit, Worthington said. City offices moved to 2180 Milvia St. years ago.
Stegman said the building is ideal for a shelter. It’s down the street from a drop-in center and other services, it’s easy to find, and it’ll be able to open the doors earlier than other shelters, which typically don’t take in the homeless until about 10 p.m., he said.
The shelter at the old city hall building will be open from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m., Stegman said. It’s only available to adults, though people are allowed to bring their pets. It’s first come, first served, he said.
The building also will be used by Berkeley Community Media to store equipment and to teach classes.
The building still needs to be seismically retrofitted, Worthington said, but until that happens there are no other plans for it. The long-term goal is to convert it back to city offices, but that won’t be for at least another five years, he said.