S.D. City Council Votes to Build a Haven From the Streets : Homeless: Construction of center is contingent on reaching agreement with Caltrans on use of the state-owned site.

The San Diego City Council approved Tuesday construction of a $732,000 day center for the homeless that will provide showers, counseling, lounging areas and other services to as many as 200 people at one time.

But ground-breaking on the 5,000-square-foot building at 17th and K streets will not occur until the Centre City Development Corp. and Caltrans complete negotiations on a lease for the Caltrans-owned property adjacent to the Imperial Ave. on- and off-ramps to southbound Interstate 5.

Financed with a combination of CCDC, city, county, Port District and private funds, the day center is envisioned as a way of getting homeless people--primarily men--off the streets of downtown. The facility will provide showers, haircuts, mail and message pick-up and counseling from early morning until early evening.

It also will offer respite from life on the street. One hundred people will be accommodated inside the building, and another 100 will be able to lounge on the facility’s fenced-in lawn.

Men who are clearly under the influence of alcohol or drugs will be allowed into the outdoor lawn area, but will not be allowed inside the building, said Frank Landerville, executive director of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless. Only a security guard will live in the building, which tentatively has been named the Neil Good Day Center for Homeless Men.

Episcopal Community Services, a social service agency, has been chosen to run the facility, but the contract has not yet been approved by the City Council.

But nothing will happen until the lease is signed. Landerville, executive director of the Regional Task Force for the Homeless, said that talks on the $1 per month lease with Caltrans have be going on for more than two years.

“I don’t think it’s been one of their priorities,” Landerville said.

Edward Kirwan, deputy district director for Caltrans, said that he could not predict when the lease would be signed. He said the two-year time-frame includes all conceptual discussions of the center, and that discussion of the actual lease has gone on for an unspecified, shorter period.