Author: Perry Smith
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Perry Smith

Bridge to Home celebrates new shelter By Perry Smith Senior Staff Writer For many gathered off Drayton Street in Newhall at Monday’s ribbon-cutting for the city’s first-ever permanent homeless shelter, it was a full-circle moment. More than a handful of people could remember contentious meetings the city had for years when it was time for the annual discussion on where the temporary emergency winter shelter would go. “Prior to being elected, I was a staffer,” said L.A. County 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger, referring to work for her predecessor, Michael Antonovich. “And I worked on these issues ... and it went from location to location to location, in the city and the county, shared responsibility but neither wanted it to be a permanent placement.” But Monday was a celebration of how far the community had come to help the homeless and an acknowledgement of those who made it possible. “We anticipate serving 1,000 people every year at this new facility,” said board President Tracey Carpentier, who has led the Bridge to Home board of directors for the past three years. “This facility is a huge milestone.” And it took about an hour of thank-you’s to mention the many donors, from elected officials to volunteers who helped make the $16 million center a reality. In addition to support services to help clients back on their feet, the shelter is expected to be able to house 46 men, 23 women, and eight families of four in family living units — a capacity of just over 100. “Seeing it moved past all the difficulties, all the obstacles, all the doubting if we could really do this — and it’s thrilling,” said Peggy Edwards, who’s been a local stalwart for the unhoused for years and a longtime board member for Bridge to Home. “The other thing it shows is, to me, a legacy that all of these people here who contributed to it have left, with new leadership coming on and a bigger board, and still have all the people who are involved in the first place still pretty much around.” Santa Clarita Mayor Cameron Smyth and several others spoke to the timeline in getting the year-round shelter’s opening, which started in 1990, 1996 or 2011 depending on who was asked. As some others mentioned how those less fortunate were cared for by shoestring budgets — with founding member Mark Young quipping that’s actually an insult to shoestrings — Smyth recalled the family legacy of involvement, starting not long after the city incorporated in 1987. “When you talk about the first checks and the low budget, it was actually when my dad was on the council, who made the first motion for the city's funding to support the shelter,” Smyth said, referring to his late father and former councilman, Clyde Smyth, adding in jest, “and my dad’s kind of cheap. But it was a start.” In an interview Smyth also praised the work of pioneers like retired Lt. Col. Tim Davis, a founding board member and the first executive director of Bridge to Home, who now leads homeless services for an organization in Huntsville, Alabama. “It really has been a multidecade effort, and I think the folks at Bridge to Home and all of the homeless providers over the years, they have done an amazing job in really changing the narrative about homelessness, particularly here in Santa Clarita,” he said, alluding to the not-in-my-backyard mentality to addressing homelessness that was a difficult challenge for early advocates. “The council meetings were always packed with residents who were concerned and didn't want it in their community, and to get where we are today, with a city-community task force with over 30 different organizations involved, the partnership with the state, the county,” Smyth said, “it really is a credit to the community and highlights why Santa Clarita is such a unique city.” Davis, who dedicated decades to helping the homeless in Santa Clarita, became choked up sharing the story of the shelter’s first clients. “A young woman came to our town with a newborn baby,” Davis said, recalling a time in 1990 when Santa Clarita was less than half the size it is now and the west side of Interstate 5 was lined with pastures. An interfaith council that came together ended up raising enough money to help the young mother and her baby get a hotel room. Eventually, they contacted a family member and raised enough money to help the mother get back with the rest of her family. But the seeds were sowed. “A couple of months later, and again, in 1993, a group of us got together at St. Clare's Catholic Church and said, ‘You know, what are we going to do? We need to get ourselves organized. We need to figure out how to move forward with something where we can help people that we know are here,’” Davis said. While the city has changed, some have moved on and the costs have grown. Another highlight of Monday’s event was Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, presenting a $1.25 million state check for the shelter. It was clear the SCV’s homeless have a place that’s here to stay. “That’s something that I can tell you is unique in the Santa Clarita Valley. When we talk about the unhoused in communities, everyone says, ‘Fix it,’ and then when you go in to fix it, they say, ‘Well, we didn't mean here — go over there,’” Barger said Monday. “And here, it's like, ‘No, they are our people, these are people that are part of our community.’ And when I hear the numbers of children that are facing this situation and being unhoused, it breaks my heart, and the goal is to break the cycle. And that is what's going to happen here.”

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