For additional help with a broad range of services including housing, transportation, food, health, reentry, employment, and much more, dial:
Hayward Housing Navigation Center
The purpose of the Housing Navigation Center is to help address the City’s homelessness crisis. The center is located on City-owned land at the corner of Depot Road and Whitesell Street.
Opportunities for Contributions
View images of the navigation Center
The center is modeled after the City of Berkeley’s successful Housing Navigation (STAIR) Center and will include:
- Outreach services
- Short-term housing for 45 people at a time
- Intensive case management
- Housing placement services for people living in encampments.
About Bay Area Community Services
Bay Area Community Services (BACS), a local non-profit, will staff the center 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
BACS run the Berkeley STAIR Center and will bring their know-how to Hayward to open our center quickly and effectively. They have been part of the Hayward community since 1975. BACS are committed to ending homelessness and provide these services to people who are homeless:
- Housing programs
- Benefits assistance
- Job support
- Food support
- and more
They also provide behavioral health services and housing programs:
- The Hedco Wellness Center, a drop-in site for adults living with behavioral health challenges and housing insecurity
- Atherton Permanent Supportive Housing program, which provides housing and supportive services to people living with complex physical/behavioral health issues
- Woodroe Place Crisis Residential Treatment, which provides adults experiencing a mental health crisis a place to recover
Who can use the Hayward Housing Navigation Center?
All guests of the center must be 18 and over. The center won’t take walk-ins. Guests must complete the intake process with BACS staff. This includes a Coordinated Entry and Assessment intake as part of Alameda County’s Coordinated Entry System.
How to apply or refer someone to the Center
Call Alameda County's 2-1-1 assistance telephone line, and ask to do an intake for the Alameda County Coordinated Entry System for homelessness services. The non-profit operator of the Navigation Center, BACS, is regularly reviewing these intakes and inviting clients when appropriate.
Homelessness in Hayward
Every two years, during the last 10 days of January, communities across the country count the number of people who are homeless. They also collect data on people who:
- Live in emergency shelters and transitional housing
- Sleep on the streets in cars, in abandoned properties, or in other places not meant for people to live.
On January 30, 2019, 487 people experiencing homelessness were counted in Hayward. This was a 23% increase in homelessness since the 2017 count.
- 76% of people experiencing homelessness in Hayward were unsheltered
- 24% were living in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs on the night of the count.
- 8% reported they were not interested in housing.
Hayward has two homeless shelters for families and women with children. We have a need for shelter for homeless individuals or coupled adults without children.
Hayward Navigation Center Prop 47
The Hayward Navigation Center is partially funded through Proposition 47 funding, administered by the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC). Proposition 47 was a voter-approved initiative on the November 2014 ballot that reduced from felonies to misdemeanors specified low-level drug and property crimes. Each year, the state savings generated by the implementation of Proposition 47 are deposited into the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Fund. Sixty-five percent of these savings are set aside annually for the BSCC to administer a competitive grant program. More information can be found here: https://www.bscc.ca.gov/s_bsccprop47/
The Hayward Navigation Center Prop 47 Local Advisory Committee (LAC) is comprised of local stakeholders who have experience and expertise in the homelessness, behavioral health, substance use, criminal justice, and diversion. The LAC meets quarterly (January, April, July, October) on the fourth Thursday of the month at 5pm. This LAC advises on how to identify and prioritize the most pressing needs to be addressed (to include target population, target area, etc.); how to identify the strategies, programs and/or services to be undertaken to address those needs; the development of the grant project; and ongoing implementation of the grant project. Below is the information to access the meetings:
Join Microsoft Teams Meeting
+1 415-915-0612 United States, San Francisco (Toll)
Conference ID: 817 546 631#
Past meeting materials can be accessed below:
March 26, 2020 Agenda and Minutes
October 9, 2020 Agenda and Minutes
January 28, 2021 Agenda and Minutes
If you have any questions about the Hayward Navigation Center Prop 47 program, please contact the Community Services Division at CommunityServices@hayward-ca.gov.
In the news:
Navigation Center Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
View images from the ribbon cutting
Nov. 19, 2019
- Hayward Homeless Stan Bunger and Susan Leigh Taylor (KCBS Radio San Francisco)