Basecamp opens in Yreka, offering new services for the county’s homeless residents
The Yreka Basecamp on Main Street is a 32-bed shelter for region’s unhoused, designed around delivering a full range of support services.
A large cat named Milo could be heard quietly meowing in his crate near a set of bunk beds at the newly opened Yreka Basecamp homeless shelter.
The shelter took in the cat while its owner was undergoing a hospital stay, and “is now sober and staying sober,” said Tara Kilcollins, a social worker with Northern Valley Catholic Social Service, and Yreka Basecamp’s program manager.
“It’s thinking completely outside of the box around what we need to do to get people into wellness and recovery, and longterm housing,” explained Kilcollins, underscoring one of Basecamp’s central missions which is to do what it can to remove barriers to someone seeking help. And any pet-owner knows, no one wants leave their pet behind.
The Yreka Basecamp and Six Stones Wellness Center is Siskiyou County’s latest investment in services for the region’s unhoused population. The facility, operated by NVCSS, is a 32-bed, low-barrier shelter that offers a wide range of assistance ranging from substance abuse counseling to job services. But at its core, the Basecamp wants to be that quiet refuge from the uncertainties, fear and discomfort that life on the streets almost certainly brings in various stages.
“Basecamp has proved what’s possible when we work together with a shared belief that everyone deserves as safe place to land,” said Amy Diamantine, director of mental health for Northern Valley Catholic Social Service, in some of her comments at the facility’s July 21 grand opening on Main Street in Yreka. “Basecamp isn’t just a place to sleep. It’s a place to start. It’s a place to start over.”
The concept was imagined by Kilcollins about two years ago when she began the lengthy grant application process. The facility, which had a previous life as a Goodwill training center, has undergone an 18-month, $2 million renovation. Some details are left to be completed. The kitchen is still not entirely finished. The project is waiting for another round of funding.
Basecamp includes a large co-ed bunk room, as well as a small bunk room for women. There are showers, areas to store belongs, a large community room where meals and other events happen, as well as spaces for smaller gatherings. The walls are painted in a soft palette of moss greens and calm blues, colors that are “trauma informed,” said Kilcollins.
“One of the main things with addiction and mental illness is that one of the positive things that they are lacking is positive community,” said Kilcollins. “And so that was really the thought. Make it feel like home, and not an institution.”
There is artwork, and plants. An old piano sits in the corner. Basecamp is, for all intents and purposes, a lively community center where some of the city’s most needy residents can get the support they need to get back on their feet.
Yreka Mayor Colleen Baker called the project “a metaphor for the ups and downs of life, beginning with a dream of bringing such a needed resource to our community, followed by a plan, and then the necessary tearing down and rebuilding, to bring this vision to a reality.”
Residents arrive in the evening, get access to showers and are served a meal. All of the food is donated, and the shelter also receives U.S.Department of Agriculture commodities. For now — without a fully functioning kitchen — the meals are mostly simple. Kilcollins plans to offer life-skills around areas like cooking, and even bringing in guest volunteers with cooking experience.
Residents rise about 7 a.m., and depart following a light breakfast, which mostly includes items that can be grabbed and carried out.
In the event that folks need to be turned away because there’s no room left, the shelter keeps a stash of emergency supplies like jackets and sleeping bags or blankets.
“If we do have to turn somebody away we always tell them, come and check tomorrow, and we’ll put them on a list,” said Kilcollins. “But that’s aways the hardest part, is turning somebody away.
“Not having something to give them is the worst feeling in the world,” she added.
Basecamp has been in “soft opening” for about three weeks, and is now set to be fully operational. Which is good timing. The city aims to begin enforcing its no-camping ordinance in the coming weeks. Officials have given notice for unhoused residents to clear out of encampments by the end of the month.
In addition to Basecamp, Yreka is also home to Siskiyou Village, the 15-unit collection of standalone rooms, neatly clustered on a narrow tree-shaded lot on South Foothill Drive near downtown Yreka.
In other housing news, Yreka will join the DANCO Group — an affordable housing developer — in a joint application for the Homekey Plus program, to fund the construction of a 50-unit housing development on Deer Creek Way. The project would be similar in size and scope to the Siskiyou Crossroads development on Foothill Drive.
The program, known as North Mountain Permanent Supportive Housing, would provide new construction of “cottage cluster-style housing.” The development will also provide case management, healthcare, and mental health services to people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.