Tuolumne County Will Buy Soulsbyville Facility For Navigation Center

Oak Terrace website

Sonora, CA – At Tuesday’s meeting the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors voted to buy the former Soulsbyville memory care facility and turn it into a navigation center for homeless and transitional housing, despite most attendees speaking out against the purchase.

As earlier reported here, the navigation center will provide on-site management 24/7 and allow those eligible to stay for up to six months while helping them with personalized support. First, county staff gave a presentation, answering some of the most frequently asked questions from community members. Then it was time for public comment.

While eight people supported the plans and three were neutral, about two dozen voiced opposition centered around property values, transportation (as it is not close to homeless services), and future financing. The facility is in Supervisor Ryan Campbell’s District Two. He echoed some of those worries and tried to get the board to postpone the vote, stating, “I’ve made no secret that I’m more in favor of a distributive model of housing anyway, where we’re talking about large numbers of smaller housing rather than one large facility. I’m willing to pull back on that desire that I have, but not without doing our due diligence to see if there are other alternatives. I don’t think these concerns are insurmountable. I don’t think they are unreasonable, and the main issue that we’re talking about here is that they’ll take time.”

Supervisor Anaiah Kirk shared that he did not like the location of the facility, and both voted no.

Supervisor Jaron Brandon (stating that there is no perfect building), David Goldemberg (citing this as a countywide issue and that all must share the load), and Board Chair Kathleen Haff, all voted yes. Haff pointed to the success of the non-profit Resiliency Village, which also had a lot of opposition early on. In supporting this purchase, she stated, “I do believe that this is the right size facility and the right program and that we have no intention of filling it quickly. In time, our competent staff will have the opportunity to show our community what they can do in terms of case managing the people who will come to this facility for services.”

The purchase of the former Oak Terrace site for $2-million will move forward following the 3-2 vote.

You can read a list of frequently asked questions put out by the county by clicking here.

The county has also put out a proposed budget for the purchase, renovations, and operations, which can be found here.