Vallejo supportive housing project delayed again as costs escalate

VALLEJO - Vallejo’s long-awaited supportive housing project on Broadway has been delayed once again and likely will not start taking new residents until December, city staff said during a City Council meeting Tuesday.

Assistant to the city manager Natalie Peterson said that although the project is “99% complete,” there are still several issues with insurance and minor damage after a water line burst in the site manager’s unit that need to be resolved.

On the bright side, Peterson said that the project’s lease and operator agreement has been signed, and it could take up to 60 days to fill the 47 units. The goal is to finish leasing all homes by Dec. 31. However, for each week the project is delayed, the city must pay an additional $18,000 to cover security and other “holdover costs,” she added.

Vallejo has already faced multiple delays in opening the project for housing people who have been unsheltered, as it has been under construction since 2022. It required a $6 million council bailout last year to resume stalled construction, and an audit found that the city and developer mismanaged the project amid the ballooning of its budget from $15 to $26 million.

When it is completed, the Broadway project is expected to offer permanent supportive homes and case management assistance for 15 years. It will follow the “housing first” model which allows people to get sheltered, including with their pets, and access services including employment and behavioral health assistance. 

Mayor Andrea Sorce on Tuesday blamed the new delays on poor management, saying that the project was supposed to have opened in August. The council that month approved using $600,000 from a state pool from settlements of lawsuits against opioid manufacturers to cover operational and start-up costs and a construction gap on the project. Peterson said this funding will cover the project’s operations until Dec. 1, but after that date staff will bring a request for more funds to cover rising holdover costs. 

Sorce said the matter has come up in closed session meetings several times and that she and Councilmember Tonia Lediju had to start sitting in on meetings to “try to resolve” serious issues with the holdover costs.

“This has been a very, very frustrating couple of months,” Sorce said. She requested that staff bring back a report showing how new funding for cost overruns would be used, and asked what accountability measures are in place.

“We’ve had to pull $600,000 from opioid funds, and now we’re losing $18,000 a week for every week that passes that this doesn’t get opened,” Sorce said. “This project has been a serious leadership failure. My patience with this is completely done.”

City Manager Andrew Murray disagreed with Sorce’s characterization of the situation and said that city staff are obligated to stick to the original contract and never promised that no additional costs would accumulate.

“This project has had many challenges, I don’t disagree with that,” Murray said. “But I don’t think we said we were going to fix everything about this project. What we said was that we were going to put practices in place so we didn’t repeat the mistakes of the project.”

Other councilmembers said they didn’t fully agree with the mayor’s perspective. Councilmember Charles Palmares said he agreed with pushing for improving transparency, but did not think the new issues with the project could have been avoided. 

Councilmember Alexander Matias said he did not think it would use time and funds well to “bash and bash” the project repeatedly, although he said he’s frustrated that his name remains attached to the council’s previous bailout of the project.

“I could spend the rest of my term arguing and complaining about that,” Matias said. “What I’m looking forward to is that on Dec. 1 based on what you’re sharing, we will start to get people off the streets and into housing. We’re at the finish line, folks.”

Councilmember Helen-Marie “Cookie” Gordon agreed with Murray’s assessment, saying that the council already agreed to the likelihood of project delays. She praised city staff for their efforts on the project and on the recently opened navigation center – where, she said, within the last week at least three unhoused people came to access various services. 

“The way I saw it is that we were aware of these complications that were brought before us,” Gordon said. “I feel like the staff really did a lot of hard work. You have a right to be upset and frustrated. But I don’t feel like this was the staff's fault at all.”

The city will receive an update on the matter at an upcoming meeting before the end of the year. Murray added in his report Tuesday that the city is also seeking help with nighttime shelters and is looking for an organization to manage at least one central overnight facility each night. He said he expects more information for the public later this week, to address sheltering at least 100 people per night for around $70,000.