Owners pledge action after gunfire at Golden Bear Homes
"We want people to feel like they have a direct line to us and that their concerns are being heard," a spokeswoman for one of the owners said.
In the weeks since a shooting alarmed neighbors of Golden Bear Homes, a supportive housing complex that replaced a motel on San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, its owners have been busy.
BACS Housing and MPI Homes co-own the property, where the Golden Bear Hotel used to operate: BACS provides supportive services while MPI handles property management.
Nora Daly, a spokeswoman for Bay Area Community Services (BACS), called the events surrounding the non-injury shooting on Aug. 3 "unacceptable."
In the days after The Scanner's initial report on the incident, Daly quickly got in touch to share updates about what BACS was doing to address safety concerns.
That included finalizing the eviction of a man who was reportedly involved in the disturbance and asking another to move out on his own.
"Both of the residents are leaving," she said earlier this month. "We're trying to be extremely proactive with community safety."
As of this week, one of the men has already moved out and the other is set to leave by Sept. 3, Daly said Thursday.
She also noted that a third man, the alleged perpetrator of the Aug. 3 shooting, was not a Golden Bear Homes resident.
(That individual has been charged with firing a gun during the disturbance, along with possession of a firearm by a felon, according to court records. He is no longer in custody.)
Emilie Raguso
On the night of the shooting at Golden Bear Homes, the on-site security guard tried to de-escalate the situation and called police as soon as it was clear that wasn't working, Daly said.
That allowed BPD to respond quickly and make an arrest.
The property has security on site 24/7, she said.
Even before the shooting, staff had been working with police to try to prevent the man from coming onto the property at all, she said.
Daly also noted that numerous members of the project team live in the neighborhood and care about broader community safety as well as the program itself.
She urged anyone with concerns about Golden Bear Homes to email Qimmah Hameed, director of organizing and community engagement for BACS.
"We want people to feel like they have a direct line to us and that their concerns are being heard," she said. "We're doing the fullest extent of what we can do with BPD's support. Hopefully, all of these things will result in a safer community."
Golden Bear Homes: Berkeley's first Homekey site
According to a recent City Council budget item, Golden Bear Homes "provides housing and supportive services for 43 formerly homeless households."
It was Berkeley's first Homekey site.
The state-supported Homekey program was designed to help communities convert existing properties into permanent supportive housing for people who are homeless or at risk of being homeless and were impacted by COVID-19.
Daly noted that residents of Golden Bear Homes came into the program through Berkeley's coordinated entry program.
"Anybody who needs it," she said, can access services related to behavioral health, increasing their income and accessing benefits — in addition to other resources to help them "move toward stability in the longer term."
Golden Bear Homes neighbors continue to worry
Despite efforts to date and a substantial financial investment that looks likely to grow, issues at the site continue to crop up.
Some of these concerns — including a recent disturbance at Acme Bread across the street — pop up on the neighborhood email listserve.
In that incident, someone who was later confirmed to be a Golden Bear Homes resident entered Acme Bread and began demanding items the shop didn't have.
The man eventually became violent, according to a report from Acme Bread, "throwing objects and products around and threatening our assistant manager and staff."
Police were called and officers found the man sitting on the ground at Golden Bear Homes, "responsive, but clearly in an altered state."
"This comes just on the heels of shots being fired within the facility, an event which came a few months after one of the residents threatened the on-site manager there with a machete," Acme Bread wrote.
"The ownership and management of that site seems to be so convoluted and to involve so many different entities, that there seems to be no way to get accountability for the lack of services, the ineffective resident screening, and the actual events that take place," a shop owner wrote.
This week, residents also raised concerns about two registered sex offenders who reportedly live at Golden Bear, according to a state registry — particularly as the school year begins, with Longfellow Middle School temporarily located nearby at the Berkeley Adult School.
Stepped-up security measures in place
Many of these reports make their way to Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani, who represents northwest Berkeley's District 1.
"We have two Homekey sites in District 1," she told The Scanner this week. "Only one of them — Golden Bear Homes — is the subject of a lot of neighborhood complaints."
But she said things may be turning around.
MPI Homes recently switched security contractors at the Golden Bear site and plans to boost security measures there, including by using metal detector wands to screen visitors, Kesarwani said.
Her office is also looking into what city resources may be available to make supportive services for Golden Bear residents more robust — along with making sure security measures at the site are in place, from enforcing its no-weapons policy; to keeping better track of who is coming and going; to assessing the physical infrastructure and ensuring it's adequate and maintained.
Kesarwani noted that it can sometimes be tough to know if neighborhood complaints are linked directly to Golden Bear Homes or instead may stem from other nearby encampments, particularly those further up Cedar Street on Second Street or in the Harrison Street corridor.
"This is an urban area, so there is going to be some element of disturbances," she said. "but that doesn't mean that we just allow a lack of security or safety."
BACS asks anyone with questions, concerns, inquiries and ideas about Golden Bear Homes to email Qimmah Hameed at qhameed@bayareacs.org.
