The California Department of Social Services awarded Alameda Point Collaborative (APC) $15 million as part of its California Community Care Expansion (CCE) Program grant. The announcement was made Wednesday, August 24.

APC will use the CCE grant to help finance the development of the 50-bed medical respite center and health clinic at the Alameda Wellness Campus (AWC) on McKay Avenue. APC’s plan to convert the site that housed the former United States Maritime Service Officers’ School into the Alameda Wellness Campus was a perfect match for the grant program’s criteria. Per the program, qualified grantees “shall administer projects for the acquisition, construction, or rehabilitation of property to be operated as residential adult and senior care facilities, or to promote the sustainability of existing licensed residential adult and senior care facilities through the provision of capitalized operating subsidy reserves.”

The medical respite center will provide recuperative care stays with onsite medical and behavioral health care for an estimated 400 unhoused Alameda County residents yearly.

APC Executive Director Doug Biggs said Alameda County officials asked APC to apply for the grant. “This grant reinforces the commitment from the city, county, state and federal government for making this project happen,” said Biggs. “It will be a huge benefit to the county.”

Alameda Wellness Campus Project Director Bonnie Wolf believes the state awarded APC the grant because of the depth of the project’s goals.

“I think the state felt excited to be partnering on this innovative and exciting housing project in Alameda County,” said Wolf.

Wolf said APC and the state are in ongoing discussions to decide when APC will receive the grant funds and how the funding will be used. Biggs said it should take several months for APC to receive the CCE grant. Biggs said receiving the grant comes with oversight from the state. The state will require APC to work with certain county services in the construction and operation of the medical respite center.

Even with the CCE grant, APC has not reached its funding allocation goals yet but has moved into the final phase of their capital funding campaign. The organization will now turn to private foundations to reach its final monetary goal, according to Biggs. Even though inflation has made raising funds more difficult, Biggs seemed confident APC will meet its goal.

This is the second $15 million grant APC has received for the campus. Last year, APC received a $15 million grant from the State of California (“McKay Avenue Wellness Center Receives $15 Million From State of California,” July 29, 2021). The campus has also received $250,000 from Anthem, $690,000 from Alameda County for predevelopment efforts, a $5 million fund from Kaiser and more (“Council Decides on New Wellness Center,” Jan. 10, 2019).

The campus was first announced in 2018 after the Federal government agreed to hand over the 3.65-acre site on McKay Avenue to APC for free. In the years since APC announced its development plans, they have faced opposition from Alameda community groups.

Friends of Crab Cove — the campus is adjacent to the Crab Cove Visitor Center — acquired enough signatures to place a measure on the April 9, 2019, special election ballot that would have converted the property to an open space zoning designation and halted the wellness center’s development. However, residents voted in favor of an opposing measure allowing the campus to move forward (“Most Recent Election Tally,” April 16, 2019).

Earlier this year, an Alameda resident, with ties to the Alameda Architectural Preservation Society, applied to place the property on California’s Office of Historic Preservation’s (OHP) list of historically designated buildings to preserve. However, the state Historic Preservation Officer Julianne Polanco decided to remove the inclusion nomination from the agenda altogether (“Historic Preservation Nomination Removed; McKay Avenue Wellness Center Moves Forward,” Aug. 9).

The CCE Program was launched along with the state’s Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program with the goal of acquiring, rehabilitating and building new facilities serving residents on Social Security, state supplementary payment income, or Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants, as well as other supportive sites.

The state budget has appropriated $805 million in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2021-22 state budget for the CCE program, according to the Department of Social Services website.

The Alameda Wellness Campus will also include a 100-unit permanent supportive housing complex, health care center and a resource center that will provide homelessness prevention services, case management, and housing placement assistance. APC is expected to start construction on the campus in the spring of 2023.