Fremont Housing Navigation Center
What is the Fremont Housing Navigation Center?
The Fremont housing navigation center provides a clean, safe, calm and flexible environment that allows people experiencing homelessness to rebuild their lives and intensely focus on finding stable permanent housing. The center is modeled after the City of Berkeley's successful Housing Navigation (STAIR) Center.
The Fremont Navigation Center Provides:
Hygiene services (toilets, showers, and laundry)
Health and wellness services
Employment/benefit assistance
Substance abuse services
Intensive case management
Housing navigation
Outreach services
Housing for 45 unhoused adults for as long as they need to navigate to housing, on average around 6 months
One meal a day is provided and a communal kitchenette
Storage for personal belongings
24/7 onsite staff
Where Is the Fremont Navigation Center located?
The Navigation Center is located in the rear parking lot at Fremont City Hall.
Who Is served at the Fremont Housing Navigation Center?
Homeless individuals that are 18 or older are eligible.
The housing navigation center does not take walk-ins.
Guests must complete the intake process with a BACS staff member.
This includes a Coordinated Entry Assessment as part of Alameda County’s Coordinated Entry System.
When did the Fremont Housing Navigation Center open?
The Facility was constructed and is fully operational as of September, 2020.
Who operates the Fremont Housing Navigation Center?
Bay Area Community Services (BACS) was selected to operate through a Request for Information issued by the City of Fremont.
BACS is also the operator of the Berkeley Stair Center, Oakland’s two Navigation Centers, and was also selected to be the operator for a Navigation Center in Hayward. BACS quickly replicated existing services and ramped up operations. BACS has extensive experience providing navigation services for persons experiencing homelessness. BACS has operated in Fremont since 1974. BACS South County Wellness Center, which is on Grimmer Boulevard, is a drop-in site for homeless adults and adults living with behavioral health challenges and housing insecurity. The site offers supportive services including showers, wardrobe pantry, meals, and housing navigation assistance.
Where can I learn more?
The City of Fremont has information about the Housing Navigation Center on this webpage. Now that the program has been running for some time, the page includes 6-month and year-end reports on program effectiveness.
Additional documentation
This handy one-page flyer summarizes the services provided at a Navigation Center, and was created specifically to address concerns of Fremont residents.
Navigation Centers: What do Neighbors Have to Fear?
A study on the neighborhood impacts of navigation centers for the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
The author conducted this study as part of the program of professional education at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley. It talks about actual impacts in terms of crime levels, property values, effects on local businesses, and so on — and the results of this study show that negative impacts are minimal.