ANTIOCH, Calif. (KRON) – The City of Antioch will house up to 25 people in trailers they just received from the state.
Over the weekend, the governor’s office gave the city five FEMA trailers that were used during the fire season.
Now, they’ll be used to house people who are homeless.
“People are living in tents, cars, RV’s and some folks are living in makeshift things they put together, whether it’s boxes crates whatever they can get a hold of,” Lamar Thorpe said.
Antioch City Councilor Lamar Thorpe serves on the Antioch Homeless Encampment Task Force and says about 600 people are homeless in the city, nearly half of them children in their school system.
Just this past weekend, Antioch received these five FEMA trailers from the state to assist with homeless families in Antioch.
“The situation is dire for every city, it’s not unique to Antioch,” Thorpe said.
Antioch was one of many cities selected to receive the trailers, they will soon house up to 25 people and they’ll be managed by a non-profit homeless service provider.
Thorpe says they’ll likely be fenced in on a property that they’ll soon choose and there will be services provided to those who live inside them.
The trailers are an idea one homeless advocate says she approves of.
“It’s not going to do enough for everybody who is out here, but we have families we have over 300 students in our district who can benefit from this we have disabled people that are on our streets so Antioch is stepping up and finally doing something different, I am just so proud of our city right now and what they are doing,” Nichole Gardner, who runs the Facing Homelessness Organization, said.
“Whatever we can do to learn and increase our knowledge about how we can better serve residents this is what it’s going to do,” Thorpe said.
The city still needs to select where these trailers will be located and who will live inside them.
They say they’ll be occupied in the next 8 to 12 weeks.
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