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LIVERMORE — The city will loan $2.4 million to a nonprofit to buy a former Livermore church, with the goal of turning it into the Tri-Valley’s first inpatient drug addiction treatment and counseling facility for unsheltered people and those earning low incomes.

While the timeline to convert the church into such a facility is still unclear, officials say it is badly needed in the eastern part of Alameda County, where there is a dearth of drug treatment options for people who can’t afford to pay private sobering centers, or for those without top-flight health insurance.

“Our people have been so underserved, and people have literally died because they do not have a place to get treated,” Eric Uranga, Livermore’s assistant community development director, said in an interview.

“So this is a great opportunity,” he said.

“The lack of inpatient drug and alcohol treatment services in the Tri-Valley” is a “major barrier to providing unsheltered residents the services they need,” city reports said.

“This is something that the east side of the county has been lacking for quite a while,” Councilmember Bob Carling said at a May City Council meeting where the loan was approved.

“It’s going to be a wonderful addition to the city’s contribution to working for those who are most in need,” he said.

The former church site is at 2346 Walnut St., at the corner of Junction Avenue, and was most recently occupied by Victory Baptist Church. It consists of a main sanctuary building with a classroom and office space, and a modular office that includes a full kitchen, bath and shower, city reports said. Uranga said the site would make for a good treatment facility, which is “much, much needed” in the region.

Today, if unhoused people are dealing with drug or alcohol addiction problems in the Tri-Valley, they often don’t have a place to go to get care, which can prevent them from accessing other safety-net services such as housing and counseling, officials said.

“Detox programs and sobering programs are legitimately an access point to the broader system of care,” said Jaime Campos, executive director of Horizon Services, which provides drug and alcohol treatment programs across Alameda County.

“If somebody is under the influence at the time they are trying to access treatment, they often can’t start in a lower level of care, like a residential setting that would not be equipped to manage withdrawal symptoms,” he said.

Currently, the closest inpatient drug and alcohol treatment facility to Livermore is Cherry Hill, a sobering and detox program run by Horizon in San Leandro. Cherry Hill has a 50-bed sobering program and 32-bed detox program, city reports said.

However, demand in the county for such programs is very high, following national trends of spiking overdose figures that accelerated during the pandemic, Campos and city reports said.

“Often, the city’s homeless liaison officers and/or nonprofit partners transport the unsheltered to the facility only to find there is no longer space available,” Livermore staff reports said.

“The level of the need in the county is just tremendous,” Campos said.

“When somebody brings a potential admission to the program and they come all the way from Livermore, it’s tough, because we only have so many staff members and so many beds we can monitor,” Campos said.

“So it is kind of a delicate dance trying to maximize access to treatment when people need it, but at the same time there’s only so much capacity we have and workforce,” Campos said.

The city is loaning Housing Consortium of the East Bay, an Oakland nonprofit, about $2.4 million of city affordable housing funds to purchase the property for $2.1 million, and to cover $300,000 worth of “predevelopment expenses.” including “testing, development feasibility analysis, architectural design costs and administration expenses,” city reports said.

The housing consortium will act as a site holder until the city “can identify a well-qualified nonprofit service provider” to run the drug treatment facility, according to a staff report.

The city is in talks with Hayward nonprofit La Familia, which offers a range of mental health and community services, as a possible contractor to run the site, but nothing is official yet, Uranga said.

The city is also working closely with the Alameda County Behavioral Health Department and county Supervisor David Haubert’s office to try to get funding from the state’s “Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program” for the facility. That money would allow the city to be paid back in full for its loan, and the property could be transferred to a nonprofit to run the program.

Livermore city staff reports said if the grant application falls through, the housing nonprofit will keep the city funds and pursue developing an affordable housing project on the site instead.

Campos, of Horizon, said many more services like the potential drug program in the Tri-Valley are needed in Alameda County.

“That would be a welcome addition over there in the Livermore area. We would support that 100%,” he said.

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