September 21, 2020 — Last week, Senator Mike McGuire’s office announced that Mendocino County had received $9.6 million from Project Homekey, a state fund to help local jurisdictions buy and rehab hotels, skilled nursing facilities and apartment buildings and use them to provide housing for homeless people.
For over a month, the county has been in negotiations with the owners of three hotels in Ukiah, one at 1340 North State Street, another at 1208 South State Street, and one at 555 South Orchard, a Best Western Inn set back from the street and across a parking lot from Redwood Community Services and the VA health clinic.
Negotiations are ongoing, and escrow hasn’t closed, so the full purchase price of the presumably soon to be former Best Western is not yet available.
But Megan van Sant, a senior program manager working on housing and homelessness issues with the county Health and Human Services Agency, says the goal is to have people moving in by Valentine’s Day, 2021.