Emergency Shelters and Transitional Housing for the Unhoused in Fresno, California.
Fresno CA February 4, 2023
Between 2019 and last fall, the city of Fresno alone has invested more than $53 million to acquire, convert and pay contractors to operate nine former motels — located west of Highway 99 in a blighted area known as Motel Drive — as emergency shelters and transitional housing for the unhoused. Independent shelter operators that run the converted shelters then hired private security — primarily through a company called Pacific Valley Patrol — to ensure that only current shelter residents, not the surrounding unhoused population or other unauthorized individuals, enter the premises. Presumably, the intent is to protect shelter residents and prevent crime from occurring on the property.
But a Fresno Bee investigation — based on nearly two-dozen interviews with shelter residents, former security guards and homeless advocates, and a review of police reports and other public documents — reveals disturbing examples of use of force by the security firm that is enabled, in part, by a lack of oversight by city officials, shelter operators and the local housing authority.
Among the findings: Four former guards said they were told to “(pepper) spray first, ask questions later” through the course of their work with the homeless
A shelter visitor said he was pepper-sprayed while waiting at an adjacent property for not leaving the shelter vicinity quickly enough
A shelter resident said that a security guard knocked down her door in the middle of the night Shelter residents and other unhoused individuals often don’t know where to turn to file grievances against the security company
The city’s contracts place all responsibility for any subcontractors, such as private security, on shelter operators The city of Fresno, unlike Fresno County, failed to provide any specific guidelines for the actions of contracted private security guards
“It seems that the security has begun to believe that they may be like some kind of prison yard f—ing C.O. (corrections officer),” a shelter resident named Timmy said during public comment of a June 23 Fresno City Council meeting. Pacific Valley Patrol Chief Executive Officer Cristiano Lopes declined multiple requests from The Fresno Bee to comment on this story or on the specific findings of this investigation.
Fresno shelter operators have spent at least $2 million on private security at the shelters between January 2021 and November 2022, based on limited monthly budget and contract information examined by The Bee.
The exact amount of public funds spent on private security is unknown because detailed financial information hasn’t been made public. Despite the public investment in the shelters, city officials have largely ignored specific questions about security concerns.
When asked who is responsible for reviewing use of force incidents involving city-subcontracted private security firms, leaders referred The Bee to the shelter operators who hired the security company. These are private entities that are not subject to public oversight.
The city of Fresno, which owns five of the shelters, answered some general questions about shelter contracts and funding over email.
In a September 2022 email statement, city of Fresno spokesperson Sontaya Rose said the city has made housing the homeless a priority and that being safe and secure is “important,” especially in “an environment that fosters growth and positive transformation.” However, she said the city does not hire the security companies that oversee these properties. Rose refused The Bee’s subsequent October 2022 request for an interview with relevant city staff for this story regarding the city’s existing contracts with shelter operators, citing the lack of a direct contract with Pacific Valley Patrol.
The city of Fresno has an agreement with public housing agency, Fresno Housing Authority, to fund property and case management services at four of the state-funded Project Homekey shelters owned by the housing authority near the Parkway Corridor.
A spokesperson for the Fresno Housing Authority answered general questions over email, but didn’t comment on specific findings. In response to request for comment on The Bee’s findings in this story, Tyrone Williams, chief executive officer for Fresno Housing Authority, issued a Sept. 7, 2022, email statement saying FHA is “committed to the safety of our residents, staff, and community” and is working with their partners to “enhance the safety and services in the neighborhood.”
The Fresno Housing Authority has contracted with nonprofit Turning Point for Central California to manage day-to-day operations at the shelters. Meanwhile, the city of Fresno contracted Turning Point, RH Community Builders and their new non-profit arm, Elevate Community Services, to manage city-funded shelters. These shelter operators then subcontracted Pacific Valley Patrol to provide security services.
Turning Point’s Regional Director Jody Ketcheside declined to comment for this story.
Katie Wilbur, executive director of RH Community Builders and Elevate Community Services, responded to general questions about shelter operations and security services over email but did not release information about specific grievances involving private security guards, saying this information was confidential to ensure clients do not fear retaliation.
The shelter operators’ hands are tied, in part, due to city contract language that binds them to confidentiality and prevents contractors from giving reports or data to outsiders without express permission.
The Bee asked to review the contracts that shelter operators hold with Pacific Valley Patrol, but the city and the housing authority said they do not possess copies of these contracts.
The Bee submitted six separate public record requests for any communication or information that mentions Pacific Valley Patrol to the city, Fresno Police Department, the Fresno Housing Authority and the state of California.
These agencies said they either didn’t have any relevant communications or they wouldn’t release it. The private shelter operators and security companies are not directly subject to public record laws.
Councilmember Miguel Arias, who represents District 3, where the shelters are located, said in multiple interviews that he recognizes that the city’s attempt to house the homeless during the COVID-19 public health emergency had its shortcomings — including shelter security. He said the city is still new to providing services for the homeless, something that has “always been a county function.” “When we started sheltering the homeless, we accounted for food, for electricity, water, sewer, for beds, for clothes,” he said in a May 2022 interview with The Bee. “Security was not part of the initial conversation.”
Four former Pacific Valley Patrol security guards who worked at the city’s shelters said that they were encouraged by their boss, Lopes, to use force, namely pepper spray, against shelter residents and nearby unhoused individuals when they felt threatened. The guards said they were instructed to “spray first, ask questions later.”
Again, Lopes declined to comment on this story. But one former guard, Warren Hicks, said, “he (Lopes) uses it like hairspray.” Hicks said that on one occasion a shelter resident at the former Travel Inn and Suites — a man whom Hicks said appeared to be suffering a mental disorder — tried to spray him with the insecticide Raid.
In response, Hicks said Lopes told him to “spray him with Mace.” Hicks – who has prior experience working security at a mental health hospital – said he didn’t think it was necessary. Instead, he said he “ducked” to get out of harm’s way and detained the man until shelter staff decided how to proceed. State private security standards say private security guards should only use pepper spray as a “defensive response” under “justifiable” circumstances.
Hicks said that sometimes, such as when someone had a weapon or when intervening in domestic violence situations, he felt the need to use pepper spray. Otherwise, he tried to avoid using the defense tool because “it’s a liability.”
Aggressive use of force wasn’t the only concern the former guards raised. Five of them also said they were discouraged from calling the police for backup even when they felt it was necessary. Two former guards said they were even instructed to act like the police. “He would tell certain guards like me that ‘you don’t call PD; you get them (non-residents) off (property),’” Hicks said.
Another former guard who spoke with The Bee on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said “he (Lopes) always wanted you to be a ‘pit bull,’ be aggressive. Ask questions later, but get the job done first.”
Experts in the field told The Bee that approach is problematic. In an interview with The Bee, David Sklansky, a criminal justice and private security expert at Stanford Law School, reacted to the allegations that Pacific Valley Patrol tells its employees to act like they’re police and “spray first, ask questions later.”
“If that’s the perception of what the police do,” he said, “that itself is really troubling.”
There’s a key difference between private security and a public police force, said Joseph Jaksa, a professor of criminal justice at Saginaw Valley State University with decades of experience working in the private security industry, in an interview with The Bee. “For all the problems with public policing,” Jaksa said, “there’s at least some level of transparency.”
Abel Martinez, 36, arrived at the Sun Lodge Triage Center, a state-funded Project Homekey shelter at the former site of the Days Inn, on an early morning in October 2021 to pick up his girlfriend and former shelter resident, Emily Padilla.
Shelter rules prohibit guests from visiting the rooms, unless they are medical or support staff, according to a Turning Point of Central California handbook obtained by The Bee. (Turning Point was contracted by the housing authority and the city to run the Sun Lodge.)
All other visits, such as friends or family, must take place off site due to space constraints.
“I wasn’t trying to go in ’cause I knew already I couldn’t,” he said. Martinez didn’t have a cellphone at the time to contact Padilla, so he asked a Pacific Valley Patrol security guard at the shelter entrance to knock on her room door. But the security guard refused, Martinez said.
So he tried to yell and honk his car horn in a vain attempt to get his girlfriend’s attention. Martinez said the guard told him he couldn’t be there, and that they’d have to call the police if he didn’t leave. After a verbal exchange in which Martinez told the guard he was technically on Denny’s property next door, Martinez said he finally decided to leave.
But things took a turn for the worse. “As I go to leave,” he said, “I put the car in gear, he (the security guard) reaches into the passenger window and he pepper-sprays me.” “According to him, he thought I was reaching for a weapon,” Martinez said. “I had to drive my car back to my mom’s house, barely able to see, barely able to breathe.” Martinez’s girlfriend, Padilla, said she had been asleep when the incident took place outside of the shelter that morning. When she learned what happened later that day, she said she went to visit Martinez at his house.
Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article264629561.html#storylink=cpy
