A special need for special needs residents: housing

Come next year, Davis residents with mental health issues or developmental and physical disabilities will have a new affordable option for housing. The Creekside complex is planned for Fifth Street in the Mace Ranch neighborhood.

“It’s mainly for folks earning somewhere between 25% of area median income to 60 percent,” said Davis City Councilman Dan Carson.

The complex—developed by Neighborhood Partners, Davis Community Meals and Housing and The John Stewart Company—will contain 90 units, according to a City Council staff report.

Some will be reserved for occupants “with some type of identified disability,” Neighborhood Partners co-principal Luke Watkins said in an email.

Carson said Creekside residents will have access to an “on-premises service coordinator” who will work to understand each individual’s specific needs. Watkins said that coordinator could help with drug or alcohol treatment, mental health services or more basic health requirements, while facilitating social services along with educational and recreational programs for residents.

This comes more than a decade after the 53-unit Cesar Chavez Plaza was developed for those struggling to afford to live in Davis, Watkins said. Like Creekside, Cesar Chavez Plaza has an on-site service coordinator. Both affordable housing complexes allow residents and other volunteers to pick up food for storage at an on-site office, and both feature community spaces for art projects and other activities, Watkins said.

Creekside will also offer “24 raised gardening beds and numerous fruit trees,” Watkins’ email said. Residents can sign up to grow their own food with these resources, he added.

Watkins also cited Mercy Housing and the Sacramento-based Mutual Housing California as similar projects with room for all residents, including those with special needs. Creekside began construction last November, and it could be open to residents in early April 2020, Watkins said.