Few social struggles are as widespread and visible as the issue of homelessness, and as we carry on into the future, it seems to be one of the most difficult issues to eradicate as well.
However, city officials have recently taken a huge step towards addressing the needs of the unhoused community in Los Banos by striking an agreement with a California housing development company that will allow for the construction of the “One Tree Project for Permanent Supportive Housing for Residents Experiencing Homelessness.”
Though the program has seen a great deal of unique issues on the path to funding, the One Tree housing project promises to provide a list of benefits longer than its name.
Available housing units are not always affordable, nor do they always have the level of accessibility that some in need of housing must have access to.
The Housing Program Manager, Christy McCammond, has worked closely with her team of outreach and support specialists to identify just how many members of our community are currently left with no consistent access to shelter or even running water.
As native Los Banosans, the team understands how prevalent the issue of homelessness is across the city.
“The genesis [for this program] is the need,” says McCammond, stressing the importance of their outreach efforts, “I wanted to understand the needs of the public, but especially the unhoused community.”
After painstakingly developing a series of policies and proposals to move forward with the permanent housing project, the Housing Division won a grant from the California Alliance for Health that would cover the cost of 58 home units.
Having spent the early quarter of 2024 drafting plans and working directly with those in need, the Housing Division celebrated this hard-won victory and looked forward to what the future of the project would hold.
While the housing project’s future may have been looking bright, the future of state funding was about to be completely transformed.
Despite all its planning, the One Tree project saw an unprecedented interruption to its development when California went through a major financial reorganization, which not only restructured the established ways to receive funding but also delayed the payout the project was guaranteed by nearly five months.
By July of 2024, a date which ideally would have marked the halfway point of its development, the One Tree project found itself lost in a sea of new funding rules and half a year away from any promised money.
Rather than reallocate money that they did not have to try and get their bearings in a radically different financial landscape, The One Tree group decided to hold out until they were on stable footing.
“We didn’t want to do anything until we had those funds,” McCammond recalls, “if anything went wonky at the state level, we didn’t want to waste taxpayer’s money.”
Unfortunately, wonky was the new normal for funding after the state reorganized every financial avenue the One Tree team had been using, and even seasoned state attorneys weren’t much help in navigating this new world of grants and tax credits.
With no templates or formal guides, McCammond and her team worked with whoever would help them figure things out on the fly as they developed their own agreements and policies once more from scratch.
Now, in May of 2025, over a year after the start of the program, the One Tree Project is finally ready to move into the first stage of permitting, and the Housing Division plans on moving into the planning commission to finalize the design later this month.
Even though the project is closer to completion each week, the team behind it is dedicated to dispelling any fears surrounding budgets, funding and general fiscal impact to the city, which, thanks to a slew of new grants and funding opportunities, remains virtually nonexistent.
The Housing Division hosts Zoom meetings every other Thursday from 3-4 p.m., going over every single expense and development the project has gone through, to ensure total transparency.
“As long as our hearts are in the right place and we follow all the rules, we can move forward without this crazy culture of fear,” says McCammond, “I want to pull people towards us, not push them away. We’re trying to do this carefully.”
“Careful” is the Housing Division’s key word with the One Tree project, and though there have been a staggering number of setbacks, the permanent housing program seems to have finally set itself on a course to completion.
Progress is not always fast, but the Housing Division’s long-term commitment to this set of permanent facilities is sure to bolster the opportunities and integrity of our entire community.
