Community meeting seeks to calm concerns of Project Homekey neighbors
January 28, 2021 \u2014 Neighbors of an apartment building that will soon be dedicated to housing homeless people or those at risk of homelessness chimed in with ideas and concerns at a virtual town hall last night.\nThe former Best Western Inn on Orchard Street in Ukiah is now part of Project Homekey, a state-funded program to renovate former motel rooms into small studio apartments.\nMegan van Sant, a senior program manager with the county\u2019s HHSA department, told the more than forty attendees that the project would start taking referrals as early as next week, and that she hopes the complex, now called Live Oak Apartments, will open at the end of March.\nNot all the details have been worked out yet, but she said she\u2019s planning to have a social worker and a social worker assistant on site during the day, and a security guard in the evening hours. \nShe expects most of the residents to be referred to the apartments by other agencies, which will provide case management. The tenants will pay rent through programs like SSI or retirement, housing vouchers, or CalWorks...