Hostel proposed as homeless shelter site // Owners happy with current tenant situation, but open to options; city official to tour Friday
December 26, 2002
It may be a
long shot, but members of San Clemente Homeless Task Force are making a pitch to
convert a former American Youth Hostel in downtown San Clemente into a
year-round homeless shelter. The 4,300-square-foot dormitory-style hostel at 233 Avenida Granada hosted
backpacker-style guests for 17 summers. It last closed its doors in the fall of
2001. When it came time to reopen for the 2002 season in April, AYH announced
that the hostel was finished, that it simply wasn't drawing nearly enough
visitors to continue operating.
Since then, the San Diego Council of AYH has been renting out the hostel to
six people as an apartment.
``Right now we are perfectly happy renting it to our tenants, who are great
tenants,'' said Sue Schaffner, executive director of the AYH San Diego Council.
Several weeks ago, the San Clemente Homeless Task Force approached AYH after
a proposal to open a winter shelter for the homeless at St. Clement's
Episcopal Church proved more of a load than the church was prepared to accept.
Marie Toland, executive director of Family Assistance Ministries, said she
and Leslie Davis, the city's housing coordinator, will meet with Schaffner on
Friday to tour the former hostel and see what it would take to rehabilitate the
facility.
``With Leslie involved ... funds be come a solvable problem,'' Toland said.
``That's good news. So this could be a cool Christmas present.''
One of Davis' areas of expertise is obtaining housing grants.
Schaffner stressed that AYH is happy with its current tenants and is nowhere
close to making a decision on what to do with the former hostel.
``We have a lot of other options,'' she said. We actually have several people
who have contacted us who have different interests, whether leasing it or buying
it. We are just fine renting it to our current tenants.
``We are just meeting with them and showing them the hostel,'' Schaffner
said.
One option that Schaffner did rule out was reopening the hostel. ``That's the
only thing I can tell you for sure.''
The San Clemente hostel grew out of Gov. Jerry Brown's 1978 Parks and
Recreation Hostel Plan, which envisioned a string of low-budget accommodations
up and down the coast, appealing to bicyclers and backpackers. The chain of
hostels never materialized, but a San Clemente hostel did in 1982 when a hotel,
the San Clemente Inn, applied for a California Coastal Commissioner permit to
convert into a timeshare vacation resort. The commission required ``mitigation
money,'' which helped establish the hostel.
By coincidence, the county library system built a new San Clemente Library
that same year at 242 Avenida Del Mar, replacing the former library at 233
Granada. Vacant, it became the hostel.
In its heyday the hostel attracted as many as 10,000 visitors per year, AYH
said. In its final season it drew 2,400, compared to 40,000 in AYH's San Diego
downtown hostel and 15,000 in the Point Loma hostel.
Schaffner said if someone wanted to lease and refurbish the hostel and
operate it as an affiliate AYH hostel, up to AYH standards, that would be one
option. But AYH itself isn't interested in operating it.
``It's a great location,'' Schaffner said.
Toland said the Homeless Task Force is not interested in running a summer
hostel together with a winter shelter for the homeless. But she said if funds
can be found to lease the former hostel and establish a year-round shelter, she
knows several churches interested in providing renovation labor.
``From our little idea of `every time it rains,' it has come full circle,''
Toland said. ``And it's needed.''