The Irvine City Council approved a nearly $20 million purchase of two properties on Armstrong Avenue that the city plans to convert into a bridge shelter for unhoused and at-risk individuals.
It’s the first step in Irvine’s new plan to address homelessness quietly announced at Tuesday’s council meeting.
“Beyond a property transaction, the overarching discussion tonight is centered around the need to consider developing a different way of approaching how we address at-risk, affordable housing and homeless-related issues here in town,” City Manager Oliver Chi told the council.
He said Irvine is working on a first-in-the-nation city system-of-care for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
A city report said that for the last two years, Irvine staffers have launched a comprehensive homeless response effort referred to internally as “The System.” They’re calling the temporary housing shelter planned on Armstrong Avenue “The Sanctuary.”
By early 2026, Chi said the city plans to have up-and-running emergency, transitional and permanent housing options for currently unhoused individuals.
“On top of that, we’re looking to make broader changes to our affordable housing program to link the system,” he said.
Subsequent plans related to The System will go in front of the City Council for consideration over the next several months, Chi said.
Without a lot of details on the emerging plans, city staff told the council that the deal for the two adjacent properties on Armstrong Avenue totaling 3.7 acres needed to be imminently approved. Finding another property that met their criteria for a temporary shelter would not be so easy and could be time-consuming, they said.
Councilmember Mike Carroll, the lone dissenter, expressed concern about approving a real estate transaction of this magnitude without the plan going before any city commission and without additional opportunities for residents and business owners in the Irvine Business Complex to comment.
“You should not casually put your vote down for $20 million on a facility that has not fully been fleshed out,” Carroll said.
The city will spend $18.5 million to purchase 17572 and 17622 Armstrong Avenue. The remaining $1.5 million will be budgeted for capital improvements, including due diligence, insurance and site design.
Designs for the shelter have not been finalized or made public, but Chi told the Register that The Sanctuary will look and run very different from other temporary shelters and navigation centers around Southern California where, in many cases, up to 50 people share one large space, each with a bed and small locker.
“We’re not gonna do that at all,” Chi said, adding that individuals and families will have their own private spaces.
“How can you turn that sheltering component into something that functionally has much more dignity, that is much more focused on case management and medical care that needs to happen in that initial stabilization component” are questions Chi said he and his staff have been pondering on visits to shelters across Orange County and the state.
“We’re moving toward a platform in our facility where it’s not going to be a congregate facility,” he said. “It’s going to be separated for individuals (and families) to have their own space. There’s a lot of work we’re doing right now in how we lay the site out.”
Chi said he was not ready to publicly disclose how many beds would be at The Sanctuary because the designs remain preliminary. But, he said Irvine is basing its projected service needs around recent data points.
For instance, there are 124 people in Irvine enrolled in and receiving homeless support benefits through HMIS, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development system. And, the Irvine Police Department estimates there are likely 150 to 200 people in Irvine that are homeless, Chi said.
Chi added that he’s concerned about the 60,000 Irvine residents — or roughly 20% of the city’s population — receiving their health insurance through CalOptima. To qualify for CalOptima, a family of four can earn no more than $43,000 annually. That’s about $3,600 per month before taxes. To put that income level in context, the average rental price for a two-bedroom apartment in Irvine is over $3,600 per month. And, there are currently zero apartments listed below $2,000 a month, according to Apartments.com.
“There’s a big population that’s sort of living on the edge, potentially, of being homeless,” Chi said. “So, we’re sizing our facilities at each stage — the permanent units, the transitional units and the bridge sheltering — to account for and accommodate all of that.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, Chi said the next part of The System to go in front of the council for review will be the city’s anti-camping and quality-of-life ordinance. This summer, the Supreme Court ruled that cities can enforce anti-camping homelessness laws in public spaces, a decision that many Orange County cities supported. The Irvine City Council will review its policies on Nov. 12.
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