Calleene Egan

Community members came together to celebrate the grand opening of Berkeley Way Apartments and the Hope Center — the largest affordable housing development for low-income and unhoused people in Berkeley’s history.

As the world enters the second winter of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city of Berkeley’s homeless shelters remain at reduced capacity and continue to have pandemic precautions in place, with more people in need of shelter than there are beds available.

The Berkeley Food & Housing Project, or BFHP, is developing a project that will provide affordable housing and free meals to Berkeley’s low-income and homeless communities.

In addition to the increased difficulty of accessing shelter, unhoused individuals and families have been impacted by issues such as an incomplete census due to a delay in Berkeley’s point-in-time count, exclusion from certain programs and a scarcity of basic necessities and resources.

On Tuesday, Alameda County extended Project Roomkey leases through the end of January 2021 for four hotels currently providing housing to members of the homeless community. 

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, so does the number of people with food insecurity, a reality Berkeley food organizations have been working to combat during the holiday season.

The Berkeley Way Project, the largest affordable and homeless housing development project in the city of Berkeley’s history, broke ground ceremoniously Tuesday morning.

Alameda County has started offering emergency isolation housing for homeless individuals who have tested positive for or are at high risk of contracting COVID-19.