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Housing Matters to Close Public Drop-in Homeless Services at Coral Street Campus in March
Don Lane confirmed in an email to a concerned citizen on October 16 that Housing Matters has decided to close drop-in homeless day services at the Coral Street campus by March of 2026. Lane, who is the President of the Board of Directors of Housing Matters, the organization that operates the main homeless shelter in Santa Cruz, wrote that after March of 2026 the Hygiene Bay and the Nook will no longer be open to the public, and that mailroom services will end for the public, as well as for participants in the Loft and Rebele Family Shelter. Following Lane's email, Housing Matters published a press release on October 17 confirming the impending closures, which had been rumored for some time. See below for Lane's full email response to the concerned citizen, as well as the Housing Matters press release.
October 16, 2025
Dear [Name Redacted],
Housing Matters is deeply committed to our mission of partnering with individuals and families to create pathways out of homelessness into permanent housing. Every step we take as an organization is rooted in honoring the dignity of the people we serve, while ensuring that we make the greatest impact in the community by focusing on our core strengths: interim shelter and supportive housing.
As we transition our Coral Street campus to include a supportive housing development, the need to establish a calm, healing environment for our interim shelter guests and Harvey West Studios tenants is evident. The Board of Directors supports the CEO’s decision to close open to the public drop-in Day Services on the Coral Street campus at the end of March 2026. This was not an easy decision, but it reflects our responsibility to stay focused on the strategies that are proven to end homelessness: interim shelter and supportive housing.
Day Services remain essential to our unhoused neighbors and our community. Housing Matters, in partnership with the City and County of Santa Cruz, is working collaboratively to identify a sustainable approach to meet the ongoing community need for these necessary services.
The Day Services program will officially close to the public at the end of March 2026. After that date:
The Hygiene Bay and the Nook will no longer be open to the public, though they will remain available to interim shelter guests and Harvey West Studios residents
Mailroom services will end for the public, as well as for participants in the Loft and Rebele Family Shelter
The Welcome Area will be reserved for HWS residents, interim shelter guests, and those with scheduled appointments
Our Safety Kiosk staff will remain available to the public for urgent assistance, including emergency response, Narcan distribution, and connections to case management and Housing Matters programs
We recognize that this change is significant for our community and the daytime guests we have been serving, and we assure you that it was not made lightly. Together, we’re building a future where dignity, respect, and housing are at the center of our shared response to homelessness. Thank you for trusting us to lead this work with compassion, and for supporting us to realize our ultimate goal: ensuring that every person we serve finds their way into permanent housing.
For more information on the closure of Day Services, visit our webpage.
Sincerely,
Don Lane
Don Lane (he/him)
President
Board of Directors
Check out our new website!
Housingmatterssc.org
Resolving Homelessness Together since 1986
Dear [Name Redacted],
Housing Matters is deeply committed to our mission of partnering with individuals and families to create pathways out of homelessness into permanent housing. Every step we take as an organization is rooted in honoring the dignity of the people we serve, while ensuring that we make the greatest impact in the community by focusing on our core strengths: interim shelter and supportive housing.
As we transition our Coral Street campus to include a supportive housing development, the need to establish a calm, healing environment for our interim shelter guests and Harvey West Studios tenants is evident. The Board of Directors supports the CEO’s decision to close open to the public drop-in Day Services on the Coral Street campus at the end of March 2026. This was not an easy decision, but it reflects our responsibility to stay focused on the strategies that are proven to end homelessness: interim shelter and supportive housing.
Day Services remain essential to our unhoused neighbors and our community. Housing Matters, in partnership with the City and County of Santa Cruz, is working collaboratively to identify a sustainable approach to meet the ongoing community need for these necessary services.
The Day Services program will officially close to the public at the end of March 2026. After that date:
The Hygiene Bay and the Nook will no longer be open to the public, though they will remain available to interim shelter guests and Harvey West Studios residents
Mailroom services will end for the public, as well as for participants in the Loft and Rebele Family Shelter
The Welcome Area will be reserved for HWS residents, interim shelter guests, and those with scheduled appointments
Our Safety Kiosk staff will remain available to the public for urgent assistance, including emergency response, Narcan distribution, and connections to case management and Housing Matters programs
We recognize that this change is significant for our community and the daytime guests we have been serving, and we assure you that it was not made lightly. Together, we’re building a future where dignity, respect, and housing are at the center of our shared response to homelessness. Thank you for trusting us to lead this work with compassion, and for supporting us to realize our ultimate goal: ensuring that every person we serve finds their way into permanent housing.
For more information on the closure of Day Services, visit our webpage.
Sincerely,
Don Lane
Don Lane (he/him)
President
Board of Directors
Check out our new website!
Housingmatterssc.org
Resolving Homelessness Together since 1986
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Housing Matters Board of Directors, led by Don Lane and their CEO, Phil Kramer, decided to end day services for PEH in Santa Cruz county. By ending day services, this means that bathrooms, showers, mail services, donations, etc. would not longer be provided to any PEH that do not live inside the gates at Coral Street, as well as the 1,710 people who use the 115 Coral Street address to receive their mail.
These are crucial services, and replacing them is not easy, and effectively impossible. For years, the city of Santa Cruz has made it so most services and shelters in the city of Santa Cruz were to be confined to Coral Street. This included purchasing Sea Berg Metal Fabricators on Coral Street for over $4mm in 2020, with the intention of making it a navigation center, additional shelter, a healthcare clinic, and more. However, it has sat for the past 5 years with no tangible plan in place.
And now, for optics and aesthetics, real and tangible services are ending. All under the guise of creating a calm and peaceful atmosphere for 120 residents that will be moving in beginning August 2026, under the assumption that it will be a calm and peaceful atmosphere.
All so that local traffic coming to and from Costco and Harvey West Park will not have to see a realistic portrait of life on the streets in Santa Cruz. But this is not going to stop people from camping on Coral Street. At some point, although it has yet to happen, the police may tire of showing up 2x a week, just to clear people away, only to have them come right back.
With no bathrooms and showers available, there will be more human waste on the streets. More infections, and likely, more abscesses, more deaths, shigella, and other infectious diseases. All under the watchful eyes and banners touting Honor and Dignity flying high above the gated entrance to Housing Matters. This is not a metaphor; there are literally banners that say this.
Phil Kramer has become our county’s version of Donald Trump. Removing services that are decades old, and part of the public trust, because he no longer wants to provide them. Like Donald Trump and his real estate empire, as documented in books written about him, leading his business consisted of him spending hours picking out the color of the carpets, as the real work happened elsewhere. Without a viable leader, his business eventually crumpled into bankruptcy.
So goes the story of Phil Kramer. As he focuses on removing real services, and spends his time concerned about how things look, and coming up with cutesy names like “Casa Azul” and “The Nook”, his reign will hopefully end, as public backlash, demands the restoration of the services that people need, and how realistically, the 120 unit building being built on campus, becomes 16x the chaos of the 7 unit building across the street that HM manages. A building where overdoses occur, where there are too many visitors, where some of the residents deal drugs, and where a 20 month old little girl lost her life to a fatal overdose.
For shame.
These are crucial services, and replacing them is not easy, and effectively impossible. For years, the city of Santa Cruz has made it so most services and shelters in the city of Santa Cruz were to be confined to Coral Street. This included purchasing Sea Berg Metal Fabricators on Coral Street for over $4mm in 2020, with the intention of making it a navigation center, additional shelter, a healthcare clinic, and more. However, it has sat for the past 5 years with no tangible plan in place.
And now, for optics and aesthetics, real and tangible services are ending. All under the guise of creating a calm and peaceful atmosphere for 120 residents that will be moving in beginning August 2026, under the assumption that it will be a calm and peaceful atmosphere.
All so that local traffic coming to and from Costco and Harvey West Park will not have to see a realistic portrait of life on the streets in Santa Cruz. But this is not going to stop people from camping on Coral Street. At some point, although it has yet to happen, the police may tire of showing up 2x a week, just to clear people away, only to have them come right back.
With no bathrooms and showers available, there will be more human waste on the streets. More infections, and likely, more abscesses, more deaths, shigella, and other infectious diseases. All under the watchful eyes and banners touting Honor and Dignity flying high above the gated entrance to Housing Matters. This is not a metaphor; there are literally banners that say this.
Phil Kramer has become our county’s version of Donald Trump. Removing services that are decades old, and part of the public trust, because he no longer wants to provide them. Like Donald Trump and his real estate empire, as documented in books written about him, leading his business consisted of him spending hours picking out the color of the carpets, as the real work happened elsewhere. Without a viable leader, his business eventually crumpled into bankruptcy.
So goes the story of Phil Kramer. As he focuses on removing real services, and spends his time concerned about how things look, and coming up with cutesy names like “Casa Azul” and “The Nook”, his reign will hopefully end, as public backlash, demands the restoration of the services that people need, and how realistically, the 120 unit building being built on campus, becomes 16x the chaos of the 7 unit building across the street that HM manages. A building where overdoses occur, where there are too many visitors, where some of the residents deal drugs, and where a 20 month old little girl lost her life to a fatal overdose.
For shame.
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