Benjamin Lopez said it was a “mental issue” that caused him to give away all his possessions and start living on the streets of Modesto and Turlock.
“I used alcohol so much that I went from one drink to a whole gallon a day of alcohol, which was my demise,” he said. “That’s what made me very low, not caring about anybody else and losing track of what I was doing. One day would go into the next, and the next and the next. Next thing you know, five years went by, numb to the world.”
Near the start of this year, Lopez, a 58-year-old Stanislaus County native, woke up from a two-month-long coma he said was related to alcohol dependency. He was in no shape to go back to the streets, so Stanislaus County Behavioral Health Rehabilitation Services referred him to Modesto Gospel Mission, a faith-based shelter for guys in his situation.
“Not only do they feed us, give us a place to shower, a place to sleep, but they also give us a lot of respect as human beings, which sometimes we’re lacking,” he said. “People see us and they think we’re just garbage. But this place shows you how to recognize that they do care for you.”
As the Trump administration continues gutting health and social service agencies, and congress weighs potentially devastating cuts to health care for low-income Americans, Modesto Gospel Mission is actually expanding to help more people. The nonprofit organization has served the area’s unhoused population since 1953. It took over a former grocery store and fast food location to create its current campus.
Thanks to a $313,000 grant from Health Net, a managed care organization, and CalAIM, the state’s initiative to improve Medi-Cal, the Mission completed an expansion of its recuperative care facility for men at the end of March. Recuperative care is designed to transition homeless people in need of a place to heal after hospitalizations.
Besides expanding the Mission’s emergency shelter capacity for recuperative care, the grant helped pay for renovations of the bathrooms and common areas, and allowed more staff to be hired and trained.
The extra shelter space is sorely needed. In the San Joaquin Valley, hospitals are often unable to discharge unhoused patients to a safe place where they can monitor their symptoms and rest.
“We’re trying to mitigate the extreme deficit at the emergency rooms, of them being overwhelmed by homeless clients that are in there that don’t know how to navigate their health care appropriately,” Justin Phillips, the Mission’s recuperative care program manager. “So when they come to us, we untangle all that mess.”
Phillips’ team provides clients with case management and peer support, helps them schedule follow-up medical appointments and even drives them to doctors’ offices when they need rides. Two case managers stay in the facility overnight to ensure residents have support after the doors are locked each evening.
Before the grant, Phillips had to work overtime to keep things running smoothly. Now, thanks to the grant, newly hired staff can help handle some of the workload.
Stanislaus County counted 980 people living unsheltered in 2024, according to county spokesman Dan Rosas, but currently, there are just 703 available shelter beds across various organizations within the county. The Mission is the only facility in the county to offer recuperative care to homeless people, with 60 beds for that population available, according to Stanislaus County’s Community Services Agency. With the help of the grant, Phillip’s program was able to more than double capacity from 24 beds to 51 beds.
“We are super proud of the collaboration,” said Health Net’s director, Medi-Cal regional lead, Vernell Shaw. “I really believe that the capacity that’s created, the access that’s created, is ultimately going to benefit those of our common members there in Stanislaus County,”
Phillips said his team works with about 45 different social workers across five hospitals in the area to see which patients would be a good fit for The Mission’s recuperative care program. He said they take any male patients who are open to receiving care at a faith-based program, will adhere to its zero-tolerance no-violence and sober-living policies and agree to sleep in a locked facility at night.
Phillips developed the Mission’s recuperative care program two years ago. Four years before that, he was homeless, struggling with substance abuse issues and receiving support services at The Mission. He said his experience as a client there has informed his approach to the work he does now.
“Paying attention to specific aspects, like comfortability of the guest, as far as their stay here, and all the other moving parts with regard to their health care navigation is extremely important,” he said.
Lopez said that the Mission’s client-centered approach is working for him.
“They’ve taught me how to navigate my medical issues, my doctor,” He said. “They’ve helped me with all the paperwork that I need to do. Any appointment I have, they’ll take me and they’ll go pick me up.”
Despite looming federal cuts, Phillips said he is determined to see the Mission keep up with the needs of the community.
“I try not to worry about it, because at the end of the day, the Modesto Gospel Mission is going to continue to provide service to people like Ben,” he said, “regardless of whether or not funding dries up, regardless of if CalAIM goes away, we’re going to continue to do what we’re doing, period.”
Vivienne Aguilar is the health equity reporter at The Intersection, a project of the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. Contact Aguilar at vivienne@cvlocaljournalism.org.
You must be logged in to post a comment.