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After two and a half years of planning and renovations, Eureka’s long-awaited social services hub is ready to serve the community.

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday afternoon, city officials and staff celebrated the grand opening of the Uplift Eureka Community Resource Center, located in the Municipal Auditorium at 1111 E Street, a one-stop shop for individuals and families seeking a broad range of social services. 

Need help getting a copy of your birth certificate or a new driver’s license? Housing and job applications? How about referrals to medical, behavioral health and legal professionals? Or maybe just access to a phone and a computer? The people at the resource center can, at the very least, help you get started.

Jeff Davis

“We’re looking to help community members — specifically low- and moderate-income folks — but anyone that needs help or support in getting connected to services and resources, this is the spot,” Special Projects Manager Jeff Davis told the Outpost. “We have a no-wrong-door policy, so whatever you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place. If we can’t do it ourselves, we can connect you directly with the right people and maybe even start the process here.

“We don’t want to duplicate services that already exist in the city or elsewhere in the county,” Davis added, “we want to complement and supplement what the existing network is doing to really help folks obtain their goals.”

Once the facility is up and running, staff will host weekly employment workshops to help visitors with résumé building, job searching, interview skills and workplace etiquette. The center will offer monthly special programming, including “Highway to Housing” and “Tools for Tenancy,” which cover “tips for rental success” and strategies for finding, applying for and securing housing.

“A lot of people need help learning how to fill out an application properly,” Resource Center Coordinator Cynthia Bowman told the Outpost. “We can help visitors figure out what to do if you’ve got a history of rental eviction or some other problematic issue. [We] can help walk you through the application process.”

Bowman is relatively new to the social services sector, having spent most of her career working at her own public relations company in San Francisco. When she retired 19 or so years ago, she decided to fulfill her longtime dream of becoming a social worker.

Cynthia Bowman

“I went back to school, I got my degree in behavioral science and I started volunteering with a lot of different organizations, including St. Boniface Church in the Tenderloin,” she said, adding that St. Boniface was one of the first churches in the nation to let homeless folks sleep in the pews during the day. “After that I became a Hospice worker and, eventually, I came up to Eureka and I found this job. … It’s really a dream come true for me because it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I feel like I’m doing something important.”

The resource center is open Monday - Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. More more information call (707) 441-4242 or visit their website at this link.

Keep scrolling for more pictures of today’s ribbon cutting!

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