Nile is homeless. He has had it rough; he looks chafed by the elements. His eyes have retreated into his sockets. They peer out under his brows like an owl, but without the raptor’s glare. In fact, he was nothing but grateful last week while addressing the Arcata City Council, thanking a program the council decided to give $154,000. 

“It’s changed my trajectory in the community,” he said. “It’s given me purpose…My experience with this group has allowed me to grow through the chaos of what everyone involved goes through. It actually allowed me to become more grounded as a community member.”

Nile was praising OurSpace, an arts program for the homeless put on by the Arcata Playhouse. Started in 2022, a few times a week volunteers set up a place where anyone could show up, create, and get some hot food. Participants can dance, write poetry, or paint. It gives them something to do and a way to meet people, a huge asset for a group often afflicted with mental health issues, said Caroline Griffith, an OurSpace co-director,. Artists have made everything from collages to a giant paper turtle.

“More than anything, people need housing,” Griffith said at the Nov. 5 city council meeting. “People need shelter. People need to be safe. But we also know that people need more than just shelter and food in order to thrive and be full human beings. We are there to fit that niche, and to be a part of this ecosystem of services, to make sure that we are serving the whole person and really thinking about wellness and what it really takes for people who are experiencing substance use disorder and the co-occurring mental health conditions to actually be able to move into something better.”

Around 30 people attended every time OurSpace opened its doors, usually about three times a week in a room in the Arcata Presbyterian Church. But that only lasted until May of 2025; Griffith said in an interview with the Outpost that a homeowner near the church threatened to sue the church unless they stopped renting to OurSpace. The church didn’t have the money to fight the suit, and OurSpace left. (Griffith said the neighbor put their house up on the market for $1.2 million soon afterward.) 

Since then, OurSpace operated out of a wagon, wheeling art supplies, snacks, and coffee down to the Arcata plaza on sunny days a couple times a week. They needed something else.

The $154,000 will buy a 30-foot trailer that OurSpace can set up out of four days a week (as well as a truck to haul it, plus expenses) letting them operate in places where many homeless people live. They’ll be able to haul around tables, awnings, and plenty of ways to create; Griffith likened her vision to something akin to a circus. OurSpace participants have said they’d like to have everything from printmaking supplies to clay to musical instruments. The loss of the church’s piano was a blow to many of them, Griffith said. 

Future plans for the group include an art show, the fourth edition of their zine, and a mural.

Obviously, being homeless is stressful. Focusing on securing basic amenities and a place to sleep every night doesn’t leave any space to unwind, Griffith said. Spending a few hours every week on something whimsical like a poem or a painting lets people burn off some energy and relax; making new friends who are in the same situation as you, that can understand what you’re going through, helps too. 

Griffith said she’s asked participants what kind of living situation they’d want, if the world was ideal. “We’ve had people kind of pause and be like, ‘Wow. Nobody asks me that,’” Griffith said. “To actually take the time and space to think about more than just what is right in front of them is really beneficial for folks.”

“There’s a huge disconnect in our community between people who are housed and people who are not,” she said. “And it is so wonderful to be able to connect in a way that isn’t about anybody’s housing status. It’s about our shared humanity…We need to figure out a way to move past that barrier between those who are housed and those who are not, because it’s not going to get any easier.”

The money for these projects comes from $4 billion in settlements from several massive lawsuits California brought against opioid distributors and manufacturers for their roles in starting and perpetuating the ongoing opioid epidemic (including Walgreens, Walmart, CVS, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, Perdue, and Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Johnson and Johnson’s parent company). 85% of the settlement money goes to local governments and must be spent on programs that focus on alleviating the harms from widespread opioid addiction, which can include increasing services for the homeless. 

Since 2022, Arcata has received $491,000 of the funds and will likely add just short of $1 million to the pile over the next 13 years. Payouts are scheduled to stop in 2028, but the city will earn more funding from pending or future lawsuits.

Another $217,000 of the funds went to the Arcata House Partnership (AHP), another group that offers food and shelter for the homeless, to rent 20 motel rooms in Valley West for temporary emergency housing. It will operate from Nov. 15, 2025 to March 15, 2026 on a first-come, first-served basis. Besides shelter, residents will receive substance-use disorder treatments, food, and mental health support. The focus will be on homeless people living in illegal encampments. 

AHP is candid about the shortcomings of the project. 

“There will not be enough staff or time to successfully resolve most people from being homeless to being sheltered or housed and addressing opioid use,” reads their proposal. “Nor will most people involved want to transition to a shelter or permanent housing or participate in harm reduction or recovery offerings. This will be an immediate but temporary option. There is simply not enough funding, shelter beds or permanent housing to successfully resolve most people.”

Participants will be allowed to stay for 60 days, maximum. 

Arcata city manager Merritt Perry said that the city approached AHP with a desire to help out with any urgent needs they had, and worked together to come up with a budget the city felt was sustainable. 

“Rather than having these funds sit there and not do any good,” Perry said at the meeting, “How can we do some good in the community now?”

Despite the program’s limitations, AHP Executive Director Darlene Spoor thinks it’ll at least make some positive impact. 

“But why would we even try at this point to encourage people to seek recovery when we have no other option?” Spoor said to the council. “So this is the beginning. This is the option. This is how we connect with people. We bring them in.”

AHP did not respond to a request for comment as of publication.