A Kern County nonprofit has been awarded a $27 million grant to help address homelessness in Arvin, with plans to build a campus-style facility offering housing, mental health services, and substance use disorder treatment.The D epartment of Health Care Services awarded the grant to Hope in the Valley, a nonprofit founded nearly 3 years ago by Chief Financial Officer Carlos Herrera and his wife. The organization's mission is to bring resources to communities where they are needed most."We realize by doing the outreach, how frustrated our citizens are, and everybody is asking, how do we fix this? Well, we realize that if we could bring resources to this community, where they're needed the most, then we could start helping with the problem," Herrera said.The grant will fund a new facility in Arvin designed to serve a wide range of people experiencing homelessness."We'll be able to provide housing, mental health for pregnant women, for women, with children, men also with children, couples, families, that require that are experiencing homelessness," Herrera said.According to the Bakersfield-Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative Point in Time Count, there were 19 unsheltered people in Arvin in 2025.Herrera said the goal is to create an environment that feels different from a traditional clinic or treatment center."And the goal is to treat it more like a campus facility or like if you think about a community college where it's not treated as like a clinic. So this is going to be more inspirational. We're trying to break from the norm and try something different," Herrera said.The facility will include an adult residential substance use disorder treatment facility with 100 new beds, along with additional amenities."We'll have a kitchen, we'll have a place for them to eat housing for them, and it's two campuses, the intake, then the housing and the cafeteria that will potentially have separate dormitory spaces," Herrera said.Construction is expected to be completed by December 2028. A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for this summer.This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere: Download Our Free App for Apple and Android Sign Up for Our Daily E-mail Newsletter Like Us on Facebook Follow Us on Instagram Subscribe to Us on YouTube ...read more read less