A mental-health therapy home for people recently released from jail â a project that has aroused resistance by some of its future neighbors in historic Old Town Napa â is expected to apply for permits to expand its capacity by this summer, and the homeâs directors will take part in a community meeting explaining the project, the city announced Thursday.
In a staff report published ahead of the City Councilâs Tuesday meeting, Napa officials said the directors of Gray Haven Health & Wellness are slated to file an application by June to expand capacity at the live-in therapy center from the original six residents to an eventual maximum of 30.
With a group home for recently jailed people with mental illnesses perhaps weeks away from opening in a restored 19th-century Napa mansion, several neighbors in the Old Town district are urging the city to stop, slow or scrutinize the project â however little power local government may have to stand in its way. Gray Haven, a residential care program to be based at the Eliza G. Yount House at 423 Seminary St., got a frosty reception from nearly a dozen people whose letters of opposition were read to the City Council at its Tuesday afternoon meeting. Homeowners branded the Gray Haven home, where clients would spend up to two years of live-in therapy and training to prepare for independent living, will threaten the safety of a neighborhood where Fuller Park and Shearer Elementary School are each a block away â and with apartment buildings and houses next door or across the street.