By Eileen Rodriguez

With help from fellow Petaluma nonprofit Rebuilding Together Petaluma, the Committee on the Shelterless is giving its Mary Isaak Center, a 92-bed emergency shelter on Hopper Street, an overdue renovation. 

At the heart of the renovation is Jesus Alejandro Alatorre, a formerly unhoused worker who moved into the center himself in 2024. Through Rebuilding Together Petaluma, where he is employed as a construction worker, he is now helping to rebuild the very facility that helped him rebuild his life over the last two years, and giving back to a service that gave so much to him. 

Since opening in 2004, the Mary Isaak Center has seen significant growth. Its clinical team, which provides behavioral health assessments, individual therapy, group therapy, and substance use interventions, has increased from two staff members to six. Capacity for temporary recuperative care has grown from six beds to 20. 

The most recent upgrade to the facility was the 2024 addition of the Lassar Health and Wellness Center, which offers support to people who are homeless but have been discharged from the emergency shelter.

When the latest work — performed in conjunction with Rebuilding Together’s construction-focused workforce development program for low-income and unhoused residents — wraps up in December, residents will gain greater access to onsite therapy and recovery services and additional space to visit doctors and nurses from the Petaluma Health Center. More bed spaces will be available for adults with mobility challenges. The plans also call for increasing the number of offices and adding a new conference room and a small break room. 

Finding COTS

Years ago, Alatorre, now 48, was struggling. He couldn’t afford basic necessities such as gas and groceries. So in 2021, he left his family behind to seek opportunity in Sonoma County, not far from San Rafael, where he had a friend.

But along with that move came what he calls a “bad decision” that resulted in him being in jail for three years. After he got out of jail in 2024, another friend told him about the Committee on the Shelterless, widely known as COTS. 

“At first, they gave me temporary housing for about three to six months, and I spent the whole time here,” Alatorre said. “I started volunteering for (Rebuilding Together Petaluma) for three months (in construction). And they finally hired me. They told me they needed people like me to work here and asked if I was interested. And, of course, I said yes. I’ve been working for them for seven months.”

Funded by state grants, allocations from the City of Petaluma, the federal government’s Continuum of Care Program, and private donations, construction started in September. It includes a redesigned entryway, an elevator, and multiple new counseling offices for the three-story Mary Isaak Center. 

The project’s central goals include enhancing privacy by giving staff members their own designated offices, and supporting the Petaluma Health Center clinic’s presence on-site. Leading the construction effort from the Rebuilding Together Petaluma team are Drake Cunningham, executive director; Megan Kelly, deputy director; and Toran Geiser, director of construction.

Chris Cabral, chief executive officer of COTS, wanted residents and staff to have more space for recovery programs, and to better facilitate group and individual counseling. “It was too much of our case managers having to just pull a client outside just to talk to them, or all of our conference rooms were booked back-to-back seven days a week, and we needed the space,” she said. “There was no privacy.”

Mary Isaak Center staff say they’re excited about the changes and the future of this critical community resource. “We have something really unique here in Petaluma, between COTS, Rebuilding Together Petaluma, and HomeFirst (a service provider for the unhoused) that other cities don't have,” said Melissa Ferrari, associate director of compliance for COTS. “We all collaborate, and we support our clients in this collaboration model that really offers wraparound services to the people that are living here in Petaluma."

Full circle

The construction team led by Rebuilding Together Petaluma includes skilled staff, various subcontractors, and a handful of workforce development participants who, like Alatorre, are current or former residents of the center. 

“It’s a privilege to be given a chance to help support, and to show that this is a program that truly works,” Alatorre said. 

While the job with Rebuilding Together Petaluma represents a fresh start and a well-earned salary, it’s also an opportunity for residents like Alatorre to build skills that can be applied to other job opportunities in the future. Eligible residents can work directly with their COTS case manager on job applications, including preparing resumes, conducting mock interviews, scheduling transportation to and from interviews and work, and connecting with other free and low-cost job-training programs. 

“I’m going to learn new things that I’ve never known before, and new doors are going to open,” Alatorre said.

On the third floor of the building, where staff work in cramped cubicles that will soon be converted to designated offices and conference rooms, walls are decorated with written affirmations and printed photographs showing past shelter residents holding up the keys to their new apartment.

As he continues the journey of reconstructing his life, Alatorre, now five years clean from drugs and alcohol, encourages others not to make the same mistakes he’s made — and to seek help when needed. He acknowledges traditional masculine norms, especially in Latin culture, and how it can be difficult for men to admit they cannot do everything alone. 

“In reality, we’re always going to need someone all of the time,” he said. “But the day that we realize that we do, in fact, need someone, is when the burdens will be lifted and we’ll see everything differently.”

Now, as Alatorre walks around the construction site at the Mary Isaak Center, surrounded by his peers and fellow residents, with tools in his hands and the sound of powersaws in the air, he's also celebrating the fact that he just moved out of the emergency shelter into more permanent workforce housing provided by his employer, Rebuilding Together Petaluma. 

He reflects on how Rebuilding Together and the renovation project have helped him grow: “You can make a change yourself, if you want to. Anyone who has the desire can step forward and do the same,” Alatorre said. “At first, they helped me, and now — gracias a Díos — I’m being given the opportunity to return the favor.”

Eileen Rodriguez is a contributor to Petaluma Voice. She can be reached at news@petalumavoice.org.