Fontana navigation center gets $2M county budget line
Fontana CA – San Bernardino County’s new budget adds $2 million for the West End Regional Navigation Center on Jasmine Street, with key details still pending.
San Bernardino County’s newly adopted fiscal year 2026-27 budget includes a $2 million line for the West End Regional Navigation Center, a regional homelessness-services project planned at 11109 Jasmine Street in Fontana.
The county announced on June 11 that supervisors adopted the budget at their June 9 Board of Supervisors meeting. For Fontana residents, the budget item is not the full cost of the project. It is a new allocation inside a larger county-city effort that already moved through major approvals earlier this year.
The planned center matters locally because Fontana is the physical site for a facility intended to serve a wider West End area, not only one neighborhood or one city. It also ties city property, county capital spending, shared operating costs and future service rules into one project that residents will likely hear more about as construction and tenant improvements move closer.
What the county already approved
On March 10, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved acquisition of the Fontana property from the City of Fontana, along with a purchase and sale agreement, a multi-city memorandum of understanding for operating costs and Capital Improvement Program Project CIP 26-063 in the amount of $20 million.
County board records describe the site as about 1.65 acres with a roughly 35,347-square-foot building. The record lists a base purchase price of $11,664,510, plus a $100 independent consideration payment, applicable due diligence, title and escrow costs, and reimbursement to Fontana for certain pre-development and construction or improvement costs. Those improvement-related costs include a $2 million construction deposit, subject to the county’s approval of the construction bid and related pre-development costs.
The same March record says the final purchase price, including the base price and improvement reimbursement, had not yet been fully determined. That is why the June budget line should not be read as the project’s total price tag.
How the center is supposed to work
County and city sources describe the West End Regional Navigation Center as a 200-bed facility, with 100 shelter beds and 100 recuperative care beds. Planned services include behavioral health services, medical care, case management, transportation assistance and housing placement support.
One important distinction for nearby residents and business owners: the center is not described by official sources as a public walk-up shelter. The City of Fontana and San Bernardino County both describe it as low-barrier and referral-only through the county’s coordinated entry system.
That means future questions about how people are referred, which agencies make referrals, how transportation is handled and how nearby impacts are managed will matter as much as the building schedule.
Who is participating
The partner cities named in official records are Chino, Fontana, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto and Upland. The March board item approved an MOU framework for annual city and county contributions for an initial 10-year term.
Fontana’s April announcement said the participating cities would contribute toward startup costs and annual operating expenses, while the county would use federal and state funding to help reimburse service costs. The facility is intended as a regional West End response to homelessness, even though the building itself is in Fontana.
What remains to watch
Several practical details remain important for residents before the anticipated early 2027 service timeline. Fontana’s April 1 announcement said renovation plans were in plan check and that project construction would start early this summer.
The operator status also needs careful watching. The same city announcement includes one passage saying an operator had been selected and contract completion was being finalized, but another passage says the county was in the final stages of selecting an operator. No reviewed source names the operator or gives final contract terms.
The next watch points are final construction and improvement costs, any follow-up Board of Supervisors items, procurement or construction notices, operator-contract details, neighborhood construction impacts and the final rules for referrals through coordinated entry.
For Fontana taxpayers and nearby residents, the June budget action is best understood as another funding step in a project that has already cleared major approvals but is not yet open and not yet fully settled in cost, operations or day-to-day service details.
Sources
- San Bernardino County June 2026 budget announcement
- San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Item 36 record
- City of Fontana navigation center announcement
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