The City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to use Community Hospital in East Long Beach for the city’s winter homeless shelter this year.

City officials have been searching for a site for some time after the two buildings that had been used in the past, the old North Long Beach Library and an industrial building in West Long Beach, were targeted for affordable or transitional housing and have pending development projects.

Late last month, officials made it clear they were eyeing Community Hospital as the site for this year’s shelter and were in the final stages of negotiations with MWN Community Hospital LLC. The lease agreement would allow the shelter to operate in the hospital’s Hatfield Building from Dec. 16 to March 31.

The winter shelter is typically funded by Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. In the past, the winter shelter has had upward of 125 beds, but this year there will likely be about 81, according to a recommendation to the City Council from the city’s Economic Development Department.

In addition to bed space, the shelter typically offers three meals per day and case management services that can help connect people to permanent housing or help them track down legal documents they need to apply for other programs, city officials said.

Community Hospital has been closed for a year now. In October, ownership of the property was transferred by the City Council to MWN, which pledged to turn the site into a wellness campus with an emphasis on behavioral health, but the potential timeline for that project remains unclear.

Editor’s note: John Molina, a co-founder of MWN Community Hospital LLC, is the primary investor in the parent company that owns the Long Beach Post. Read more about the Post’s ownership here.

Long Beach officials eye Community Hospital as potential site for winter shelter