- Arnold’s Place gives unhoused patients a safe place to recover after treatment.
- Trauma-informed design makes the facility feel calm, residential, and noninstitutional.
- The center combines respite care, housing, and services that support recovery and stability.
Homeless patients recovering from surgery or a medical procedure often have nowhere to go. Without a safe place to heal, minor conditions can turn chronic, hospital visits pile up and, in the worst cases, patients die. “There is a huge need for respite-type services for the homeless, who after surgery or a medical procedure, don’t have someone to take care of them at home,” says Doug Biggs, retired executive director of Alameda Point Collaborative (APC; Alameda, Calif.), a nonprofit organization tackling homelessness in Alameda County, Calif.
An opportunity to address this challenge emerged in 2017, when a site off the coast of Alameda Island in the San Francisco Bay was declared surplus and suitable for housing or services for homeless residents. Biggs and his team toured the property and decided its proximity to a beach and its sense of serenity made it ideal for a new facility that would bring medical respite care, housing, and primary care services together under one roof.
Arnold’s Place Medical Respite Center and Primary Care
That vision became Arnold’s Place Medical Respite Center & Primary Care, a 28,670-square-foot facility named for Arnold Perkins, a longtime advocate for homeless services. Ankrom Moisan, the San Francisco firm brought on as architect of record in 2019, had just finished a similar project, the Blackburn Center in Portland, Ore., which became the model for Arnold’s Place.
Both projects rely on trauma-informed design, an approach that starts by understanding what patients have been through. “The entire point of trauma-informed design is adapting to the population who is using the building … and what either heightens their sense of safety or diminishes it,” says Ashlee Washington, healthcare studio lead at Ankrom Moisan (Seattle).
Many homeless people, carry medical trauma that hospital-like spaces can trigger, whether through color, noise, or activity, she says. To avoid that, Arnold’s Place is designed to feel residential, using natural wood in the flooring, ceiling, and wall treatments throughout the 2-story facility. Green and blue hues in the furniture and finishes, plus a double-height atrium with skylights, bring the outdoors in and add to the calming setting. Lattice-like half walls open views into lounge areas while still offering privacy.
Designed to promote dignity and autonomy
A sudden change in environment can also trigger trauma for homeless patients, who may be checked into a facility in a disoriented state or feel a loss of connection to the place where they were staying.
To help ease that transition to care and temporary housing, the intake process at Arnold’s Place reinforces dignity. Patients arrive from another care facility, so there’s no prolonged wait. After a quick assessment, they can wash up in a decontamination area and receive clean clothes.
The first floor houses social services, a primary care clinic run by LifeLong Medical Care (Berkeley, Calif.), classrooms, communal dining and a lounge, plus a clothing shop and acupuncture studio that keep the space from feeling institutional, says Maria Kiersey, Ankrom Moisan’s healthcare studio lead of architecture and principal on the project.
The second floor houses 50 beds, split into wings for men, women, and non-binary patients. Some rooms are private, while others accommodate two or four beds for patients who might benefit socially from being in groups.
Key fobs let patients access separate elevators to each patient wing as well as the amenity spaces on the first floor. “There’s often not a lot of choice when someone is in a hospital, so to be able to come to a step-down facility like Arnold’s Place can be very helpful,” Washington says.
Providing a place where patients want to stay
Since opening in April, Arnold’s Place has housed patients for an average stay of 30 to 60 days. Stays are completely voluntary, and patients can check themselves out at any time. “Providing a space that has a more residential feel can help people to heal with the best possible outcomes because their bodies are not in a heightened state of stress or arousal,” says Washington. “It also means that people are going to be willing to stay longer in that space.”
Robert McCune is senior editor of Healthcare Design and can be reached at [email protected].
Arnold’s Place Medical Respite Center & Primary Care project details
Project location: Alameda, Calif.
Project completion date: April 2026
Owner: Alameda Point Collaborative
Total building area: 28,670 sq. ft.
Total construction cost: $58 million
Cost/sq. ft.: $1423/sq. ft.
Architect: Ankrom Moisan
Interior designer: Ankrom Moisan
General contractor: BBI Construction Company
Engineering: PAE (mechanical and plumbing), DCI Engineers (structural), CBG Civil Engineers (civil)
Landscape architecture: Mantle Landscape Architecture
Builder: BBI Construction Company
Carpet/flooring: Mohawk Group, Mannington Commercial, Patcraft, Tarkett, Altro, Roppe, Flexco, Duraflex, Ceramiche Campogalliano, Ceramic Technics, Crossville, Iris Ceramica (Diesel Living), Design and Direct Source, Laticrete, Schluter
Ceiling/wall systems: Armstrong, ASI, Focal Point, Turf, Carnegie – Xorel Artform, F-Sorb, FabriTRAK, Marlite
Doors/locks/hardware: Stockham Construction, ACR Glazing
Handrails/wall guards: Wolf Gordon, Altro
Lighting: H.A. Bowen Electric, Luminii, Axis Lighting, Lumenwerx, Columbia Lighting
Signage/wayfinding: Priority Architectural Graphics
Surfaces — solid/other: Corian, Wilsonart, 3-Form
Wallcoverings: FabriTRAK, Wolf Gordon, 3M
Project details are provided by the design team and not vetted by Healthcare Design.
