Sonoma County moved homeless camps from a walking trail to a parking lot.
Fox News Digital has found out that a government-approved homeless camp has been set up near the local courts in one of California’s well-known wine areas.
Photos taken on Sonoma County’s executive site in Santa Rosa show up to 100 homeless people living in blue tents in a parking lot. This year, after a “shelter crisis” statement, leaders in Sonoma County, which is in the famous wine area of northern California, agreed to pay for a homeless camp with money from taxpayers. Offices like Sonoma County Human Resources, the county clerk, the Superior Court of California, and the district attorney’s office are all in the administrative building.
In one picture, there is a pile of trash in the parking lot next to a fence full of bikes. In another, a person is looking through trash cans.
As worries about homelessness along Joe Rodota Trail grew in March, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors accepted “an emergency shelter site” on the government property. The trail used to be a train track but has been covered and turned into a walking and biking path. In the past few years, it has been the site of many homeless camps, including one set up by a man living in his car.
This winter, the county worked to eliminate the people living there and remove their tents.
In March, the county said in a news statement, “The appearance of homeless camps around the county, especially on Joe Rodota Trail, has made it clear that we need more emergency shelter space right away.” “There is a lack of both temporary and permanent supportive housing in Sonoma County, which makes it hard for the county to clean up the camps along Joe Rodota Trail, which has been closed many times in the last four years for public safety reasons.”
The county said that the shelter on the administrative campus is run by a company called DEMA Consulting & Management. This company is in charge of the homeless shelter’s security 24 hours a day and provides “on-site support services that include behavioral and physical health care” and job training resources.
The county’s website says that people who are homeless and have been guilty of violence or sexual crimes cannot live on the property. You can’t bring drugs or drinks to the spot.
On the DEMA website, it says that 78 people are living at the campsite, and six of them have jobs. Since it opened on March 21, one person who lived there found a “successful exit,” according to the website. The spot of the shelter will stay where it is until the fall.
A county spokeswoman told Fox News Digital, “About 80 people who had been homeless for a long time and were among our most chronically homeless are now in shelters and getting full services.” “The public trail where almost all of the people who used to live at the emergency shelter site used to live is now clean and open again for biking, walking, running, and other activities.”
When asked if the county is seeing success with the program based on the one “successful exit,” a spokeswoman said, “many of the people from the trail are people who have been unable to find housing for several years.”
“They each need their own solutions to be ready to be housed and stay housed, even if a house is found for them,” the source said. “It could be a mix of mental health care, care for people with drug or alcohol problems, ways to raise a person’s income, and help getting ID cards, SS cards, etc. The people living at the emergency shelter spot are getting these kinds of services right now.”
A county representative said there are no plans to make the camp bigger now. Instead, the county might move the center and make the infrastructure “a little bit smaller and different in scope.”
This year, the Press Democrat said that the American Rescue Plan Act and Medical Reimbursement funds gave the project its first $3 million in funding. Gov. Gavin Newsom gave Sonoma County an extra $4.6 million from the state’s Encampment Resolution Funds earlier this month. This money will help keep the county-supported encampment going and pay for housing at the Los Guilicos Village and the 35 trailers at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.
In a news statement, Sonoma Supervisor Chris Coursey, chair of the Board of Supervisors, said of the $4.6 million, “I applaud the state for helping cities and counties with the largest amount from the Encampment Resolution Funds (ERF) to be distributed statewide to date.” “Over the past few months, and especially since the emergency shelter site on county grounds opened, we have made it clear that stable housing is the key to stopping homelessness. These funds will help us get a long way toward that goal.”
The county’s representative told Fox News Digital that the next round of housing for people at the emergency shelter site is expected to be paid for by a mix of federal, state, and local funds. Overall, the county said that the effort has paid off, but there is still more work to be done to help people who are homeless.
“Overall, the number of homeless people in Sonoma County has gone down from 2022 to 2023,” a representative said. “This is because of projects like Project Homekey and our region’s focus on adding both short-term and long-term supportive housing projects.” “More needs to be done to increase the number of permanent supportive housing, which is the only real way to reduce homelessness, but we think we are making progress.”
“It usually takes a long time to become chronically homeless, and it usually takes a long time to get out of it,” said the representative.
A recent study found 171,000 people in the Golden State are homeless, more than any other state. The number is about twice as high as the number of homeless people in New York, making up about 30% of all homeless people in the U.S.
