This homeless plan turned foes to allies
Sanctioned camp in Sonoma could be a blueprint for other California towns.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — They knew the neighborhood would revolt.
It was early May, and officials in this Northern California city were frantically debating how to keep COVID-19 from infiltrating the homeless camps proliferating in the region’s celebrated parks and trails. For years, the number of people living homeless in Sonoma County had crept downward — and then surged, exacerbated by pumped-up housing prices and three punishing wildfire seasons that destroyed thousands of homes in four years.
Seemingly overnight, the city’s homeless crisis had burst into view. And with the onset of COVID-19, it posed a devastating health threat to the hundreds of people living in shelters, tents and makeshift shanties, as well as to the service providers and emergency responders trying to help them.
In the preceding weeks, as the virus made its first advance through California, Gov. Gavin Newsom had called on cities and counties to persuade hotel operators to open their doors to people living on the streets whose age and health made them vulnerable. But in Santa Rosa, a town that thrives on tourist dollars, city leaders knew they would never find enough owners to volunteer their establishments. City Council Member Tom Schwedhelm, then serving as mayor, settled on an idea to pitch dozens of tents in the parking lot of a gleaming community center in an affluent neighborhood known as Finley Park.
Neighborhood residents weren’t keen on the idea of accepting homeless people into their enclave of treelined streets and sleepy culde-sacs. Yet in short order, thousands of residents and businesses received letters notifying them of the city’s plans to erect 70 tents that could shelter as many as 140 people at the Finley Community Center, a neighborhood jewel that draws scores of families and fitness enthusiasts to its manicured picnic grounds, sparkling pool and tennis courts.
The backlash was fierce. For three hours on a Thursday evening in mid-May, Santa Rosa officials defended their plans as hundreds of residents flooded the phone lines to register their discontent.
“Will there be a list of everybody who decided to do this to us and our park, in case we want to vote them out?” one resident barked. “How can we feel safe using our park?” others pleaded.
In Santa Rosa, like so many other communities, strenuous neighborhood objections typically would drive a stake through a proposal for homeless housing and services. Not this time. Elected officials were not asking; they were telling.
“Go ahead and vote me out,” said Schwedhelm, recounting his mindset. “You want to shout at me and get angry? Go ahead. It’s important for government to listen, but the reality is these are our neighbors, so let’s help them.”
Within days, the spacious parking lot at the Finley Community Center was cordoned off with green mesh fencing. Inside, spaced 12 feet apart, were 68 blue tents, each equipped with sleeping bags and storage bin. A neat row of portable toilets lined one side of the encampment, and it was fitted throughout with handwashing stations and misters for the summer heat.
The city contracted with Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa to manage the camp, and social workers fanned out to shelters and unsanctioned encampments, where they found dozens of takers. The first dozen residents were in their tents four days after the site was approved, and the population quickly swelled to nearly 70. In exchange for shelter, showers and three daily meals, camp residents agreed to an 8 p.m. curfew and a contract pledging to honor mask and physical-distancing requirements and to act as good neighbors.
Santa Rosa’s tent city opened May 18. And, not too long after, something remarkable happened. Finley Park residents stopped protesting and started dropping off donations of goods — food, clothing, hand sanitizer. The tennis and pickleball courts were bustling again. Parents and kids once more crowded the nearby playground.
And inside that green perimeter, people started getting their lives together.
From May to late November, Santa Rosa would spend $680,000 to supply and manage the site, a sixmonth experiment that would chart a new course for the city’s approach to homeless services. As cities across California wrestle with a crisis of homelessness that has drawn international condemnation, the Santa Rosa experience suggests a way forward. Rather than engage in months of paralyzing discussion with opponents before committing to a project, officials decided their role was to lead and inform. They would identify project sites and drive forward, using neighborhood feedback to tailor improvements.
“We know we’re pissing off a lot of people — they’re rising up and saying, ‘Hell, no!’ ” said county Supervisor James Gore, president of the California State Assn. of Counties. “But we can’t just keep saying no .... Everybody wants a solution, but they don’t want to see that solution in their neighborhoods.”
Like other counties, Sonoma has battled unruly homeless encampments for years. Before the fires, the crisis was more hidden, with people sheltering in creek beds and wooded glens. The wildfires of 2017, 2019 and 2020 brought many out of the backcountry. And the 5,300 homes decimated by flames meant even more people displaced.
Politicians in Sonoma County described their soulsearching over how to cut through the community gridlock when it comes to finding locations to provide housing and services.
“It’s fear and anger that you’re going to take something away from me if you build this housing — that’s a big part of it, and I saw that anger directed at me, too,” said Shirlee Zane, a vocal backer of homeless services who lost her reelection bid last year after 12 years on the county board of supervisors.
In creating the Finley Park model, Santa Rosa leaders drew on a few basic tenets. Neighbors were worried about crime and drug use, so the city deployed police officers and security guards for 24/7 patrols. Neighbors worried about trash and disease; the city brought in hand-washing stations, showers and toilets. Catholic Charities enrolled dozens of camp residents in neighborhood beautification projects, giving them gift cards to stores like Target in exchange for picking up trash.
A few times a week, a mobile clinic serviced the camp, providing healthcare and medications. Residents had access to virtual mental health treatment and were screened regularly for COVID-19 symptoms; only one person is known to have contracted the coronavirus during the 256 days the site was in operation.
Rosa Newman was among those who turned their lives around. Newman, 56, said she had sunk into homelessness and addiction after leaving an abusive partner years before. She moved into her tent in September and in a matter of days was enrolled in California’s version of Medicaid, connected to a doctor and receiving treatment for a bladder infection. After two months in the camp, she was able to get into subsidized housing and landed a job at a Catholic Charities homeless drop-in center. “Before, I was so sick I didn’t have any hope. I didn’t have to show up for anything,” she said. “But now I have a real job, and it’s just the beginning.”
James Carver, 50, who for years slept in the doorway of a downtown Santa Rosa business with his wife, said he felt happy just to have a tent over his head. Channeling his energy into cleanup projects and odd jobs around camp, Carver said, his morale began to improve.
“It’s such a comfort; I’m looking for work again,” Carver, an unemployed construction worker, said in November. “I don’t have to sleep with one eye open.”
When Santa Rosa officials conceived of the Finley site, they sold it to the community as temporary, believing COVID-19 would run its course by winter. And though COVID-19 still raged, they kept that promise and closed the site Nov. 30, then held a community meeting to get feedback. “Only three or four people called in, and they all had positive things to say,” said David Gouin, who has since retired as director of housing and community services.
“I thought they were going to be noisy and have crap all over the place. Now, they can have it all year-round for all I care,” said area resident Joseph Gernhardt.
Of the 108 calls for police service, almost all were in response to other homeless people wanting to sleep at the site when it was at capacity, records show. And there was no violent behavior, said Police Chief Rainer Navarro.
With the Finley encampment closed, Santa Rosa has expanded its primary shelter while drafting plans to set up year-round managed camps in several neighborhoods, this time with hardened structures. County supervisors, meanwhile, are using $16 million in state grants to purchase and convert two hotels into housing.
“We have estates that sell for $20 million, and then you walk by people sleeping in tents with no access to hot food or running water,” said Lynda Hopkins, chair of the county board of supervisors. “These tiny villages — they’re not perfect, but we’re trying to provide some dignity.”
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.