Push for shelter community is a good move

The city's timing may not be ideal, but the idea of building a shelter community with structures similar to so-called “tiny homes” as short-term housing for otherwise homeless people deserves consideration.

San Rafael is seeking proposals, but its action comes four months after the state removed the homeless camp that, for many months, took root under the freeway in downtown.

Importantly, a possible location for the shelter community has not been spelled out.

Finding a location stalled the plan for a shelter community from being ready when the encampment was removed.

Other communities across the state have turned to different versions of tiny homes as an answer to putting roofs over the heads of the homeless.

For instance, in Santa Barbara County, 20 similar structures — 8-by-8-feet in size — are taking form as temporary housing intended to stand for just six months, according to a local press report.

In Santa Rosa, the county has established a “village” of 60 similar structures, complete with mental health and medical services.

San Rafael's strategy also calls for building a community of at least 20 such shelters, estimated to cost $300,000 for the community and paid for — including support services — by a $500,000 state grant.

The city is also hoping to get financial support from the county.

Housing was found for most of those uprooted by the removal of the tent city, but a shelter community could have been helpful in providing a transition for those who found themselves needing interim housing — one with a roof, a door, a lock (with showers, as well as restrooms, available close by) and more time to find permanent housing.

That has to include the residents' willingness to work with a social services worker to find more permanent housing.

San Rafael and Novato already provide large shares of Marin's housing for the homeless.

Both communities play host to housing programs provided by Homeward Bound, the Marin nonprofit that is the county's largest provider of housing for the homeless, from emergency shelter beds to transitional housing. Projects aimed at providing housing for the homeless have also been added in Corte Madera and Larkspur.

In a community that has adopted a “housing first” strategy toward getting homeless people off the streets, these programs are vital, but still outnumbered by those needing housing. The strategy is to get homeless people off the streets and out of encampments in open spaces and into shelters, both for their own safety, but also making it easier for them to stay connected to social services aimed at getting them the help they need to put them on a path out of homelessness.

Tent cities that for months stood in San Rafael, Sausalito and still stand in Novato are clear examples of the need. It has not gone away.

Take a look, for instance, at the growing line of vehicles — trailers and RVs — lining Novato's Binford Road.

That situation is not a permanent solution. But it is also a reminder of Marin's lack of affordable housing and, of course, the unintended but predictable consequence of municipalities passing parking limits to force trailers and RVs — that some have been forced to turn to as their source of affordable housing — to relocate.

Now they line one of the last roads leading out of the county.

Both Santa Rosa and Sebastopol have created safe parking areas for RVs, but no site has been found here.

Those residents may need a large parking lot, but others could find the proposed shelter community a safe place where they can figure out a way out of homelessness. Besides, it looks a lot better and more humane and less perilous than tents.