Santa Rosa may ease rules for emergency homeless shelters

Santa Rosa is set to establish a streamlined set of rules under which churches and groups with meeting halls can provide emergency shelter for homeless people this winter.

The City Council on Tuesday will consider a pilot program to make it easier for groups with certain meeting facilities to put them to use as temporary shelters.

The Community Homeless Assistance Pilot Program, or CHAPP, is the latest effort by Santa Rosa officials to expand services for homeless people in the city.

“We’re hoping this leads to a broader discussion among the churches and synagogues in our community that have active programs with the homeless about how those services can be better coordinated,” said David Gouin, director of the city’s Housing and Community Services Department.

The CHAPP effort is designed to smooth the expansion of two programs for homeless people in the city this winter as well as authorize those already in operation.

One is the so-called “safe parking” program that allows homeless people to sleep in their vehicles overnight.

Catholic Charities currently runs a safe parking program funded by the county that allows overnight parking at eight locations in the city. The program started in 2013 at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in response to cold and wet weather and has since shifted to properties owned by several faith-based organizations.

There are currently 76 safe parking spaces available in the city, 30 of which are located at the Sonoma County Permit and Resource Management Department parking lot on Ventura Avenue, said Jennielynn Holmes, director of shelter and housing for Catholic Charities.

The sites have portable toilets, require permits, are patrolled by security and have social workers informing people about additional services. There are 45 people on the waiting list, so Holmes hopes to get several additional locations established in the city for those and other people who need it.

“We want to get people into services as quickly as we can while we have them in front of us,” Holmes said.

The other service that could be expanded under the pilot program is the “nomadic” shelter program that sends the overflow from the Redwood Gospel Mission to various sites around the city, also at faith-based organizations.

Currently, groups that want to offer their facilities need to get special permits, which can be expensive and time-consuming. Churches generally don’t have permits that allow overnight parking or groups of people to sleep there, city planner Erin Morris explained.

In order to ensure that neighbors are notified of and comfortable with the emergency shelters, most churches would need to change their use permits to allow such activities, a process that can cost $3,000 and take up to two months - more if there is neighborhood opposition, she said.

But the pilot program would streamline that significantly.

Under the proposal, any private organization with a property zoned as a meeting facility - such as a lodge, meeting hall, community center, church, auditorium or union hall - that wants to offer its parking lot for an overnight parking program could complete a one-page form describing the program, the number of participants, frequency of stays, etc.

For indoor programs, the group would also need to undergo an inspection by the Santa Rosa Fire Department to ensure the structure is up to code, and so firefighters know people are sleeping there if a fire were to break out, Gouin explained.

For now, the program is only envisioned to run this winter, from Nov. 1 to March 31. Holmes said she hopes that if it proves successful, the program could operate year-round.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com.