Effort to get people away from SMART rail tracks running into resistance

Jonathan Rollstin is often unaware that a train is coming until the moment it has arrived.

Where the homeless man’s encampment is situated, trains barrel past about 50 feet away, on tracks splitting the graffiti-marred girders of a Highway 101 overpass south of the Petaluma Village Premium Outlets.

Despite the obvious dangers and prodding by police, Rollstin, 39, refuses to quit his illegal set-up.

“I want to be alone. I don’t want to be in a shelter,” he said Monday after a Petaluma police officer rousted him from his tent.

The defiance highlights the challenges of getting homeless people to abandon encampments along train tracks in Sonoma and Marin counties, a problem gaining more urgency as commuter rail service gears up to resume in the North Bay later this year.

Officials with the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit authority have been working with police and homeless advocates for months to encourage people to stay clear of the track right-of-way. The result has been an exodus of people from the tracks.

Some have found shelter elsewhere. Others have simply decamped to other locations, including in more visible areas that have led to complaints about their presence. Officials attribute a noticeable bump in the number of homeless in downtown Santa Rosa in large part to the track relocations.

There’s also an untold number of stubborn holdouts who insist on sticking near the tracks, prompting officials in Santa Rosa, Petaluma and other cities along the line to begin ramping up outreach and enforcement efforts.

“It’s a priority for us,” Petaluma Lt. Ken Savano said. “We don’t want to have a terrible tragedy due to homeless encampments.”

On Monday morning, veteran Petaluma Police Officer Ryan DeBaeke got out of a police pickup in a vacant field south of the outlet stores and began walking a well-worn path toward the highway, where motorists passed overhead.

Rollstin’s tent was in the shadows of the overpass, in a small clearing of trees and berry vines growing out of a small creek. He emerged from the tent wearing dark jeans and a blue jacket emblazoned with the logo of the city’s Water Resources and Conservation Department.

DeBaeke has ordered Rollstin away from the illegal encampment on a number of occasions. The officer was dismayed to see that he had returned.

“Nice jacket,” DeBaeke said. “Where’d you get it?”

“I found it,” Rollstin replied, grinning to reveal several missing teeth.

DeBaeke acknowledged later that he could have cited or arrested Rollstin for a number of reasons. The officer didn’t say it, but one allegation could have included suspicion of theft, after a Water Resources manager contacted police later that day after he spotted the homeless man in town wearing the jacket.

Instead, DeBaeke provided Rollstin with trash bags after again ordering him to leave the encampment. The pair then parted ways.

Petaluma police, along with their counterparts across Sonoma County, say they are starting with a softer approach in getting people moved from the tracks.

DeBaeke, a Petaluma native, started a new full-time assignment in January as the Police Department’s homeless outreach officer, a position paid for by the city. The department is planning to add a second officer to the homeless beat using a $500,000 CalRecycle grant, which also will be spent on cleaning up encampments.

A number of such camps dotted the private property Monday south of the outlets. Each featured a tent and an assortment of belongings, as well as copious amounts of trash.

Trains operated by SMART have been moving along the 43-mile route from near the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport to downtown San Rafael for weeks as engineers test the cars, which eventually will operate at top speeds of 79 mph. The maximum speed along the stretch running beneath the highway overpass near the Petaluma outlets will be 60 mph because of a curve in the tracks, which restricts visibility.

Train operators sound the horn only at intersections or when they see people on the tracks. There have already been numerous reports of people walking the line, according to Jennifer Welch, the rail agency’s police chief.

SMART has installed fencing along significant stretches of the rail line, particularly in urban areas, to discourage people from wandering too close to the tracks. But some simply cut holes to gain access.

Passenger rail service has been largely absent from the North Bay for more than a half-century, and for much of that time, the tracks coursing through Sonoma and Marin counties have been used as de-facto foot trails.

A few hundred yards southwest of Rollstin’s encampment , Joseph Zozaya, 35, walked alongside the train tracks Monday, his mismatched tennis shoes digging into gravel. Zozaya said people who walk on the tracks once trains come through do so at their peril. He made a cutting motion across his neck.

“Don’t let that be you man,” DeBaeke said.

SMART officials are hoping that the unwary attitude will fade once trains become a more familiar presence. The rail agency has launched a media campaign to raise awareness of train safety and posted signs at key intersections warning that rail car testing is taking place.

“It’s still going to take a lot of outreach and coordination, but we are doing the best we can with all of our community partners,” Welch said.

The rail agency is planning to operate seven two-car units along the route, with current plans calling for trains to run every half-hour during peak commute times, in addition to a midday train and weekend service.

Criminal matters, including trespassing on the right-of-way, are being handled by local law enforcement agencies, depending on where the incidents occur. Camping or walking along SMART’s right-of-way is considered trespassing. But Santa Rosa police typically issue numerous warnings before finally bringing out the citation book or handcuffs, according to Lt. John Cregan. He said people are given 72-hours to remove their property from the railroad right-of-way before they risk having it confiscated.

The approach is similar in Petaluma, where police documented illegal camps and dump sites as part of their application for the state grant. Cruising around on an off-road motorcycle, DeBaeke said he counted 34 major homeless encampments featuring at least one tent or other shelter within city limits, along with about 100 less-established sites. The numbers were divided about evenly between camps along the tracks and those near the Petaluma River and tributaries. The officer said his goal is to get those numbers down to a more manageable level.

“Right now it feels overwhelming,” he said.

A January 2015 census identified 3,107 unhoused Sonoma County residents, though 1,037 were in homeless shelters the day of the count. An additional 2,070 had no shelter at all. Sonoma County’s population stands at roughly 500,000.

For many years, nobody really paid attention to the homeless living along the tracks because they were largely invisible to the public, said Jennielynn Holmes, director of shelter and housing for Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa.

The organization is part of a countywide outreach team that was launched last year to connect with the homeless. Holmes said the team’s approach is to “build rapport” with people and steer them into services. She said Catholic Charities has money to pay for housing, but that there are no units currently available for people to move into.

Simply rousting people from their make-shift homes is not viewed as a long-term solution to the problem. People either return, or wind up taking up illegal residence someplace else, engendering fresh complaints about their presence.

That’s been the case in Santa Rosa, where downtown merchants have lodged concerns about homeless people, whose numbers appear to have grown recently.

“It’s an ebb and flow,” Lt. Cregan said. “We see it everywhere with the homeless.”

Cregan said police will adopt a more “zero-tolerance” approach toward illegal camping along the train tracks once passenger rail service starts.

That could be bad news for Todd Naus, a 31-year-old Petaluma man who built an elaborate tree house to live in not far from the tracks, which he travels to get to and from town.

About the only upside he could cite to the presence of the trains is their loud horns waking him up in the morning, alerting him that it’s time to go find food.

“If I’m not up by then, I’m lagging,” Naus said.

You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @deadlinederek.