Santa Rosa housing advocate David Grabill dies at 74

David Grabill, a Santa Rosa public-interest attorney who became one of the region’s leading advocates for the poor in battles with local governments over affordable housing, died Saturday, family members said. He was 74.

Grabill was legal counsel to the Santa Rosa-based Housing Advocacy Group, which forced the construction of hundreds of homes for low-income residents and sparked the creation of dozens of shelter beds for the homeless.

Most recently, he pushed for rent stabilization and just-cause eviction rules in a successful campaign in Santa Rosa. Grabill previously championed farmworker rights as a lawyer for California Rural Legal Assistance.

“He was a fierce advocate, a compassionate human being and a brilliant mind,” said Davin Cardenas, co-director of the North Bay Organizing Project.

Julie Combs, a Santa Rosa city councilwoman who considered Grabill a mentor on housing and homeless issues, said his death was a “great loss.”

“He’s been a good teacher to our community,” Combs said. “I don’t think we could have made the progress on housing without the longtime work David has done.”

Grabill was diagnosed last year with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, said his daughter, nurse Jane Battenfeld of Santa ?Rosa.

His condition worsened Wednesday and he was admitted to Kaiser Permanente medical center in Santa Rosa. He died Saturday morning, she said.

In addition to his daughter, Grabill is survived by his wife of 35 years, Santa Rosa Junior College trustee and educator Dorothy Battenfeld, as well as three other adult children: Holly Rhodes, of San Francisco; and Megan Rhodes and Christopher Grabill, both of Santa Rosa. He had five grandchildren.

Memorial services were pending, the family said.

Grabill was singled out last year by the Sonoma County Bar Association as having a career of distinction.

He was a thorn in the sides of the city and county government officials who were forced to respond to his allegations that their jurisdictions did not meet the legal mandates for the creation of affordable housing.

“It’s not a very exciting issue in a lot of ways,” he said last September before the bar association ceremony. “But it’s a fundamental need.”

The attorney was born in 1942 in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania law school. His father was an anesthesiologist.

He came to Southern California in the late 1960s, working with American Indians and the United Farm Workers union before opening a law practice in Venice catering to low-income clients.

In 1974, he and his first wife, Kathleen Rhodes, bought a 100-acre farm in West Virginia. Grabill assisted miners with black lung ailments and worked with the state's first women's clinic on a lawsuit to overturn its ban on abortion.

He met Battenfeld at that time and the couple moved to Santa Rosa in 1981.

Grabill signed on with California Rural Legal Assistance in San Francisco, helping Central Valley farmworkers before being named directing attorney in the Santa Rosa office.

He went into private practice in the mid-1990s, shifting his attention to tenants’ rights and unfair evictions. Grabill became the lead lawyer for Housing Advocacy Group, filing suits to force municipalities to build affordable units as called for in general plans.

“It was really a priority for him,” Battenfeld said.

Stephen Harper, a HAG co-director, credited his longtime friend with causing the development of more than 500 low-income units throughout the county.

Harper said Grabill always tried first to reason with elected officials and planning heads but turned to litigation when he felt he was being ignored or laughed at.

“They thought he was a joke,” Harper said. “But he was no joke. They certainly learned that. Once he started to press legal action things changed.”

Often, his cases settled before trial. In one, Grabill and HAG sued Santa Rosa in 2002, alleging the housing element of the city’s new general plan didn’t address a shortage of homeless shelter beds and locations for affordable housing.

Grabill dropped the suit after reaching an agreement in which Santa Rosa would identify and rezone land that could be developed with 3,000 units of affording housing, and to create beds for 80 people at what is now known as the Samuel Jones Hall Homeless Shelter.

He continued to work on future projects right up to the end, his family said.

“I’m not sure we could have gone forward without him,” Harper said. “It’s going to be a big blow.”