Santa Rosa City Council prepares to declare homelessness emergency

Santa Rosa took two key steps aimed at helping it combat homelessness Tuesday, including setting the stage for declaring a state of emergency about the problem.

The City Council asked city staff to return next week with three measures aimed at showing homelessness is the city’s top priority.

It also moved to expand to year-round a seasonal program that allows people to sleep in their cars on specific approved private properties during the winter months. Taken together, the moves were designed to show that council members - at least one referenced the recent stabbing death of a homeless man downtown - were serious about solving the city’s homeless crisis.

“Everyone on this council, without exception, has a heart,” Mayor John Sawyer said.

One measure was the declaration of a shelter crisis, which would waive zoning rules if the city wanted to use its own buildings to create additional shelter for the homeless.

The second would be the declaration that homelessness had risen to a ?local emergency, comparable to the ?extreme safety issues created by a natural disaster.

And the third would be to ask Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a statewide state of emergency on the homelessness issue.

At first it looked like the council would decide on just one of the options, but members soon made it clear they wanted all three pursued in an effort to send the clearest possible message to city staff and partners how seriously they view the problem.

In response to a resident who expressed concern about making homeless services so generous it draws people to the city, Councilman Ernesto Olivares answered that’s not what people should fear.

“Doing nothing is something we need to fear,” Olivares said.

City Manager Sean McGlynn said the declarations would give the city both flexibility to act “more nimbly” toward the homeless crisis, as well as raise the profile of the problem within the city organization and in the community.

The council would need to redeclare the state of emergency every 30 days for it to remain in effect.

One key question raised by several speakers was if the city declares homelessness an emergency, when would that end. Vice Mayor Tom Schwedhelm said he felt that day would come when homelessness had reached a level of “functional zero,” which he said meant anyone in the city who needed and wanted shelter could get it within 30 days.

There was suggestion the city might use the declaration to suspend some rules or fast-track a project to allow a city facility, perhaps the former fire station on Parker Hill Road, to be used for shelter or homeless services. But no details were presented.

The decision came following the urging of a number of homeless advocates. Faith Lutheran Church Pastor Tim Carnahan urged the council to move from short- and medium-term solutions to long-term ones.

“We need to stop slapping Band-Aids on it and figure out how to cure the damn disease,” Carnahan said.

Santa Rosa Junior College English professor Michael Hale said he sees the toll homelessness takes on his students every day.

“I see them sleeping in their cars, I see them struggling to be focused,” he said, repeating estimates that as many as 800 SRJC students may be homeless.

Councilman Chris Coursey said the real value in the declarations might be somewhat symbolic, but nevertheless crucial.

“This may be just a way to keep it on the radar,” Coursey said.

The city had a program over the winter that allowed safe parking programs to be established by Chatholic Charities at eight locations in the city covering 100 parking spaces. But that program expired in April, though the parking has continued.

The discussion about how to expand the safe parking program to year-round quickly became bogged down over issues such as how the program would be integrated with other services designed to get people into permanent housing.

The council agreed to send the program back to the homeless subcommittee and bring council an expansion plan that made sense.