Sonoma County abandons disputed proposal for Guerneville homeless shelter

Sonoma County is halting its search for a Guerneville-area homeless service center and abandoning altogether its consideration of a controversial site on Armstrong Woods Road after considerable public blowback this year over the proposed acquisition.

Instead, the county will focus on bolstering its funding for existing aid and public safety programs in the lower Russian River, said Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, who represents the area.

The decision is a sharp pivot by the county, one that Hopkins said reflects a growing appreciation for the need to carefully apportion scarce funds to serve the area's disproportionately large homeless population.

Frustration and dissension among Guerneville-area residents has reached a new high over disagreement about where to locate a homeless service center, despite extensive consideration by community leaders over the past eight years.

“We're really going to take some time to pull all these different pieces together,” Hopkins said Tuesday.

County officials thought they had found a workable site last year, at the defunct George's Hideaway restaurant and inn west of town, until the estimated price of sewer connections pushed the project over budget.

In December, a 9-acre ranch off Armstrong Woods Road came on the market.

The nonprofit West County Health Centers, which hopes eventually to build a homeless health clinic at the site of a future homeless service center, secured an option to buy the property, listed at $995,000.

But the site is within half a mile of a local school and adjacent to a rural neighborhood that rebelled against the proposal, effectively derailing it over the course of several community meetings this year.

Hopkins also said it became clear during a meeting Monday with county department heads that more could be done to leverage existing services through improved outreach to homeless people in the area.

County officials also hope to increase patrols and reduce the kinds of crimes that have negatively affected local businesses and residents.

Hopkins, who faced intense criticism from opponents of the proposed homeless service center, said she welcomes the public's participation in future planning and considers it necessary.

“Democracy is a messy process,” she said, “and it's involves a lot of conversations, a lot of dialogue and a lot of back and forth.”