Sebastopol’s Village Mobile Home Park to help house the homeless

A ramshackle mobile home park at the edge of Sebastopol that at one time was slated to become part of Tomodachi Park will instead be used to provide housing for people most at risk of being homeless - including some who already are.

The Village Mobile Home Park, bought by the city ?10 years ago, has partially emptied out over time as the adjoining campground on the Laguna de Santa Rosa was closed and converted to parkland, with the intention the remainder of the property eventually be turned over to recreational use, as well.

But under an agreement inspired in part by a woman who could have been a candidate for inclusion had she not recently found a new home, the city has worked out an arrangement with West County Community Services to shelter at least eight, and as many as 12, additional families or individuals who are now homeless or precariously housed.

The 40-year-old nonprofit agency also will provide a case manager and supportive services to any current or new residents who want help learning to manage and stabilize their lives, connecting them with treatment, health services or food programs.

“The idea, of course, is to help them move up and onward,” said Tim Miller, executive director of West County Community Services. “But they can stay as long as they want.”

The project is dependent on the ability and willingness of charitable residents to donate eight usable trailers or recreational vehicles for use as housing, though four such units have been acquired already.

Organizers also are hoping for the donation of a used construction trailer that can be employed as a classroom, social service office and meeting place for the community.

The plan, worked out over the past year with the help of a loosely organized group of west Sonoma County homeless advocates, reflects the city’s growing recognition of the need to preserve affordable housing amid growing concern about homelessness and rising housing costs, officials said.

But it’s also true the city met with legal and financial impediments to converting the mobile home park to a public day-use park, City Manger/City Attorney Larry McLaughlin said.

Additionally, the loss of campground revenue and diminished mobile home occupancy forced the city to operate the park at a deficit approaching $75,000 a year, mostly for site and property management, while considering the parcel’s future.

But city officials have increasingly been reluctant to do anything to eliminate a rare source of low-cost housing in a community that, while relatively small, has no emergency shelter for those who might lose their homes and has a growing number of people experiencing homelessness.

The latest countywide census in January counted 71 people in Sebastopol sleeping outside, in their vehicles or in some place not considered suitable for habitation, according to Michael Gause, the county’s continuum of care coordinator.

The demise of redevelopment in California, which helped communities build affordable housing in the past, means there is little funding for “the big beautiful state of the art housing” that used to be possible, Sebastopol Mayor Una Glass said.

The new plan is “a win-win,” said Gale Brownell, a longtime Sonoma County housing advocate and member of the so-called Group of Advocates in west Sonoma County.

Brownell was instrumental in bringing the players together to develop the plan for Village Mobile Home Park, though she credits a Sebastopol woman named Darrin Batch, a regular at City Council meetings and well-informed about city policies and budgeting.

About 14 months ago, she and Brownell were chatting when Batch turned to the subject of the underutilized park’s cost to the city, Brownell recalled. “She thought that was a terrible thing, given the fact that people were homeless,” Brownell said.

At the time, the Group of Advocates had been investigating locations for a safe-parking program through which the city’s unhoused, then numbering around 39, could sleep in their cars in a secure and authorized location.

But Brownell quickly found support on the City Council for a project based at the mobile home park through which partners could supply housing to those who needed it while addressing the barriers preventing them from getting stable housing in the past - whether substance abuse, unemployment, mental illness or something else, said West County Community Services’ Miller.

About 65 people in ?18 families currently live at the mobile home park, located on the south side of Highway 12 at the eastern entrance to Sebastopol.

They include Marjorie Wallace, 90, who for ?48 years has made her home in the same overflowing mobile home where she raised five children after the premature death of her husband.

At least two of her sons, now in their late 50s, live with her and a third, who has cancer, stays with her, as well. All are partly dependent on her Social Security income, so the uncertainty about what would happen if the park closed has been profound, she said.

During outreach meetings with other residents, Miller said, many reported feeling isolated because of language barriers or lack of transportation.

Others lack access to internet or computer services and would like to learn English but have to stay home to care for family members.

They are at the bottom of the housing scale and considered precariously housed, but even the most dilapidated trailers “are better than being out on the street,” Glass said.

West County Community Services takes over management of the park July 1 and will begin placing screened residents at that point.

Under the new plan, the city has pledged $154,751 toward capital improvements, including fencing repair or replacement, demolition of an old bathhouse and construction of a concrete pad for a community room trailer.

The city, which previously has budgeted $75,000 a year for operations, will spend $95,800 this year to cover management and support services, with the understanding it will ratchet back spending in the future under a five-year agreement to be reviewed annually. The Group of ?Advocates and West County Community Services have pledged to seek ?grants and other funding sources.

“It’s such an obvious, practical, low-cost solution,” Miller said, “and I have to credit the city for stepping up and funding it.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan?@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.