Sonoma County postpones closing Roseland homeless encampment to April 19

Sonoma County leaders have agreed not to shut down the large homeless encampment behind a southwest Santa Rosa Dollar Tree store until next Thursday, following a federal lawsuit from advocates trying to delay the move.

A county lawyer had offered the new April 19 date - more than two weeks later than originally planned - in a memo Friday to U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who at a hearing in San Francisco the day before had directed county housing officials to consider postponing the closure of the Roseland tent village by three weeks.

In an order issued Saturday, Chhabria said a “strong argument” exists that the government is constitutionally barred from enforcing anti-camping laws on homeless people “when it has no shelter available for them.” But he also said it is “likely wrong” to assume governments can just offer temporary shelter beds to encampment residents, noting attention must also be paid to “the adequacy of conditions in the shelters.”

“...(T)he government has made adequate shelter options available to encampment residents - options more humane and responsive to the needs of homeless people than the stereotypical warehouse floor strewn with hundreds of cots,” Chhabria wrote in his order. “The record further suggests that, although many residents have accepted placement in a temporary shelter, at least some are unwilling to entertain this option, even when the government is willing to offer accommodations.”

He noted the April 19 move-out date offered by the county’s Community Development Commission, which owns the land where the 100-person encampment is located, and expressed hope advocates would use the additional time to help more encampment residents be assessed for placement into shelter or housing.

The development commission had established a housing navigation center near the encampment where homeless outreach workers spent about a month trying to connect each person living behind the Dollar Tree with a shelter bed or longer-term housing option. The center stopped operating Wednesday, but outreach workers are still trying to get more tent village residents into shelter or housing, according to the commission.

Already, 24 people who were living at the Sebastopol Road encampment moved into shelter and five moved into the Palms Inn, a former motel on Santa Rosa Avenue that now serves as 104 units of permanent supportive housing. A total of 68 people had their needs formally assessed by Thursday.

The judge said he believed the county had provided adequate shelter options to the people remaining at the tent village. Chhabria was further swayed by testimony Thursday that homeless people won’t be removed from the site “until they have been assessed for services and housing, or have made clear that they do not want to be assessed,” he wrote in his order.

Chhabria also looked favorably on the county’s long-term plans for the encampment site: a new development planned to include 175 apartments, about 75 of which would be rented below market rate.

The commission originally wanted to shut down the encampment last week, but attorneys sued March 30 on behalf of five residents and homeless advocates, arguing that clearing the tents would violate the constitutional rights of residents who didn’t have anywhere else to go.

When the move-out date arrives, the Santa Rosa Police Department will take a “progressive enforcement approach,” said Sgt. Jonathan Wolf, who heads the city’s downtown enforcement team. Wolf said he hopes the site “will look like an empty camp at that point,” but if anyone remains, police will start by warning people they need to leave and then escalate to issuing citations if people remain and then making arrests if that doesn’t work.

“Nobody’s interested in arresting people experiencing homelessness,” said Margaret Van Vliet, executive director of the development commission. “We want to help them move into a safe place - ideally one that gets them access to services. … Arrests would be the last resort.”

Members of Homeless Action, a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit, said they would support the county’s efforts to assess everyone at the encampment and get them placed into shelter or housing.

“Homeless Action will work to the maximum to get people registered who are not registered,” said Kathleen Finigan, a member of the local advocacy group.

“(But) I’m very concerned about the outcome on April 19, because I think there are going to be a lot of people who don’t have a place to go.”

You can reach Staff Writer J.D. Morris at 707-521-5337 or jd.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter ?@thejdmorris.