With Roseland homeless camp closed, many residents migrate to Joe Rodota Trail

Redhawk, a 35-year-old homeless man evicted late last week from the homeless encampment in Santa Rosa’s Roseland neighborhood, was one of 10 camp residents who landed a hotel voucher.

But Redhawk, who asked that his last name not be used, has been sleeping in a tent just the same, letting camp neighbors sleep in his hotel room, where they could rest and shower.

“I’ve been letting others sleep in the motel room,” he said Monday, while visiting with homeless campers who had pitched tents along the Joe Rodota Trial after being evicted from the Roseland encampment last week.

About 20 tents lined the trail just a few feet north of the empty dirt and gravel lot where the encampment was erected in 2015. The encampment, which at its peak was home to as many as 140 people, is now empty, except for Bobcat operators loading pallets, wood and metal debris, and garbage bags into large dumpsters.

A chain-link fence surrounds the lot.

Jennielynn Holmes, director of shelter and housing for Catholic Charities of Santa, said while some camp residents have been scattered to outdoor locations throughout the county, including along the Joe Rodota Trail, others have been relocated to shelters and hotels.

Since Catholic Charities began its outreach and assessment at the Roseland site in March, some 74 people from the encampment have been housed. Fifty-eight are in shelters, including Catholic Charities’ Sam Jones Hall in southwest Santa Rosa, 10 have gone into hotels on vouchers and six have been able to get into the Palms Inn, the former Santa Rosa motel converted to single-room occupancy housing.

“To us, this is just the beginning,” Holmes said. “It’s the beginning to a lot of work we have to do.”

Once sheltered, Holmes said Catholic Charities staff will continue working with people to try to find them permanent housing. However, Holmes said there is a severe lack of permanent housing options.

There are roughly 3,000 homeless people in Sonoma County, with about one-third primarily housed in a shelter at any given time and the other two-thirds living outdoors, she said.

Though the number of homeless people in Sonoma County has actually declined by about 37 percent in recent years, Holmes said they have become more visible due to the development of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train and enforcement of new statewide mandates forcing local governments to keep their waterways clean.

On Monday, Redhawk visited with friends from the former encampment along the Joe Rodota Trail. He said he lost many of his possessions during last week’s eviction, including photos of his father, who died over the winter, and his son, who he said died of pneumonia in April 2014, at age 6. His wife took her life the following month, he said.

Redhawk lamented the speed at which the camp was cleared out. He said some of the cleanup crews made no distinction between people’s belongings and garbage. He said he also lost gifts he had received from family members during Christmas, including shoes.

“That’s all gone,” he said. “They just kept telling me, ‘Hurry up, hurry up.’?”

Colin, another former resident who now lives along the trail, said he received a voucher to get into housing but is on a waiting list for a room. Colin, who declined to give his last name, said that since last Wednesday he’s tried to set up camp at three different locations, including a lot at Northpoint Parkway and Lombardi Lane, the old Sonoma County Water Agency campus and Brooks Avenue in southeast Santa Rosa. At each location, law enforcement agencies asked him to leave, he said, or prevented him from setting up his tent. “So now I’m back here on the trail,” he said.

Alicia Roman, a Santa Rosa attorney who’s on the legal team representing encampment residents, said she believes the number of people Catholic Charities claims to have placed in shelters is overstated. Roman said she visited Sam Jones Hall Sunday and didn’t recognize anyone from the Roseland camp.

Roman said former camp residents scattered throughout the city are now more vulnerable to encounters with police. She said she’s heard of at least two who have been arrested since late last week. Some have outstanding warrants that law enforcement officials “ignored” while they lived in the camp.

“This was a safe haven for them at the Roseland encampment, and now they’re all over the place,” Roman said. “Scattered.”