Press Democrat Poll: Sonoma County voters cite housing, homelessness as top concerns

Affordable housing and the high cost of living are the top concerns for Sonoma County voters, who also cited homelessness and traffic congestion as problems that are growing worse, according to The Press Democrat Poll.

Just over three-fourths of respondents to the recent telephone survey said traffic jams have worsened in recent years, while 75 percent said the same thing about homelessness and 74 percent voiced worry over the cost of living.

More than two-thirds (67 percent) cited the diminishing stock of housing they can afford.

When poll respondent Alyssa Bridges moved from Philadelphia to Sonoma County two years, she experienced “sticker shock” over rents that were about $500 a month higher here. She felt fortunate, she said, to find a place in Camp Meeker for herself, her boyfriend and her sons, Sean, 11, and Jason, 8, at $1,900 a month.

A month after the October fires, the landlord said he wasn’t going to renew her lease, most likely, she surmised, because he intended to raise the rent.

“I was really stressed,” said Bridges, 48.

She found a three-bedroom house on a hill in Monte Rio for $2,000. She saves money because she’s not paying for air-conditioning in the summer or heating all winter long, as she had back East.

A majority of respondents (54 percent) said the county is going in the right direction versus 29 percent who said it was on the wrong track and 17 percent who said they did not know.

Given an open-ended chance to name the most pressing issues facing the county, homelessness and the behavior of homeless people combined was cited by 35 percent of respondents and the same number cited high rents, while 31 percent named the cost of home ownership.

Rebuilding after the fires (18 percent), road conditions (17 percent) and jobs and the economy (14 percent) ranked next on the list of issues.

Crime and drugs were noted as issues by just 10 percent of respondents, while taxes, growth, sidewalk tent encampments, cannabis and winery expansion were among 17 issues cited in single digits.

On the positive side, a large majority of voters (40 percent) said the local economy had improved or held steady (30 percent), a trend confirmed by an economist who noted that rising costs are a consequence of a healthy marketplace.

Rising rents and home prices, in turn, tend to thwart efforts to reduce homelessness, advocates say, because the current county strategy is predicated on getting people into permanent housing.

On a scale of one (poor) to five (excellent), nearly 70 percent rated the quality of life in Sonoma County at the high end, with 26 percent at five and 43 percent at four. A total of 31 percent rated life quality at one to three.

Forty-one percent of respondents said quality of life in the county had gotten worse in recent years, 43 percent said it had stayed the same and only 13 percent said it had improved.

David Binder, whose San Francisco-based research firm conducted the poll for the newspaper, said he saw no contradiction between the positives and negatives expressed by respondents.

“Most people believe Sonoma County is one of the best places in the country to live,” he said, citing great weather, friendly people and good restaurants among the attractions.

But residents are troubled by changes, such as increased traffic and rising costs, including housing, he said.

Concerns over homelessness and housing costs crop up in surveys throughout California, especially in the coastal and Bay Area counties, as well as in Seattle and major East Coast cities where “we hear the same stuff,” Binder said.

Economics are also a pervasive worry.

“Everybody’s concerned that their children are going to have good jobs, good pay,” he said.

The county’s economy has grown, buoyed by global demand for wine, tourism and medical devices and the needs of an expanding population, said Robert Eyler, a Sonoma State University economics professor.

There were 256,200 jobs in May, the second most since 2000, and taxable sales hit $9 billion in 2016, up $1 billion from three years earlier.

Robust economic growth, however, drives up the cost of living, Eyler said, calling it a matter of “classic economics.”

The median price of a single-family home hit an all-time record of $705,000 in June, having more than doubled over the past six years.

The Press Democrat Poll surveyed voters on a series of issues crucial to Sonoma County, including growth of the local cannabis industry, how county leaders responded to the October firestorm and various races for local, state and national office.

The poll, conducted in the first week of May, connected with 500 registered Sonoma County voters by landline and cellphone. It targeted voters who had cast ballots in the November 2016 election and at least one other election since November 2012. It had a margin of error of 4.4 percent.

James Gore, chairman of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, said he wasn’t surprised by the poll’s reflection of concerns over costly housing, traffic and homelessness.

The first two are “symptoms of a place that’s in high demand,” he said, describing the county as a place “where people can swim in the Russian River and get food at a farmers market.”

“I’ve traveled all over the world, and I haven’t found anything like this,” Gore said.

Homelessness has become a “statewide epidemic,” he said.

California has about 134,000 homeless people, nearly one-fourth of the nation’s total, and the state budget approved in June included $500 million to help local governments address the problem.

Sonoma County’s street-level count in February found 2,996 homeless people, representing the first increase since 2011 and attributed partly to the loss of nearly ?5,300 homes in the October wildfires.

“We’re in a whole new world now,” said Jennielynn Holmes, director of shelter and housing for Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa. “It’s like nothing I’ve seen in my career.”

The only solution is more housing and it has to be affordable, she said.

The homeless population became more visible as commuter train service began last year, displacing people who camped along the railroad tracks and relocated to downtown Santa Rosa, sleeping in doorways and under freeway overpasses and periodically being forced to other locations.

Dale Elmore, 50, a lifelong Santa Rosa resident, considers the county on the wrong track, with homelessness, traffic and some types of crime on the rise. More people are living on the streets, a condition likely made worse by the fires, and officials appear to be engaged in “whack-a-mole,” forcing them from one spot to another, he said.

Crime “just seems worse” in the past two or three years, Elmore said, and officers should be arresting people for minor offenses, like running red lights, which might make them “shape up,” he said.

Traffic might flow better if the reservation of highway lanes for multipassenger vehicles during rush hours was lifted in the noncommute direction. Reduced use of the third lane “makes things worse,” he said.

He’s also dismayed by housing costs, noting that he would have been unable to buy a condominium in 2014 without help from his mother to make the 20 percent down payment. When condos are converted to rental units, the property values tend to decline because tenants lack “pride of ownership,” Elmore said.

Bruce Marinace, a native New Yorker who has lived in Rincon Valley since 2004, said he deplores the lack of wide boulevards to move traffic around Santa Rosa. He lives 3 miles from his daughter’s school, and it takes 15 minutes to get there, he said.

“It’s the worst-designed city I’ve ever lived in,” said Marinace, 50, a former Silicon Valley information technology manager who now works as a tour guide.

The cost of parking and recharging his electric car in a Santa Rosa city garage is exorbitant, and far higher than in Healdsburg, he said. “It’s a little anti-business.”

Housing prices are unreal, Marinace said, noting that a neighbor is selling his home for $870,000 and moving to a $250,000 house in Arizona, pocketing the difference. “Are you kidding me?” he said.

But Bridges, the Philadelphia transplant now settled in Monte Rio, said her quality of life is excellent. Her boys like their school, and the family enjoys events at Santa Rosa’s Old Courthouse Square.

She acknowledged wider problems, including rising homelessness, but noted it was far worse in San Francisco.

“It’s a tough thing,” she said. “I feel sorry for homeless people.”

Overall, things are going in the right direction in the county, she said. “My kids are very happy and thriving. We definitely love it here.”

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter?@guykovner.