Faerie Ring Campground in Guerneville goes back on the auction block

The intended sale of a 13-acre Guerneville campground in a redwood canyon near Armstrong Woods has public officials and social service providers scrambling to find a way to ensure that 50 people who live there aren’t left out in the cold.

The Faerie Ring Campground, in foreclosure since earlier this year, goes back on the auction block Saturday after two previous auctions failed to draw a successful offer. The opening bid is $359,940, according to online auctioneers Hudson & Marshall. Its list price is $599,900.

The prospect of a sale has campground residents, many of them low-income, in limbo. Some say they don’t know where they’d go if forced to leave, though for several months they’ve lived rent-free, absent formal management in place.

“Everybody’s worried about what’s going to happen,” said one resident, Sandra Lambert, 57.

She has lived for 16 years in an aging trailer parked at a hillside site with her husband, surviving lately on her wages as a part-time taxicab dispatcher.

Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, who represents the area, is hoping to persuade Chase Bank to postpone any additional sales activity. She wants the bank to hold off until county officials, perhaps in partnership with a local nonprofit, can determine if someone can buy the land and maintain it for use at affordable rates. Chase has owned the land since foreclosing on former owner Jim Friedman.

“In my opinion, it would be a catastrophe if people were to be displaced from the Faerie Ring Campground,” Hopkins said. “I really think that a lot of the folks that live there have no other choice, and I’m really concerned that some would be homeless.”

The lower Russian River already struggles with how to serve a large number of people who are experiencing homelessness, though the most recent countywide census showed a substantial drop, from 248 to 214 in unincorporated west county.

But officials and local advocates don’t want to jeopardize what progress has been made despite several controversial and, ultimately, failed efforts by the county and West County Community Services to partner on a new shelter and permanent housing.

The result, however, is that about $1.2 million in county funds set aside to address homelessness on the lower Russian River remains unspent. Some portion of it could be made available to facilitate a purchase of the campground that would avert evictions, Hopkins said.

Community Development Director Margaret Van Vliet said a county loan to WCCS so it can purchase the property is among the considerations.

Any such move would require significant investigation of the property and its liabilities, not yet begun, as well as approval by the county Board of Supervisors.

“We are coming to realize how many vulnerable people are living there and why having them displaced could be hugely problematic,” Van Vliet said.

But communication is difficult. The listed broker for the site, Anna Harris, said she could not speak about the property but only relay inquiries to Chase, which has not responded directly to The Press Democrat.

The bank has been trying since April to sell the site, first at a live auction in April that brought no bids and then with an online auction a few weeks ago that yielded a high bid of $365,000.

“The problem is, it’s all moving so fast,” said Tim Miller, executive director of West County Community Services. “Normally, it’s much more clear than this.”

Miller said the nonprofit would prefer not to own the property, though the option remains open, given the level of concern about its future.

“In a perfect world, somebody would buy it and we would manage it,” he said.

WCCS already runs Guerneville’s winter shelter, the local senior center, located across Armstrong Woods Road from Faerie Ring, and the Russian River Empowerment Center for people with mental illness.

It also has taken over operations at Sebastopol’s Village Park on the outskirts of town, rehabilitating a dilapidated mobile home park and housing ?15 families in eight donated RVs, including two families of four, who were the last to join the community.

Any transfer of ownership of Faerie Ring would require substantial upgrades to the campground, where most people live in aging RVs and trailers augmented with bamboo fencing, tarps, canopies and makeshift curtains for added privacy. A few also are staying in tents, and at least one man lives in a brick house on the site.

Most residents paid about $450 a month when the campground, closed to newcomers since foreclosure, was still operating. Current residents reportedly include five children and a World War II veteran in his 90s.

Former manager Sandra Brady, who still lives at the campground, said she believes its residents would be eligible for renter protections if anyone attempted to evict them. She said the campground has been operating at a profit and was confident any sale would allow them to stay.

But others expressed little confidence in the future.

“Nobody really knows what’s going on,” said Tim Russell, 49, a resident off and on for 17 years. “But what are you going to do? Panicking would be futile.”

Lambert, glancing around at the disheveled campground, noted that her trailer would not be accepted in other places and said she can’t rent.

“I’m just hoping things fall together before the time’s up,” she said.

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