Santa Rosa police tow motor homes, trailers from homeless encampment at business park

Police started towing vehicles this week from a southwest Santa Rosa business park displacing people who for months have lived there in what became a homeless encampment of motor homes, travel trailers and pop-up campers.

The removal operation of as many as 40 trailers, vans, trucks and cars, which could take weeks to tow, represents the latest chapter in Sonoma County's ongoing homeless saga.

On Wednesday morning, two recreation vehicles - a 30-foot travel trailer and a 30-foot motor home - were hauled away with a large tow truck. Officials said it's part of a vehicle abatement effort police started at the Northpoint Corporate Center in late August.

The homeless encampment began in January with about a half-dozen RVs and other vehicles parking along Apollo, Mercury and Challenger ways. By late spring or early summer, the number of homeless there had swelled, particularly after the spring evictions of the Roseland Village encampment and the subsequent breakup of tent villages that had popped up along the Joe Rodota Trail.

At one point, there were as many as 100 vehicles in various states of disrepair. Some of the trailers and campers were donated to the homeless residents. A number of vehicles already have left the Northpoint business park area. Police are hoping more homeless will leave voluntarily.

“We're focusing on the most egregious registration and septic violations,” Sean Wall, Santa Rosa Police vehicle abatement officer, said. “I'm trying to provide people with as much time as possible to fix the violations.

Wall said during the first week of September nearly 30 vehicles were red-tagged for removal. He said state law gives law enforcement the discretion to tow vehicles parked on the street for more than 72 hours.

Vehicles abandoned on the street, inoperable or those with registration expired for more than six months can be towed, too, under state law.

On Wednesday morning, just before a Creams Towing truck hauled away a 30-foot Skyline travel trailer, one of its residents who goes by the name Redhawk contemplated his next move. The man in his mid-30s had been living in the Skyline trailer for about two weeks.

Last spring, Redhawk was living on the Joe Rodota Trail, until he landed a motel voucher through the city's homeless outreach services team. Now Redhawk is back on the streets.

As Redhawk worked on a bicycle, a towing operator climbed on top of his trailer and threw bicycle tires and rims onto the curb.

“I'll probably try to find another spot to stay,” Redhawk said. “I need to find a program where I can get clean and sober. That's what a lot of us need.”

In prioritizing which RVs to remove, police have been working with homeless advocates who for several weeks have been helping some of the homeless to register and repair their vehicles. That process has been slow and cumbersome, and often complicated by the state's Department of Motor Vehicles bureaucracy.

For more than a month, St. Vincent de Paul Sonoma County has been helping RV, truck and car owners bring their vehicles into compliance, paying for such things as registration fees, smog checks, auto parts and insurance. Michael Nesta, St. Vincent's disaster relief case manager, has been personally delivering or sending checks to the DMV, insurance companies and auto repair shops on behalf of the homeless.

Rickey Medlock, 62, who lost his home on Randon Way in Coffey Park to last October's historic wildfire, is among those who have received money from St. Vincent de Paul. Medlock said the 5th Wheel trailer he now calls home was donated to him by Smith Ranch after the fires.

He said he's waiting on his homeowner insurance company to reimburse him for fire damage to his house and money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency before deciding his next move. Medlock, a longtime musician, said a property owner in Cotati has agreed to let him relocate his trailer there.

Becoming homeless after the fire “crushed me,” he said.

“It's been an ongoing process, trying to stay with it,” he said. “I don't blame the police; they're just trying to do what they're told to do.”

Meanwhile, as the towing operation continued Wednesday, Police Sgt. Jonathan Wolf said the work is complicated by the number of recreation vehicles and limited space to take them at local tow yards. Creams Towing was the only company on this day that had the capacity to haul the large vehicles. Securing tow yard space for the large vehicles is another major obstacle in dealing with the Northpoint business park RV encampment, which also has attracted homeless campers who pitch tents on the streets near curbs.

Unlike previous efforts to clear homeless encampments in the county, removing a 2- or 3-ton RV or travel trailer isn't as easy as bringing in a roll-off dumpster and loading it up with mattresses, tarps and wooden pallets.

“Any given day, we do what we're capable of doing,” Wolf said, adding that sometimes it's unclear until the day of removal how many vehicles local tow yard operators can accommodate.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com.