Crews prepare to close, clean portion of Joe Rodota Trail after clearing of homeless camp

About 20 people remained on the Joe Rodota Trail just west of Stony Point Road early Thursday as Sonoma County officials cleared the remnants of a large homeless camp that has frustrated residents and policymakers for years.

Some of the unhoused people consolidated their belongings into black storage bins — each person was allowed to take two to a newly sanctioned camp at the Sonoma County administrative campus in north Santa Rosa.

Others broke down their tents and packed belongings into shopping carts and bike trailers before moving west on the trail or settling in a nearby shopping center.

County officials notified residents Monday that they would be clearing camps and closing a 2.5-mile stretch of the trail from Wright Road to Roberts Avenue.

An estimated 90 tents dotted the trail Monday, but by Thursday most people had left.

About 30 people were transported to the new shelter after it opened Tuesday, and officials hoped about 50 more would relocate by end of day Thursday, county spokesperson Gilbert Martinez said.

The trail was expected to close after all campsites were vacated, but it wasn’t clear when crews would begin cleaning up or when the trail would reopen.

Fencing off sections of the popular pedestrian and biking trail that links Santa Rosa to Sebastopol has become a more frequent as Sonoma County works to address unsanctioned camping.

Large moving trucks arrived on the trail just after 9 a.m. Thursday as employees with a local storage company helped remaining residents pack. The company will store whatever didn’t fit into the storage bins while people stay at the county camp, Martinez said.

Members of the county’s Homeless Encampment Access and Resource Team, known as HEART, also patrolled the trail notifying residents of their options.

About 10:30 a.m., park officials began fencing off the trail near Fulton Road before rangers arrived later in the day.

By noon, more than 72 hours after people were told they had to leave, most of the section between Brittain Lane and Stony Point Road was clear.

Rows of mostly vacant tents lined the paved path. Mattresses, cardboard, broken furniture and other items were left behind, some waterlogged from recent rain.

Some of those still on the trail waited to be taken to the new county site or for their belongings to be taken to storage.

One woman, who declined to provide her name, said she accepted one of 87 spots yesterday with her dog and returned to collect some of what she’d left behind, including a foldable sleeping pad. Her friend and his son, who were both living on the trail, had also accepted spots at the site.

Others were more reluctant to go.

Jennifer Stroude and Richard Owens sat disconsolate by a caravan of at least nine wheeled vehicles ― shopping carts, a rolling utility cart and the like ― packed high with belongings that they hauled from the trail onto Justin Drive.

They refused to move to the county-run tent encampment because they didn’t want to get searched, and because they wouldn’t be allowed to bring all they owned.

“I don’t want to be told what to do,” said Stroude.

Owens pointed out two heavy duty plastic storage bins.

“That’s all you get from your entire life,” he said. “They say they put the rest in storage but they put it in a big trailer and haul it to the trash. It’s a big lie.”

They weren’t sure where they would sleep Thursday night.

Jonathan “Johnny” Smith had been living in a transitional housing facility while on probation but said he was kicked out after he tested positive for drugs.

Smith, 36, who had lived on the streets and then in an RV that was towed by Santa Rosa Police, returned to the trail three days ago just as county officials notified residents it would be cleared.

He applied for a spot in the new sanctioned camp but was turned away because he has a felony record, he said.

Smith said the background checks and rules at the county site were too restrictive and were a deterrent to people seeking shelter.

He stopped by the trail Thursday to help a friend pack her belongings and make “sure she gets somewhere safe.” Though she was reluctant to leave at first, she eventually agreed to go to the new camp.

Officials with Sonoma County Regional Parks, including a group of rangers, County Health Services, County Animal Services and Santa Rosa Police Department walked the length of the trail as most remaining campers left, notifying anyone still there that they had to go.

Martinez said no one refused to leave.

The group evaluated remaining campsites, documenting what belongings needed to be removed, the trash left behind, and damage to the trail and the embankments.

Once parks staff surveys the extent of the needs there, cleanup will begin, Regional Parks spokesperson Sarah Phelps said.

Neighbors near Brittain Lane were sympathetic to those camping along the trail.

“This is houseless people being pushed around and not really taken care of,” said a man named Libby, declining to give his surname.

He noted that the county has evicted homeless campers from the trail on multiple occasions in recent years.

“It’s a human health crisis and they’re doing the same thing over and over again,” he said.

A couple of doors down, Ilda Martinez said she had only moved onto the lane two months ago but the homeless campers hadn’t troubled her.

“For me, it’s just so sad they have no home,” she said.

Next door, Noe Cuevas, who was working on his car, said what bothered him most was that the county kept locking the gate to the trail so neither he nor his parents could use it to exercise.

He added that he felt for the campers “especially because the trail flooded.”

Further east on Brunello Drive, at a house that backed up to the trail, Maria Rico said she was relieved to see the campers dispersed.

“I’m happy about it, there was too much going on,” she said.

People she presumed had been living on the trail “broke in the cars, they took stuff off the porch,” she said, adding she’d grown afraid to walk her dog on the trail.

But both neighbors and camp residents wondered whether this relocation was a long-term solution or if people would return once the trail reopened as they have in the past.

Smith said the county site was a Band-Aid but not a permanent solution, and he feared that without mental health and substance use support as well as permanent housing people would continue to be pushed from one end of the trail to the other.

“I saw some of these faces on the trail from the last big cleaning,” he said.

Martinez acknowledged that while the emergency shelter isn’t permanent, it will give people a safe place to stay while they connect with resources and find stable homes.

He said by offering support services, like behavioral and physical health care, housing assistance and job training, the county hoped it could better prepare people for interim and permanent housing.

“While we are aware that the trail is a popular spot, we’re maneuvering our resources to ensure it isn’t a frequent occurrence,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @paulinapineda22.