George’s Hideaway in Guerneville may become a homeless services center

Plans are underway to convert George’s Hideaway, a shuttered roadside tavern nestled between Guerneville and Monte Rio, into a year-round homeless services center complete with an emergency shelter, a health clinic and up to 16 new permanent housing units.

The iconic former bar and restaurant off Highway 116, known for its historic charm, has been selected to serve as the future site for the first homeless services hub in Sonoma County’s lower Russian River area, a popular summertime tourist destination where for more than a decade elected officials, business leaders and residents have struggled with how to address homelessness.

For the past five years, the county has funded temporary overnight-only shelter at the Guerneville Veterans Memorial building from December to March. But concerns about where people spend their daylight hours, and where homeless people sleep during the rainy winter months, have become amplified over the years. Pollution and environmental degradation caused by the homeless encampments that dot the banks of the Russian River, as well as public intoxication and blatant substance abuse on the streets of downtown Guerneville have become issues.

But instead of forcing people out, Sonoma County, like dozens of other cities and counties across the country, is seeking to reduce - and perhaps solve - homelessness by providing stable services and long-term housing locally. The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday cited that approach, known as “housing first,” when signing off on the $700,000 purchase of George’s Hideaway, with the long-term strategy of assembling an expansive suite of services on site, including mental health care, substance abuse treatment, primary care, laundry and mail and linkages to permanent housing.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Supervisor Efren Carrillo, whose district includes the site and who has driven the initiative to develop supportive services for homeless people in Guerneville since taking office in 2009. “We are facing a housing crisis. We do have a significant issue, particularly with those who are the most vulnerable on the streets. … The issue of homelessness impacts us all, and it’s not an area that we can ignore anymore.”

With the purchase of George’s Hideaway complete, county officials over the next year plan to renovate the wooden two-story structure and a nearby duplex. The cost of the project, including acquisition of the property, is $1.37 million. Plans are to transform the former restaurant and bar into a drop-in emergency homeless center, with capacity for up to 35 beds and six permanent housing units on the upper level. Taking into account the duplex’s space, the 1.4-acre site could eventually include up to 16 housing units. The plan gained support from west county residents, nonprofit leaders and businesses who have been involved since 2010 in discussions about the location of the long-term support center.

“This is a day of celebration,” said Deb Johnson, president of the Russian River Chamber of Commerce. “We have been trying to figure out a solution for years that isn’t just bus them out of here. These people are a part of our community, and most of them actually became homeless in this community.”

Beyond the rehabilitation of George’s Hideaway and in order for the site to open, county officials say they need assistance from nonprofit service providers to handle day-to-day operations. The county will seek requests for proposals to operate services following the rehabilitation, said Jim Leddy, a special projects director for the Community Development Commission, which is spearheading the project.

“We hope to be done and operational by next winter,” Leddy said.

Leddy said the idea is to use the $90,000 in county funds that currently supports the overnight-only winter shelter at the Guerneville Veterans Memorial Building to help fund operations at the George’s Hideaway location, but that proposal would need future board approval.

The site will also include a health clinic, said Mary Szecsey, executive director of West County Health Centers, which will operate the clinic with an annual federal grant to provide medical care for homeless people. The clinic is already open in downtown Guerneville, but it will relocate to the George’s Hideaway site upon completion of the homeless service center, Szecsey said. Next year, the clinic has $556,000 to provide homeless health services and the funding is ongoing on an annual basis, she added.

“We’re very excited,” Szecsey said. “This helps us provide substance abuse treatment and behavioral health services, and linkages to housing and disability services.”

Mike Johnson, chief executive officer of the Petaluma-based homelessness nonprofit Committee on the Shelterless, who consulted with the county in developing its plan for providing services in the lower Russian River community, said helping people into housing is key to its success. Johnson estimated that operating the facility would cost at least $300,000 per year. Without stable ongoing funding from the county, it could be difficult to effectively recruit a nonprofit service provider to handle operations, he said.

“I’m not sure the county is going to be able to boot it up and turn it right over to somebody,” he said. “We would love to be involved, but I don’t see being able to raise tremendous amounts of cash from the community to support it.”

Deb Johnson, the Russian River Chamber president, said she sees it as a “perfect spot.”

“We’ve looked at tons of locations,” she said. “This one is has far fewer downsides than anywhere else we’ve looked.”

You can reach Staff Writer Angela Hart at ?707-526-8503.