Joe Rodota Trail encampment renews frustration, conflict over continued challenge of finding solutions for the unhoused

The Joe Rodota Trail’s appeal is obvious for those with few other options for places to lay their heads.

There are shade trees, a measure of privacy and isolation from the larger public, and easy access to stores and services.

Its wide earthen shoulders allow folks to spread out and claim some space of their own or cluster together in small community groups if they prefer.

But a recent encampment of as many as 15 or 20 unhoused individuals west of Dutton Avenue that prompted closure of more than a mile of the corridor to the public has made the trail once again a flash point in the debate over homelessness in Sonoma County.

Sonoma County Regional Parks, which oversees the 8 1/2-mile paved trail linking Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, has spent tens of thousands of dollars fencing off a stretch of trail between Dutton Avenue and Stony Point Road since July 8 because of concerns the camp’s presence might impede safe use of the pathway.

It’s one of two clusters of 15 or so shelters along the trail, though the western part of near North Wright Road and beyond remains open because the camp there is a distance off the path.

The trail closure — the most recent of four encampment-related closures since an extended period in winter 2019-20 because of a sprawling encampment that peaked at around 250 people — is indefinite, Regional Parks Director Bert Whitaker said Thursday.

He is “not entirely optimistic that it will open soon.”

County Communications Manager Paul Gullixson said staff is working around the clock to resolve the situation and hopes to have an interim solution to share with the public by mid-week.

“There is no desire to keep that trail closed for an extended period of time,” he said Friday.

But emergency shelter capacity in the county is exhausted, a reflection of a bottleneck in the continuum of housing that public officials are working to address, so the traditional road map won’t work right now.

The county, aided by millions in grant funds from the state, and its municipalities have invested heavily in housing solutions, particularly in the past several years.

Yet, there remains insufficient permanent supportive housing for scores of people now in interim shelters but ready to move on, said Dave Kiff, interim director for the Sonoma County Community Development Commission.

Thus, they aren’t vacating entry-level spots that might accommodate some of those who are still sleeping outside, he said.

That leaves local officials hamstrung, unable to require those living on the trail to move somewhere else because federal case law requires individuals camping on public land first be offered an adequate alternative.

The 2018 decision, which underlies a larger movement to decriminalize homelessness and inform long-term efforts to improve services to the unsheltered, doesn’t mean the camp will be permanent. But it formalizes appropriate efforts underway to reach out to those living on the trail and develop next steps, Kiff and others said.

The Rodota encampment is a top priority, said Will Gayowski, health program manager for Sonoma County Behavioral Health.

Gullixson said there’s no plan to just wait for shelter space to open, however.

“We understand the legal limitations and the limitations of of our shelters, but we are going to seek creative solutions, and we are optimistic we can bring something forward this week,” he said.

For trail users, especially cyclists, and others in the public, the decision to basically cede public right of way to a handful of individuals has ignited frustration and outrage, particularly given the trail’s history.

It includes massive encampments in 2018, ‘19 and ‘20 that peaked at an estimated 250 people that raised public health risks due to human waste, open drug use and rodents.

It also meant taking an important, safe travel route for pedestrians and cyclists out of services, which is the case again now.

“To close that transportation route down is just not acceptable,” said Eris Weaver, executive director of the nearly 5,000-member nonprofit Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition.

The detour available means using Sebastopol Road and crossing busy Dutton Avenue and Stony Point Road, which “has had more bike and pedestrian deaths than any place in the county in the last couple of years,” Weaver said.

“So many of have been fighting for 21 years to get better, safer bicycle facilities in Sonoma County, which is critical if we want to reach our climate change goals that our county and all of our cities say that they want to accomplish,” she said.

“We want more safe places for people to ride bikes, and to close down for other uses the ones we have when there are so few already is extremely frustrating for people who depend on that to get to work, to get to school.”

One bike commuter, Bill Petty, said he’s noticed that the people camping on the trail this time at least are actually courteous.

Four years ago, Petty passed through a group of eight or 10 people in an early encampment on the trail, and a surly individual punched him, fracturing his face in two places, during a scuffle.

He said the trail hasn’t been fully clear of people camping since, but it’s mostly been one or two, and then suddenly a larger camp will appear.

When he saw the most recent camp start up a couple weeks back, “I knew they were going to have to do something,” Petty said, referring to public officials.

Now, his trip between home and work at Corby Avenue’s Auto Row requires him to white knuckle it on Sebastopol Road, with commercial driveways every few feet, between Dutton Avenue and Stony Point.

“If I’m at an inconvenience, that doesn’t matter,” Petty said. “It puts me at a safety risk. What really gets me is that trail was made for people to use.”

Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Coursey, whose district now includes the area, said constituents have been angry and frustrated since the trail closed, even as supervisors on Tuesday approved nearly $4 million in additional American Rescue Plan funding for housing and homeless issues.

More than a quarter of that sum is for the permanent supportive housing level necessary to help resolve the county bottleneck.

Coursey said he shares the dissatisfaction he’s hearing from voters, seeing an important transportation corridor closed to those who need it.

“We would not allow this to happen to a road in Sonoma County,” he said.

“What I can tell you is that doing nothing is not acceptable to me, and I’ve made that clear to staff,” Coursey said. “I tried to make it clear at that Tuesday meeting, but I had had multiple conversations with various staff members since then, and we cannot let this evolve into what happened 2 1/2 years ago. We can’t let 50% of that happen,” he said.

“We can do better than that,” Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Rogers said, “for the community that relies on the trail, as well as for the homeless folks pitching their tents as we speak. I have talked with Supervisor Coursey, and I know the county is working hard to resolve the problem and return access to the public as quickly as possible.”

Coursey acknowledge that complying with the law means “it’s not just a matter of going out there to tell people they need to leave.”

“I know the community is frustrated, but I ask them to understand it’s not a simple solution,” he said.

Nina Butterfly serves as a kind of den mother to most of those in her area of the trail behind what was once the Roseland Dollar Tree, where a large, organized camp begun in 2015 lasted for more than two years before it was cleared. Because of her, most in the newer camp know to stand their ground until they are offered an adequate shelter placement.

Butterfly, 39, says she has lived for about six years somewhere on the trail and had to calm the situation after park rangers came in Tuesday with a notice provided to one person whose property was taken from the easternmost portion of the encampment.

Whitaker said the notice was the type used to notify people that rangers have found what looks like abandoned materials, or trash, unattended on the trail.

The form letter, however, includes instructions to “remove your belongings and vacate the property by 7/15,” with the date written in. It set off a panic, said Butterfly and California Rural Legal Assistance attorney Alicia Roman, who has many clients among the unhoused, with most folks thinking they were being forced to flee.

Many of the people in the camp are Spanish speaking and don’t know the law. “That’s why I fight so hard for them,” Butterfly said.

She said most of those in the camp, except one who joined on Wednesday, had moved over from the former Shamrock Materials factory east of Dutton Avenue. That’s where an encampment of about 70 people was cleared out in April, scattering its members, though some have regrouped. That effort similarly prompted closure of the Rodota Trail for several days.

It’s not clear how ready they are to accept shelter, however.

One, Brian Barnard, 60, was cleaning out his tent and sweeping the square of carpet outside it when he noted that so many of the thousands of unhoused people in Sonoma County have mental health issues or post-traumatic stress that make shelter settings too difficult to withstand. He said he’s tried Sam Jones Hall and won’t again.

Another, Charles Gibson, spent most of a year at the county’s Los Guillicos Village, a community of 60 individual units set up after Joe Rodota Trail was cleared in early 2020. He found himself at a loss due to what he said was a lack of structure and support services before finally walking away.

But Roman, the attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance, said Thursday she’s aware of nine people in the east-side camp who have requested housing placement, mostly at Sam Jones or Los Guillicos.

Gayowski said several people from the camp near Wright Road have requested help with shelter and are on a waiting list.

What doesn’t work for one person at one time may be the right spot at a later date, Roman said, or may work well for others in any case.

“‘There is something for everyone,” she said. “There’s just not enough of it.”

Those who decline housing may end up moving on, perhaps building another camp elsewhere, as has happened repeatedly in the past, until they’re asked to move on from there.

Or, they’ll become part of the floating “encampment” that are the individuals that languish around Stony Point Road, not living on the trail but in the surrounding parking lots, shopping areas and sidewalks. This week, that’s where a woman in a hospital gown stretched clothes across a hedge at the edge of the street.

“The shopping center has become an encampment in itself,” Coursey said.

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