Sanctioned homeless camp in Rohnert Park provides refuge but also raises security concerns

Brian Kein stood guard in front of a friend’s tent at a city-sanctioned homeless encampment near Highway 101 in Rohnert Park. Kein’s friend was shopping at a thrift store, and leaving the man’s belongings unattended for even a few minutes would have been a risk.

“If you have stuff you don't want to lose, like really don't want to lose, only trust a friend to watch it for you or it will be gone,” Kein said.

Having lived on the street for the past eight years, Kein, 52, is used to constantly looking over his shoulder. He appreciates the city allowing him to set up camp at the fenced-off commuter parking lot on Roberts Lake Road. But he said he’s tiring of the “criminal thinking” that’s overtaken the encampment as it’s grown to around 100 tents since city officials first invited unhoused residents there this winter.

“I’ve gone through like six bikes since I’ve been here,” Kein said. “It’s ridiculous.”

In recent years, local governments in Sonoma County and across the Bay Area have turned to managed tent camps and “safe parking” programs as alternatives to overburdened emergency shelters.

But unlike most of those sites, the Rohnert Park camp isn’t operated by a homeless services nonprofit. The city pays for trash pick up and portable restrooms, and outreach workers check in weekly as part of their citywide efforts.

Some unhoused residents and neighboring business owners say they’re worried for their safety and security.

“Having that encampment there, there is an increase in criminal activity,” said Department of Public Safety Chief Tim Mattos. “There's no other way to say it.”

The encampment took shape this spring, after city officials in February moved around 30 homeless people from an unsanctioned camp on Roberts Lake Road to the nearby commuter lot. The fear was that someone was going to get hurt camping on the raised curbside along the roadway.

“This was an alternative to very unsafe conditions, where literally we were concerned that someone was going to die if they weren’t moved,” said Jenna Garcia, housing administrator for Rohnert Park.

In the ensuing months, the encampment grew from two dozen tents to about 100, with residents setting up multiple shelters in numbered sites marked by painted white lines on the pavement.

Anyone who wishes to move to the encampment is still welcome, and outreach teams with the nonprofit Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa make on-site visits a few times a week to connect residents with needed care and help them find housing. The cost of outreach is covered by Rohnert Park’s ongoing contract with Catholic Charities for homelessness services, city officials said.

The city provides trash pick-up, portable toilets and hand washing stations, which are paid for through its existing contract with Recology, the city’s waste hauler. Rohnert Park also spends about $6,000 to $8,000 a month to remove hazardous material from the encampment once a week.

City officials said they don’t have the funds to hire private security or a nonprofit to help manage the site, which they said could cost as much $1 million a year.

They describe the encampment as a temporary effort to provide refuge for some of Rohnert Park’s estimated 250 homeless residents while the city works toward more permanent solutions — including a 60-unit supportive housing facility that broke ground this month.

“(Homelessness) is an accumulation of years of what has been happening, but now we’re moving toward the right direction,” said Rohnert Park Mayor Jackie Elward.

Elward said there’s no timeline for shutting down the encampment, which appears to be the largest known cluster of homeless residents in the county. Overall, the county has nearly 2,900 unhoused people, a 5% increase since just before the start of the pandemic, according to new data released last month.

Cully Williamson, owner of Mary’s Pizza Shack at the Rogers Plaza shopping center across the street from the commuter lot, said city officials have largely ignored his complaints about safety and vandalism since the encampment opened. His main concern is a camp resident who appears to have mental health issues and is frequently aggressive toward his employees, Williamson said.

“It’s just frustrating — (the city is) not really doing anything to protect my business and my customers and my staff,” he said.

City officials said they’ve stayed in communication with local business owners and are planning to hold a public discussion on the encampment at the City Council meeting on June 28.

From Jan. 1 through May 31, police received 146 calls about the camp, including four calls for potential assaults and seven for possible burglaries or thefts, according to police data. A report of a potential shooting at the encampment in March was later found to be a flare gun, police said.

Officers make daily visits to the site, and on May 24 the department installed a solar-powered security camera with a built-in PA system to surveil the encampment.

Mattos, the police chief, said the department aims to protect neighboring businesses as well as residents while outreach teams help them find housing.

“Our job is to try to make it safe for everybody,” Mattos said. “We have a high presence. We’re constantly in there.”

Jennieylynn Holmes, head of homelessness programs for Catholic Charities, said the nonprofit has moved five camp residents into housing and six others to temporary shelter. Four people who were staying at the unsanctioned encampment on Roberts Lake Road also were placed in housing, Holmes said.

In 2020, Catholic Charities, one of the region’s largest homeless oversaw a managed encampment in Santa Rosa for about 100 people with nowhere else to go during the pandemic. That site has since closed, but the nonprofit in March opened an all-hours safe parking lot that accommodates around 50 RVs and other vehicles near the Finley Community Center.

Holmes acknowledged that since Catholic Charities doesn’t actively manage the Rohnert Park camp, her teams aren’t able to provide the same level of services or address security issues at the site. Finding homes for residents is only made more difficult by the county’s chronic affordable housing shortage and underfunded systems of care for those with mental health and drug issues.

Still, Holmes said having a sanctioned encampment in the city where residents know they won’t be forced to move allows Catholic Charities to serve unhoused people who might otherwise be difficult to reach.

“We’re able to engage a part of the population that we weren’t able to engage in a long time,” Holmes said.

One of those residents, Linda Miranda, had been staying in an RV with her 35-year-old son, who struggles with serious mental health problems. After almost six months at the encampment, she’s counting on Catholic Charities to help them both secure a lasting home.

“We went through motels and campgrounds all the way up to Guerneville, all the way up to Cloverdale, all the way down to Petaluma,” Miranda said. “We exhausted everywhere we can go.”

Editor's note: This story has been updated to specify the monthly costs for hazardous material cleanup at the encampment.

You can reach Staff Writer Ethan Varian at ethan.varian@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5412. On Twitter @ethanvarian