Santa Rosa approves safe parking program for homeless people living out of vehicles

The Santa Rosa City Council on Tuesday gave the go-ahead for a safe overnight parking lot for dozens of homeless people living in cars and RVs at a city-owned site west of downtown.

The two-year pilot program will have up to 50 spaces available at the city’s Utility Field Office near the Finley Community Center. It’s planned to be up and running in February.

The lot at 55 Stony Point Rd. will remain open 24 hours a day and offer on-site counseling, medical services and case management. There will be 24/7 private security for the first three months of the program, after which the need for security will be evaluated on a monthly basis.

The safe parking site was approved by a 4-1 vote — with Councilwoman Natalie Rogers voting no, Councilman John Sawyer absent and Councilman Jack Tibbetts, also executive director of St. Vincent de Paul in Sonoma County, a nonprofit that supports homeless people, recusing himself.

During the public meeting, council members questioned staff about metrics for success, in particular a goal of helping a quarter of residents in the program transition to permanent housing.

“I do think 25% is ambitious, but we’re going to go big and try and make it,” said Kelli Kuykendall, the city’s homelessness manager.

City staff have estimated people are living out of at least 330 cars and RVs in Santa Rosa. Countywide, about 700 people live in their vehicles, making up over a quarter of the local homeless population of roughly 2,700, according to last year’s annual census.

Safe parking programs have in recent years been adopted across the state and are seen as a relatively fast and cost-effective solution to provide refuge for those living out of their vehicles.

The city of Sebastopol last week approved a plan for its own 22-space RV safe parking program over opposition from neighbors. In Santa Rosa, only a handful of private sites currently offer about a dozen overnight spaces in all.

Operating the new safe parking site for the first year is projected to cost $1.3 million. The city would then consider extending the program for a second year for roughly the same amount, for a total of around $2.6 million.

To fund the program, the city has put aside $2 million in federal stimulus money. That’s on top of $315,000 in local funds already in the city budget for the site.

Sonoma County on Tuesday also awarded the program $500,000 in local and federal money, bringing total funding to over $2.8 million. Any excess money from the county’s award would likely need to be spent on wraparound services.

Assuming the 50-space safe parking lot shelters 70 residents at a time, the per-person cost for the program’’s first year would be around $1,547 a month, or $51 a day. That’s significantly less than many other local efforts to shelter homeless people — including at the former Hotel Azura in Santa Rosa — which often top $100 a day.

In addition to the $500,000 for Santa Rosa’s parking program, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday awarded an additional $1.5 million in federal and local dollars to help fund three other planned homeless shelter projects.

That includes $750,000 for a 25-unit modular housing shelter in Petaluma at 900 Hopper St., $350,000 for 15 tiny homes at the vacant George’s Hideaway restaurant and bar outside of Guerneville and $400,000 for another 18-unit tiny home village just north of Sonoma at 18820 Highway 12.

At the virtual public meeting, employees with the Santa Rosa Community Health Centers clinic on Lombardi Court off Sebastopol Road voiced health and safety concerns about a nearby RV encampment. They supported the safe parking program but asked council members to clear the camp and then ban overnight parking near the clinic.

“Our staff have dedicated their lives to caring for the most vulnerable community members through fires, flood and pandemic no matter what,” said Naomi Fuchs, chief executive of Santa Rosa Community Health Centers. “We need to protect them and the people seeking care.”

A 2018 federal court ruling effectively prevents cities from clearing most encampments on public property throughout the West Coast without first offering shelter. Newly chosen Vice Mayor Eddie Alvarez said he hoped those in the RV camp will be given space at the planned safe parking site.

“I have been on Lombardi Court feeding these individuals sandwiches and seeing what their (issues) are,” Alvarez said.

The program will be operated by the city’s primary homeless services provider, Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa, which managed similar sites at local church parking lots for a few years until state funding for that emergency program ran out in 2018.

Catholic Charites won its bid for the program over Sonoma Applied Village Services, another nonprofit supporting homeless people.

Last month, the city opted to open competitive bidding for Samuel L. Jones Hall, the largest homeless shelter in the county, for the first time since 2004.

Rogers, who voted against the safe parking program, said she did so in protest of how Catholic Charities “monopolizes” homeless services in the city.

“It limits people’s right to choose where they want to receive services,” Rogers said. “So if you do not like our care for a particular operator, then you won’t receive services and you’ll decide to stay on the street.”

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