Sonoma City Council to revisit homeless parking program

The Sonoma City Council on Wednesday will consider extending its homeless safe parking program through the end of the year and establishing a task force to address long-term city policies surrounding homelessness.

The June 15 meeting marks the latest round of council deliberations over how to best meet the needs of residents without homes in a city with few choice locations at which to service them.

For the past three years, the homeless services nonprofit Sonoma Overnight Support has partnered with the City of Sonoma to operate a Safe Parking Program at the city Police Department parking lot at 175 First St. W. The program provides 10 parking spaces for use by people living in their vehicles to park safely from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m., providing participants adhere to specific rules and guidelines. Day services, such as laundry and showers, are also provided at SOS’s main facility, dubbed the Haven, located adjacent to the parking lot.

The City of Sonoma budgets about $30,000 per year to fund the Safe Parking Program, which shares the police parking lot with City Council Chambers and the Field of Dreams youth sports fields. Long-held concerns about the program sharing a lot with kids’ ball fields prompted the City Council last winter to request SOS seek a new location for the program, with the assistance of city staff. In February, SOS officials and city staff outlined their struggles in finding property owners or other community partners offering sites compatible for hosting the program. A proposal to host the program at the city Corporation Yard on Eighth Street was rejected by the council as being too costly.

On March 16, the council approved the hiring of a homeless-services consultant who would evaluate all the homeless services currently offered in Sonoma Valley, and make recommendations for addressing the broader issue of homeless-service needs.

Among consultant Andrew Hening’s findings, according to the staff report, are that the local system of care could be more effectively configured; the most immediate problem is insufficient support for the chronically homelessness; and that future progress will depend on a strong foundational structure for collaboration.

About 200 unique individuals receive services from local homeless-support groups throughout the year, according to Hening’s findings.

Chief among Hening’s recommendations is for the city to convene a “public-private partnership of local stakeholders” who can help advise on and put in motion new “change-management initiatives.”

To accelerate the process, Hening urges the city to begin by forming a Sonoma Valley Homeless Task Force and hire a Sonoma Valley Social Safety Net “Czar”; establish metrics and create a data dashboard; coordinate services through a By-Name-List (BLN), a nationally recognized best practice for coordinating individual care plans across multiple community service providers; establish clearer roles and caseloads for case managers; improve articulation of service niches and needs; and leverage the state’s Project Homekey funding.

Hening’s eighth and final recommendation is to “tackle the root causes of homelessness in the Valley - e.g., the cost and availability of housing, the availability of behavioral health services, rapid prevention assistance.”

As to the future of the Safe Parking Program, the staff report advises the council temporarily extend it.

“The Safe Parking Program was originally established as a temporary solution to address the seasonal nature of our economy and the poverty that affects a significant portion of Sonoma Valley,” the report says. “At this time, staff is recommending extending the SOS Safe Parking Program only until a new location, where the services SOS provides… can be co-located to better serve the clients most in need, and away from the Police Department, (as that location may be a deterrent with certain segments of the population).”

Staff recommends extending the Safe Parking Program to Dec. 31.

The council meeting is June 15 at 6 p.m. at Council Chambers, 177 First St. W.

Email Jason at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.