1 dead in stabbing at Palms Inn near Santa Rosa, no arrests made

No arrests have been made in the fatal stabbing, early Tuesday, of a resident at the Palms Inn, a former motel just outside Santa Rosa city limits that now houses people previously experiencing homelessness.

At about 2:40 a.m., according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were dispatched to the complex on Santa Rosa Avenue, where they found the victim.

Paramedics arrived soon after, according to the Palms Inn’s owner Akash Kalia, but the man did not survive.

The Sheriff’s Office released few details Tuesday about what is believed to have occurred.

Sgt. Juan Valencia, a spokesman for the agency, described the investigation as complex. He said detectives were conducting interviews and reviewing evidence, but it may take some time to determine what happened.

He added that no one has been arrested.

Investigators spent much of the day collecting evidence from a cordoned off area on the second floor and another unit on the first floor.

Around 11 a.m., crime scene tape blocked off a row of rooms on the second floor. It appeared to be keeping members of the public away from a specific unit that had a broken window with a few shards of glass remaining in the frame. Investigators milled in and around the area.

There was an outpouring of sympathy for the man on social media from those who said they knew him. Authorities withheld his name on Tuesday and declined to release other details.

Kalia said security cameras captured everyone that went in and out of the unit where the stabbing happened and that he turned the footage over to the Sheriff’s Office.

In 2016, the 104-unit motel was transitioned into housing for homeless people.

Designed as permanent supportive housing, lodging at the Palms Inn is supposed to be paired with social services provided through either Catholic Charities or the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

There are about 100 people living on the property, Kalia said.

His family, which owned and operated the motel for decades, maintained ownership of the property but shifted from commercial lodging to a business model where taxpayer dollars, largely federal funds distributed through local agencies, paid for rooms to house the county’s homeless population and, in particular, area veterans.

At its inception, the project was celebrated by local elected officials and nonprofit leaders as a promising model that would reduce the Sonoma County homeless population.

But a Press Democrat investigation published in May documented how units on the property had been degraded by mold and cockroaches.

Those issues had become so overwhelming that in March the Sonoma County Housing Authority stopped approving new leases for the building. Officials resumed resident placements after Kalia addressed those issues to their satisfaction.

Security also was an issue.

Palms Inn residents told Press Democrat reporters they often worried about their safety, and one of the county’s prominent affordable housing nonprofits, Burbank Housing, cited crime, including drug dealing and prostitution, as one of the reasons it aborted a brief stint managing the site.

Kalia disputed Burbank’s account of conditions at the site, after the organization pulled out of its management contract in March.

Veterans advocates also told reporters they consistently worried about security at the site.

In his comments to The Press Democrat on Tuesday, Kalia said they had installed “24 additional security cameras, fully fenced the property and added two car gates.”

He also said he’d spoken with a few residents who believed that in order to create a more safe environment, management should stop other residents from allowing multiple guests to stay onsite overnight.

From April 2021 to April 2022, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office responded to 219 calls for service at the Palms Inn — more than one every other day — according to Valencia, the Sheriff’s Office’s spokesman.

In 2021, there were four overdose deaths at the property.

All of the deaths that occurred at the Palms Inn this year were due to health conditions or natural causes, according to Kalia. He did not specify how many deaths had taken place, prior to Tuesday’s killing, which is the 18th homicide in Sonoma County so far this year.

Staff Writer Colin Atagi contributed to this report.

You can reach Staff Writer Madison Smalstig at madison.smalstig@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @madi.smals.

You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88