Veteran advocates say Santa Rosa’s Palms Inn homeless housing project worried them from the start

As elected officials and government workers were evaluating whether the aging Palms Inn motel would be suitable housing for Sonoma County’s homeless veterans six years ago, Matt Jensen joined a group visit to the site.

A veteran himself, Jensen was working at the time for Petaluma’s Committee on the Shelterless.

Jensen could see the project’s promise, he recalled, but also its pitfalls. Chief among them was the property’s layout: A classic motel style structure with open-air stairwells and breezeways instead of hallways in between rooms.

He worried about a lack of security infrastructure at a property on a crime-prone stretch of Santa Rosa Avenue. The site would house homeless veterans mixed with the county’s most vulnerable homeless civilians, who often struggle with substance abuse and behavioral issues.

A few months after the Palms opened, Jensen said he heard drug dealers were frequenting the property and residents were struggling to stay sober.

“People are pushing drugs and alcohol on me, and there's nowhere I can go,” Jensen recalled veterans telling him.

A recent Press Democrat investigation into the Palms, where around 50 of the 104 rooms are occupied by veterans, revealed physical problems ranging from cockroaches to mold, along with security issues like drug trafficking, overdoses and crime.

Jensen and other volunteer veterans advocates say they are not only not surprised, but that they saw problems from the beginning.

Despite initial promises, the advocates say veterans living at the Palms never saw the levels of drug counseling, mental health care, on-site group meetings and other services.

Jensen, who now works with the Sonoma County Veterans Service Office, along with other veterans advocates, say they brought concerns about safety and drug dealing at the Palms to caseworkers with the VA.

“We kept telling them, stop sending people there,” Jensen said.

In a statement, the regional VA Medical Center in San Francisco said its case managers had “received several complaints made regarding living conditions at the Palms Inn” dating back to 2020.

In response the complaints, case managers helped veterans contact local housing authorities, which are responsible for monitoring conditions at the Palms, and assisted veterans in “identifying and pursuing alternative housing options, when requested,” according to the statement.

A VA spokesperson declined to provide any more information about the complaints, including how many had been received.

Good intentions, little follow through

When the Palms opened in 2016, it was trumpeted by local, state and federal elected officials. As it began housing veterans, however, no one — amid a hodgepodge of a nonprofit, government agencies or the building’s private owner — provided the oversight needed, said veterans advocate Richard Jones.

“You’re out of sight, out of mind, you’re good. Well, they’re not,” said Jones, who is president of Sonoma County Vet Connect, an all-volunteer organization that connects veterans with legal aid, housing and government sources.

He and other veterans say that despite good intentions, the Palms has become another example of American society neglecting the complex needs of the men and women who fought the nation’s violent battles abroad.

“If you’re going to put 60 of my veterans in there you better have oversight if there’s any problems,” Jones said.

From the start, Jones and other advocates worried about the vulnerability of veterans to drug dealing and other crime in an open, roadside-motel style building that lacked security infrastructure and sits in a tougher quarter of Sonoma County’s largest urban area.

The Palm’s owner, Santa Rosa-based Akash Kalia, disputes those characterizations. He said the site has long had overnight security and continues to offer weekly AA meetings, regular health care checks by nurses, and writing and music classes.

Kalia has also said he is committed to ridding rooms of mold and cockroaches, as well as installing a gate and fencing to control access to the property.

From April 2021 to April 2022, however, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office responded to 219 calls for service at the Palms address at 3345 Santa Rosa Ave. There were four fatal overdoses at the hotel in 2021, even as Palms residents were supposed to receive case management and access to substance abuse and other services. Residents in recent years say drug dealers have been a more common site on the property than caseworkers.

Patrick Hutchinson moved to the Palms two years ago after falling into homelessness when he lost his job as a heavy equipment mechanic. He’s thankful roof to have a roof over his head, but he said rarely sees his VA caseworker, who was of little help when he complained about growing mold and roach infestations in his room, he said.

“She's supposed to come around once a week and spend about an hour with me, but she comes around about once a month and spends about 10 seconds with me,” Hutchinson said in a March interview.

As recently as January 2021, Jones cited the Palms as a resource for homeless veterans in an article on Vet Connect in The Press Democrat. “It changes a person when you put a roof over his head,” he said.

Though advocates with Vet Connect were hearing about problems at the Palms, Jones said, it never seemed clear where to direct their concerns. “It’s something that’s been on our mind but what do we do?” he said.

Other veteran advocates echoed that sentiment.

“It’s been a constant concern in the veteran community,” said Ross Liscum, a real estate broker and Vietnam veteran.

Liscum serves on the board of Community Housing Sonoma County, an affordable housing nonprofit that has built sites for veterans. Some of their sites house former Palms residents who felt a need to get out of the old motel, he said.

“It wasn’t conducive for them trying to get their life together,” Liscum said.

Few other options

Two of the elected officials who helped get the Palms project launched were then-county supervisor Shirlee Zane and U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. They helped push through the necessary local and federal approvals for the site to quickly get veterans off the street during a particularly wet winter. From conception to approval took just four months, Zane said.

But politicians seemed to move on once the doors opened, Jensen said.

“It was getting concerning,” said Jensen. “But then it was, you know, they start working on other projects.”

Thompson said he hasn’t kept close tabs on the Palms since attending the opening in early 2016. But a former staff member did recall receiving a report of drug dealing at the Palms in 2019 or 2020, according to a spokesperson for the congressman. Thompson said his office didn’t pass along the report to the VA since it was an issue for local law enforcement.

After learning of the issues at the property revealed by the Press Democrat’s investigation, Thompson said he would be eager to work with the VA to help address those problems if asked by local officials or Kalia.

“If there was something that they needed from the VA, or if we could figure out how the VA could help them better serve veterans, I am more than ready to go to bat for them,” he said.

Zane said she heard concerns from veterans advocates early on about safety and conditions at the site. In part to alleviate those issues, Zane said she convinced the Board of Supervisors to approve $500,000 in additional funding to help cover operational costs and pay for case management services, according to county records.

She called on the state, county and private business and philanthropy to make new investments in the Palms.

“Why have we failed so miserably in this country to house veterans and give them the services they need?” Zane said. “Why have we failed them?”

When the Palms first opened, disabled Vietnam veteran Jerry Kroemer used to visit the property with coffee and pastries that he purchased himself. “I’m here and some of my buddies (from the war) aren’t,” he said simply, to explain why he spent his time and money on such volunteer work.

Kroemer hoped his snacks and caffeine would help facilitate the kind of group gatherings and camaraderie that have helped veterans. But at the Palms, “they never really took off,” he said.

Kroemer didn’t catch wind of problems at the Palms, he said. No one complained to him about conditions or crime during his visits. He hoped any problems could be resolved for the sake of the veteran residents.

“It was a damn good idea,” he said of the project.

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

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