Stretch of Joe Rodota Trail in Santa Rosa that had been overrun by homeless won’t reopen until March

When Jon George came home from work Monday, he saw his wife, Tara George, crying in the front yard.

She was doing yard work and when he asked her what was wrong, she told him she was crying “tears of joy.”

“I can’t remember the last time I was able to do this uninterrupted,” she said.

It would have been before October, when the Joe Rodota Trail near the Georges’ Brittain Lane Santa Rosa home became ground zero for the largest homeless encampment in Sonoma County history. As many as 250 people crowded into a 2-mile stretch of the bike and pedestrian trail, creating a nuisance for neighbors and a public health crisis for those living in squalid conditions on the trail.

Friday marked the end for trail campers, as Sonoma County Parks and other officials, along with Santa Rosa Police, evicted those still lingering on the 8½-mile trail between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol. Many were moved to shelters, including a new, county-sanctioned camp at Los Guilicos Juvenile Justice Center in east Santa Rosa.

By Monday, workers with industrial cleanup firm Ancon Services wore protective clothing as they picked through campsites along the trail near South Wright Road, the westernmost edge of the encampment.

Sonoma County Public Works Director Johannes Hoevertsz said cleanup is slated to take two weeks, and involve removing everything from camping gear to propane, human feces and used syringes. County officials estimated several hundred tons of debris remain strewn on the trail. It will take two additional weeks for restoration work, including reseeding the grassy areas.

The trail won’t open again to the public until March, at the earliest, Hoevertsz said, saying he wasn’t able to offer a more specific timeline because officials don’t yet know “what’s under the tarps, under the tents.”

Some of the sites, particularly those that burned in campsite fires, will require soil testing and potential excavation. Ancon Services, based near the Valero Benicia Refinery, touts online its expertise in industrial cleaning, including toxic oil and gas tanks. Ancon has a contract with Sonoma County capped at $150,000. County parks crews will take over afterward, doing final restoration work on the trail before finally reopening it to the public, Hoevertsz said.

“That’s the plan of attack,” Hoevertsz said.

In many ways, trail restoration will mirror post-fire cleanups. They involved an initial scan of the area for immediate environmental hazards, picking through debris for household hazardous waste, including propane tanks, then more detailed scouring for other hazardous waste, including chemicals, bodily fluids and used syringes.

Hoevertsz said crews working on the trail are being careful to capture any potentially toxic runoff, with plans to use wattles and absorbent membranes and saying it’s fortunate that it hasn’t rained recently.

In the meantime, the 2-mile stretch, from Roberts Avenue to South Wright Road, will be closed.

“We’re trying to work as fast as we can with what we have so we can restore the trail back for people to enjoy,” Hoevertsz said.

County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, in a Facebook post over the weekend, said she didn’t like using the word “success” in describing the now-cleared trail. She reiterated her concerns in a phone interview Monday, saying she’d prefer to focus on next steps.

“I do want to have a conversation about how we can reinvent the trail as a linear park,” Hopkins said, referencing the addition of other recreation options and supposing that keeping the trail busy would be one way to ward off future encampments.

Barbie Robinson, the county’s top homelessness official, said the trail clearance kicks off a more deliberative process for addressing homelessness in Sonoma County.

Robinson said the county is still weeks away from housing people in two properties it seeks to buy for about $2 million. The people have not yet been identified for the homes on Sonoma Avenue in Santa Rosa and in Cotati. Former Rodota trail residents are still favored for those spots, Robinson said.

With county officials still seeking to close the 60-person, temporary Los Guilicos homeless shelter by April, work is ongoing to secure more permanent shelter sites in the county.

Staff is poring over responses for proposals from private entities seeking to open two indoor/outdoor homeless shelters that would serve up to 40 people apiece and include safe parking. That $2.8 million project would last through 2020, and be paid for through the county’s general fund.

Robinson, the county’s health services director and recently appointed interim Community Development Commission executive director, said her message to staff has been simple: The work is just beginning now.

“I am really proud of the work the county staff did to clear the trail, and I’m looking forward to supporting and leading efforts to try to get our head around trying to address homelessness in a more … strategic way,” Robinson said.

As many as 100 former Rodota trail campers were left with nowhere to go Friday, after either refusing shelter services or not being offered services. There are about 3,000 people struggling with homelessness countywide, according to the January 2019 count. Nearly 2,000 of those are considered unsheltered.

George said he has seen a few of the homeless people who used to call the Rodota trail home, but pedestrian and vehicle traffic on his dead-end street has slowed considerably over the weekend.

“The homeless are now scattered throughout the neighborhood,” he said via text message. “I have started a vigilante group sharing new locations of encampments popping up.”

Scott Wagner, a longtime homeless advocate who works with Sonoma Applied Village Services, said he has had trouble finding people so far, calling it unusual in the wake of past homeless encampment sweeps.

He said his group is hosting a volunteer dinner Thursday to train people who want to help on the next steps. Part of that is attempting to discretely help people to avoid attracting police or other unwanted attention.

“Then working with county officials to get toilets and sanitation services and clean water to all of the significant encampments in Sonoma County,” Wagner said, admitting that he’s not sure whether that conversation can even be broached with government officials, who have long been against the approach.

It took months before county leaders agreed to allow portable toilets and hand-washing stations at the Rodota trail, with county housing officials saying such services don’t help get people off the streets.

Wagner, whose group has recently signed several contracts with the county to provide services for homeless people, said he thinks the county is on the right track. Some of his more activism-inclined friends say the county must do more, pointing to the fact that a large portion of those cleared from the trail did not get into the sanctioned camp at Los Guilicos.

“They worry about (the others); there’s not an answer for them yet - and that’s true,” Wagner said. “But this is a start.”

You can reach Staff Writer Tyler Silvy at 707-526-8667 or at tyler.silvy@pressdemocrat.com.