PD Editorial: A second homeless shelter is a step in the right direction

Santa Rosa combined its homeless shelters as a cost-saving measure during the Great Recession.

A decade later, the city has an opportunity to bring back a second shelter.

A second shelter won't solve the homeless problem in Santa Rosa, but it could help get more people off the street and connected with social services that, potentially, can help them find permanent housing.

The new shelter, which would go into the recently closed senior center on Bennett Valley Road, would be a short distance from downtown, which has a large concentration of homeless people, many of whom now sleep in doorways, behind bushes or under freeway overpasses.

City officials said the senior center building could hold 40 beds inside, matching the capacity of the Brookwood Avenue shelter that closed in 2009. Twenty more people could be accommodated in temporary structures in the parking lot.

The new shelter would help limit the disruption of a major roof repair coming soon at Sam Jones Hall, the 200-bed city shelter off Wright Road on the west edge of town.

Opening a shelter closer to downtown also would honor the city's pledge to limit the size of Sam Jones Hall - a promise made before the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and before the scale of the homeless crisis was clear.

Many of the senior center's regular visitors were unhappy when it closed last summer.

Fortunately, the city had opened a new, larger senior center in the Finley Community Park, so there was an alternative for local seniors.

The senior center's fate was driven by finances - a shortfall of $14.2 million in the city's budget and the need for various upgrades at the Bennett Valley Road facility. Closing it saved the city about $54,000 a year.

Money also is a factor in reopening the center as a shelter. The city has applied for $3.6 million from a new state fund for homeless services; about $2 million would be used for repairs and operating costs of a new shelter.

Some people are raising red flags about homeless people using the Bennett Valley Road facilities. “I'm really concerned about the homeless, and they need help, but I don't think the senior center is the way to help them,” one neighboring business owner told the City Council.

The fears are understandable, but the answer is oversight and security.

Santa Rosa's homeless problem cannot be denied. In the 2018 count, there were 1,563 homeless in the city, and more than half of them had no shelter. This year's count was conducted last month, and homeless advocates anticipate that the number will grow for the second consecutive year, in part because of the loss of homes in the 2017 wildfires.

And, as Staff Writers Alexandria Bordas and Martin Espinoza reported, state and local public health officials are increasingly concerned about the spread of disease, including syphilis, among the homeless population.

Santa Rosa relaxed overnight parking regulations in 2015 to allow churches to provide space for the homeless, but only two churches have participated so far. Police, meanwhile, are asked to break up illegal campsites on a regular basis.

The long-term solution is no secret: more affordable housing. Until then, the city, and the rest of Sonoma County, need more safe places where homeless people can spend the night and access needed services. A second shelter in Santa Rosa can be one of those way stations.

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