If you’re in a jam, the alcalde’s your man.
Newly appointed alcalde, Sy Lenz, said recently that Sonoma’s new homeless shelter should be ready to open its doors very soon. “This is a huge step forward for the community,” said Lenz, “the project got started completely from private funds, and it’s progressed from the city joining the state and county.” It’s been a truly cooperative effort, from the ground up. “We have gone from zero,” he said, “with just a handful of kindhearted folks about 10 years ago, to having a place that is funded by private, foundation, city, county, state and federal funds.
Right now, the three-unit shelter is getting its plumbing, electric and gas and finishing touches. Once all that is done, the ramps and decks will be built and it will be ready for landscaping. Lenz is looking to late January or February for final completion. Who then will live there?
First of all, Lenz points out, it is an emergency shelter; it is designed for those who are temporarily homeless. It may seem incongruous to think of homelessness at all in a place like Sonoma, but Lenz said that in the annual county-wide survey, homeless persons number around a thousand, and here in the Valley, there may be 100, or less. While the numbers may be surprising, the make up of the homeless population may be more surprising still.
“Most of the time,” Lenz said, “the people we’re dealing with are women or single moms.” He explained that these are usually women who have been depending on a man, and the relationship for one reason or another didn’t work out; maybe he died, or left, and suddenly she finds herself alone, with her child, or children, and without the life planning skills she needs to take care of herself. So she might stay with family for a while, or friends, and then, after a while, that becomes untenable, and then she’s out on the street with nowhere to go. “And this is a tough place to find an affordable space,” he said. Lenz told of a woman he’d been helping for a couple of years who lived on a very marginal subsistence allowance, but wanted to keep her kids in the local schools. Now, finally, she is working, and her son has a job, too. Eventually, she’ll be able to afford something, but right now, she doesn’t have the savings to put down for the security deposit and last month’s rent that landlords usually require.
Then there are the odd cases. “We have people who are very temporarily homeless,” Lenz said. “Two nights ago, I put a man up into a motel locally, who was living in an arrangement with a friend, but the friend took off to visit with some family and didn’t realize the man didn’t have a key. So what was he going to do? Sleep in his car?” As an emergency shelter, he said, “We’re really mostly dealing with people who are in a temporary jam.”
