Where will Sonoma Valley’s homeless sleep tonight?

Where do the Sonoma Valley homeless sleep at night? At this moment, in the cold of winter, our community does not offer any answer. Sonoma Overnight Support (S.O.S.), has been grappling with and offering patchwork solutions to this difficult issue since its founding in the late 1990s.

Sun Report by Anna Pier

Then and now the nonprofit’s mission is “to shelter the homeless and feed the hungry in Sonoma and Sonoma Valley.” In this era of Covid, both aims have become much more challenging, but in different ways. Providing food has taken precedence over providing shelter, in large part because, although the hungry are a much larger population, feeding them is an easier issue to solve.  

Is the challenge of providing emergency winter shelter an “intractable” issue? That is how both Mayor Logan Harvey and S.O.S. Board President Rev. Curran Reichart described it during interviews with the Sun. This year there is no local shelter. For the past few years, there was a successful emergency overnight winter program, funded by the County and staffed by S.O.S. at the Broadway Community Church. But in this time of Covid, the County’s support money to pay for staffing was reduced by half, and no faith group or other agency with adequate space has been willing to offer a site for the cold-weather emergency shelter. S.O.S.’ building on First Street West, The Haven, is too small to allow social distancing as a shelter; its only current service is one-at-a-time showering and use of washer and dryer.  

The Sonoma Veterans Building would seem a logical solution, closed as it is by Covid to its normal events, but at the County Office of General Services, which is in charge of the County facility, the message is simply that the building is closed.” The Director of General Services did not respond to the Sun’s inquiry about using the building. 

This past summer Supervisor Susan Gorin, City Manager Cathy Capriola, and Mayor Harvey facilitated having a trailer with shower facilities parked in the empty Vets parking lot, across the street from The Haven, to provide much-needed health and hygiene for homeless people sleeping in their cars, under the City-approved SafePark program. Vets Building management subsequently requested the trailer be removed, Harvey said. Currently, some 14 people sleep in nine cars outside The Haven, and have access to a port-a-potty and sink located there.

The Vets Building itself, closed due to Covid, is a county facility, but managed by a veterans organization. Supervisor Gorin said, “The vets have complained to us that we need to open up the building for veterans. It is politically very difficult to open the building for homeless services and deny the veterans use of it.” 

She also cited S.O.S.Executive Director Kathy King’s affirmation that S.O.S., fully engaged in the vastly increased daily food operation, “does not have the capacity to manage the operation of an emergency winter shelter.” King told the Sun that, for example, their cost of providing food in November went up 143% over last year, and rent is on top of that. King has stated that the Vets Building would, however, be an ideal location for the daily food operation currently housed at Springs Hall, where the $4,000 per month rent will be raised to $5,000 in 2021.

Supervisor Gorin, Barbie Robinson of County Public Health, Mayor Harvey, City Councilmember Madolyn Agrimonti, Kathy King, City Manager Cathy Capriola, and Reichert have participated in a joint Task Force on homelessness. Gorin affirms that “providing shelter and wrap-around services to turn lives around… is the goal and responsibility of all our community” not solely of the County. The County has recently used funds from the governor’s “Homekey” program to purchase two hotels, one in Santa Rosa and the other in Sebastopol, “for the medically vulnerable homeless population now,” and eventually for “permanent supportive housing.” 

As for Sonoma, Gorin elaborated that the county does not have the funding to support the whole management program entailed by renting rooms in a local hotel, for “a very small population.”  Harvey estimated that the cost would be well over $200K to shelter five people for three months. Gorin believes that the County-funded encampment, run by St. Vincent de Paul, at Los Guilicos is the best solution for Sonoma Valley homeless. Five Valley people have been placed there recently, and many are on the waiting list for that temporary facility where four huts – pallet shelter homes – were destroyed in the Glass fire in the fall. The program has on-site counseling and has found permanent supported living situations for 30  people who were housed there. 

Gorin puts the onus on “the residents of the City of Sonoma and Sonoma Valley to come together and work on finding a location, work with surrounding neighbors,  and… fundraising and building capacity for management.” 

Meanwhile, “feeding the hungry,” the other half of the S.O.S. mission, has had a remarkable outcome, evolving into a major operation for the organization. Covid forced the shutdown in March of previous programs for the hungry, such as Brown Baggers, who had for years provided lunch burritos twice weekly, and Brown Bag Cafe, which served a cafe-style weekly dinner at La Luz. At the same time, the economic crisis created by the pandemic has raised exponentially the numbers of the hungry. 

Located in Springs Community Hall, a crew of S.O.S. staff and volunteers has been working five days a week, preparing and distributing free breakfast and lunch for takeaway. Most of the food is purchased, much at favorable prices from Redwood Empire Food Bank and local stores. Lunch is a full-scale meal of entree, vegetable, and dessert. By November S.O.S. was serving between 200-220 meals a day, at an average cost of $5, on top of the rent. Kathy King reported that in early December that daily total has risen to 250, which puts them on track for over 5,500 meals for the month. And the numbers will continue to rise. 

The Springs Hall does also serve as a navigation center for S.O.S. operations, providing some key services to the homeless and others. People have been receiving socks, other basic supplies, and hygiene kits. Sonoma Valley Community Health Center has put a provider on-site daily, and flu shots are one of many benefits. 

The funding that makes providing two meals daily possible is a combination of the contributions of individuals, private foundations, service organizations, and public entities. Nevertheless, Mayor Harvey observes that with regard to support other than feeding people, “there is not a strong philanthropic base for the homeless here,” adding that he wishes “we could approach this with more compassion.”  

Commenting on criticism leveled against S.O.S. for not providing shelter, soon-to-retire Board President Reichert observed, “it comes from a well-meaning place of genuine concern for the homeless, but it doesn’t reflect that exhaustive work we have spent trying to solve the issue, developing relationships with the people who can actually solve it.”