Dear Council Members,
I am writing in regards to the “Homeless Emergency Declaration.” At this point, I do not think the City needs to continue this Declaration. Sebastopol has the highest per capita of homeless housing in Sonoma County.
From the County documents, Sonoma County has 13 are operational facilities and 4 are located within Sebastopol. Sonoma somehow has blocked their units. Healdsburg has one Homekey hotel but has 31 hotels still operational in their downtown/city limits.
From the data below, you can see that Sebastopol has 6x the amount of homeless housing in comparison to Santa Rosa and 10x more than Healdsburg and far exceeds Rohnert Park and Petaluma. Windsor, Cloverdale, Cotati and Forestville have zero.
Sebastopol - Population 7500/ 147 spots = 1 homeless bed per 51 residents Horizon Shine 25
Sebastopol Inn 31 units
Park Village 85 people (still unclear on units)
Community Church Safe Parking 6 spots
Santa Rosa - Population 177,000/ 595 spots = 1 homeless bed per 298 residents Los Guillicos 60 units
Santa Rosa Safe Parking 50 spots
Sam Jones Hall 200 beds
Caritas Center 40 rooms 193 beds 10 additional beds
Hotel Azure 42 units
Rohnert Park - Population 44,500/ 60 spots = 1 homeless bed per 741 residents Labeth Landing 60 unit interim housing
Healdsburg - Population 11,275/ 22 spots = 1 homeless bed per 512 residents (Sebastopol has 10x more homeless housing per capita than Healdsburg L&M Hotel 22 units
Petaluma - Population 59,400/ 85 spots = 1 homeless bed per 699 resident Petaluma Studios at Montero Place 60 PSH
Petaluma People’s Village 25
Non operational
Sonoma – pending (not operating)
George’s Hideway non operational
Cities with NO Homeless Accommodations
Windsor - Population 26,000
Cotati - Population 7500
Forestville - Population 3700
Cloverdale - Population 8900
From this data, it is very clear that Sebastopol is over performing in its housing of transients and that we have fulfilled our regional obligation many times over.
The County needs to engage its incredible resources (over $100,000,000 spent in the last 2 years) and vacant land to start working towards solutions.
The most recent Housing Element’s (01/03/23) main feature is Sebastopol’s creation of housing for the formerly homeless and extremely low income population.
Sebastopol cannot finance and support an extraordinary amount of homeless people as we have extremely limited budget and failing infrastructure.
The City has given away two key resources – a downtown hotel, The Sebastopol Inn, and a public park, Park Village, to house homeless people. These are two significant resources that the public no longer has access to; the City is at a permanent loss of Transient Occupancy Tax and tourist foot traffic from the conversion of the Sebastopol Inn and the public has limited access to what was supposed to be a public park with the permanent creation of Park Village.
In addition, the Citizens of Sebastopol pay $75,000 per year for a homeless outreach coordinator. Do other Cities pay for this? Does Windsor have such a position? Or Cloverdale?
I ask that Council consider a new strategy for its engagement with the County in 2023, showcasing how much money and resources the Citizens of Sebastopol have already committed to housing homeless people.
In this way, Sebastopol is not in a state of Emergency in regards to homelessness, but is ready for a new set of relationships with the County and neighboring cities.
I ask that the Declaration not be renewed as it does not accurately reflect the resources and commitments the City of Sebastopol has made and continues to do.
Best,
Kate Haug