Dear Council Members,
Prior to starting any new initiatives regarding the homeless, you must stop encouraging homeless people to come to Sebastopol.
As a resident and taxpayer, I do not want to support a homeless outreach coordinator who simply gives away free goods and services to homeless people.
Our homeless population has doubled in the last year.
See this article:
https://www.sebastopoltimes.com/p/sebastopols-homeless-outreach-coordinator Why does Sebastopol have a homeless concierge service providing phone chargers and coffees to homeless people.
“Do you need a charger? A coffee? A venting session? A potential job opportunity?” Sebastopol has over 100 homeless people. Windsor has 26.
We need to reduce the number of homeless people in our community; not spend more money on them.
Sebastopol cannot support a large population of drug addled adults.
To start immediately reducing the population, the City should:
1) Stop providing free goods and services to homeless people; 2) Stop paying for homeless concierge service;
3) Remove the needle exchange, which is clearly supplying needles to our local addicts and supporting drug sales of heroin and methamphetamine in our community (see this article for a photograph of a bag of used syringes:
https://www.sebastopoltimes.com/p/keeping-track-of-the-transients) 4) Start implementing policies that are similar to other cities. Fresno is addressing homelessness via new ordinances. See this article:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/grants-pass-homeless-sweepfresno-19763934.php 5) Implement new panhandling laws
6) Enforce drug laws, especially in public places
It is unbelievable that Council is asking people to support a sales tax measure when the Council and City have actively increased our homeless population via free goods and services paid for by the Citizens of Sebastopol. Why should we pay more for goods and services when Council is just giving goods and services away for free to homeless people? Homeless people cost citizens money and reduce the amount of money available for residents.
Council permanently removed revenue for the City budget through the horrible financial decision of letting the County take the Sebastopol Inn. Collectively, citizens have lost over $1,200,000 because of that one very bad decision.
Sebastopol has ruined itself financially because of terrible decisions by Rich, Glass, Gurney, Slater and Hinton, who made horrible financial decisions for the City by favoring a niche population of homeless drug addicts over their constituents.
Once Homekey is filled, there will be more service calls for untreated mental illness and untreated drug addiction as treatment is optional for Homekey residents.
No to any more money going to homeless programs. Get the County to step up and use its Measure O money. Ask the County to reimburse Sebastopol for its lost hotel revenues and use the County money to pay for more police officers.
You can’t expect citizens to put up with a huge homeless population, declining City services and high taxes. It is simply not sustainable.
Stop using tax money to make Sebastopol a homeless destination. Stop paying for a homeless outreach coordinator. Move the needle exchange out of Sebastopol; we don’t need bags of used heroin needles in our green spaces and in our parks.
If we reduce our homeless population, the City will not need to spend all this time and money on homeless people. The focus should be on the 7500 residents and struggling small business owners not 118 people who don’t work, don’t contribute to the community and don’t pay taxes.