County officials set last Friday as the final day for people to vacate what has become the largest homeless encampment in Sonoma County history, found along the Joe Rodada Regional Trail located in Santa Rosa, California. Counting reports done by the County of Sonoma claimed that there were upwards of 300 displaced individuals within a two-mile-long spread.
Removal began Monday, February 3rd near North Wright Road with a work crew contracted by the Sonoma County Transportation & Public Works department hired to evict the trail campers and to begin the sanitization of the area. There had been several tons of trash, tents, clothing and other waste left behind, enough for the Board of Supervisors to declare a public health emergency on the trail back in December of 2019.
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors also dedicated $11.6 million to provide housing, shelter, and services towards moving the campers. Which was mandated by a federal court injunction issued in August of 2019 in a lawsuit filed over the previous biggest camp that was located about a mile away from the Rodata Trail that was made up of 150 people, dismantled in 2018. The Board then used $2 million of the funds towards the construction of the Los Guilicos Village, a temporary shelter site. The Sonoma County websites describes the area with having, “60 emergency, 64 square foot housing units, restrooms, showers, dining area/warming station, personal storage, dog run, a Navigation Center, medical services, fire watch, and 24-hour security,” and adds that this temporary shelter site will be managed and supported by St. Vincent de Paul. The site will be operating up until, but no later than April 30, 2020, as there is a longer-term indoor-outdoor shelter planned to be created.
County Supervisor Shirlee Zane, who helped with coordinating the creation of the Los Guilicos Village, was quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle stating that “It’s been a perfect storm for 40 years of no housing growth, unaffordability, not enough treatment for mental illness and substance abuse, a really vicious cycle. And we won’t solve it overnight. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that each life that breathes easier with shelter, food, and safety – that in itself is a miracle.”
There is often a stigma around the homeless culture that assumes that the entire cause of homelessness is due to drug abuse, which is in part valid but not entirely and factually true. One must also take into account issues like the lack of job security and the housing rates reaching new heights. It is also important to take into account the trust in our political system being at an all-time low, as voters feel increasingly fatigued and disconnected by people who are supposed to ensure a better quality of life than this country has seen in the past centuries. Society, our government and capitalism all hold some accountability as to why we see major increases in homelessness. Minimum wage is impossible to live on, making it difficult to move up in society.
