The issue puts Marin on the spot, since a society is rightfully judged on how it treats those who require its assistance.
In a stained sweatshirt and torn jeans, he pushed a rusting shopping cart that wasn’t full of groceries up Third Street. Leaning on the cart, he moved slowly, with somewhat of a limp, the sun shining into his face that hadn’t made the acquaintance of a razor for a few days.
The scene is repeated many times each day in downtown San Rafael, and it—as much as anything else—is fueling a renewed effort to do something about the city’s homeless. But the question of what that something will be is more than a bit unclear.
The Mission City is different than the rest of Marin, though people may not put it in these terms. Having lived here for better than a decade, I certainly don’t qualify as a native. But I also didn’t fall off a zero-emission turnip truck yesterday when it comes to my hometown.
The city has become something of a jobs center, its population isn’t lily-white, and the sidewalks don’t roll up when the little hand lands on the seven.
It also has a homeless population that’s hard to miss. The 2013 biennial census said about half of Marin’s homeless population lives in San Rafael. The homeless make some shoppers look away and there are a growing number of vocal businesses that want something done.
Robert Berry, who’s a downtown property owner, has invoked a rally cry via an op-ed in the Main IJ, calling out “Save Downtown San Rafael.” Berry wants the city to give the boot to the Ritter Center and the St. Vincent de Paul Free Dining Room, both of which are located downtown.
Ritter helps people with housing, employment, health, mental health and substance abuse treatment. St. Vincent’s offers hot meals and provides rental deposits, utility assistance, social service referrals and other services to those in need.
For the business community, the homeless represent a particularly thorny issue. While businesses invest substantial money into their operations, the homeless can make customers and clients uncomfortable and, in some cases, unwilling to come downtown. But businesses don’t want to appear as if they don’t care about the homeless.
At the same time, the homeless need to access services that are available downtown, and they enjoy the same rights as any citizen to move about in society.
The issue puts Marin on the spot, since a society is rightfully judged on how it treats those who require its assistance. More and more, the debate over what Marin will look like in the future, regarding issues such as transportation and housing, is being played out in public hearings that resemble shouting contests. The discussions are less about persuading conversations and more about percussive bombast.
Indeed, some comments about affordable housing and the homeless sound eerily alike. It isn’t that affordable housing is a bad idea, it’s just a bad idea in this neighborhood. Likewise the homeless need services, but not downtown where people shop and businesses are trying to make a profit.
Marin has long been known as place where the process was a sacred cow. Now it best resembles a barnyard. It’s too much about winning and not enough about actual problem solving.
The tale of homelessness in downtown has taken some unlikely turns. Last year, the San Rafael Police distributed a map to the homeless, including zones for them to avoid. The police said the maps were provided in an effort to cut back on “quality of life” crimes. The police asked the homeless to refrain from dumpster diving as well as storing their possessions in the city’s flower boxes. Police Chief Diana Bishop said the maps were simply a way to remind everyone that there were certain expectations in society.
The police also stepped up enforcement downtown for violations such as drinking alcohol from open containers, urinating in public and jaywalking.
The city paid $272,000 to the Downtown Streets Team, a nonprofit organization based in Palo Alto, to put a group of homeless to work cleaning up the downtown in exchange for food and shelter vouchers.
Earlier this year, the city considered following the lead of Albany in the East Bay. That city paid a group of homeless $3,000 each to vacate an old landfill area where they were living so it could be converted into a park. In accepting the cash, the homeless had to agree to vacate the area for at least a year.
In June, a string of grass fires broke out in the Canal area of San Rafael, an area frequented by the homeless. Between the city running out of ideas on how to clean up downtown enough to keep merchants off the City Hall steps, and the fires, the homeless issue is becoming red hot.
In the midst of a drought, fiery issues can become even more dangerous.
