Let’s see if I can write about a massively expensive problem—homelessness in Sonoma County—without listing numbers or dollar amounts. I won’t refer to the homeless count, the cost of cleaning up the Joe Rodota Trail, the projected cost of buying hotels to house a pitifully small number of homeless persons, the number of tiny homes and tents pitched on public land, or the ever-rising cost of providing services to the homeless.
Some years ago, my son was essentially homeless. He had a job but needed to “live on his own,” which, for several months, was a van, with bathroom privileges at his employer’s office. He spent hours every week looking for a place to rent, with absolutely no luck. My wife and I offered to co-sign a rental agreement, but that didn’t help. Every new listing seemed to elicit a huge number of immediate applications.
Then my wife suggested that our son consider living in a recreational vehicle, or RV, an all-inclusive term for campers, motor homes, mobile homes, coaches and travel trailers. We began checking every RV park, looking for vacancies, quickly discovering that every such park had “no vacancy.” In desperation, we went to the office of an RV park on Santa Rosa Avenue, despite its “no vacancy” sign. We met a nice manager who quickly let us know he had a waiting list of. Miraculously, they had a vacancy, but many people were ahead of the latest applicant (our son) on the waiting list.
Then our luck changed. The manager wanted to rent the space right away. He needed to close the office in a few minutes and didn’t have time to contact others on the waiting list. We were in the right place at the right time. The manager allowed us to move up the waiting list. Then he asked, “What kind of coach do you have?” My wife admitted that neither we, nor our son, owned any type of RV, but we drove to Santa Rosa Avenue and bought one.
Thus began a mostly pleasant period of life in an RV park filled with individuals, couples and families. The park was well maintained, with utilities, bathrooms, showers and laundry facilities. Rent was reasonable. Park residents were, for the most part, well-behaved. All this good experience led us to an obvious question: Why aren’t we using RVs to house the homeless?
For observations on the pros and cons of RVs, I turned to Keith Woods, head of the North Coast Builders Exchange and president of the property owners association at the Corporate Center in Santa Rosa. That is where, for months in 2018, 2019, and 2020, property owners confronted up to 60 leaky, unregistered, inoperable campers parked on the street, harboring the homeless but generating garbage and other debris that represented a health hazard, as well as criminal activity. Keith was emphatic that his sympathies were with the homeless. But there were public health and nuisance issues. Those issues had to be faced repeatedly, until the Santa Rosa police helped remove all of the RVs in one day in 2020.
Keith agrees that RVs could be part of the solution for homelessness. But, of course, there are obstacles. We must locate places where RVs can park legally and connect to utilities. That requires legally-developed RV parks, which would enforce minimum RV age and condition standards and which would provide all-important security against criminal activity. The land on which RVs will be parked may need to be government-owned, so that developers can obtain needed waivers. In fact, months ago Keith suggested county supervisors consider parking RVs at the Veterans Building in Santa Rosa. Due to COVID-19, the building was empty and it has utilities. No action was taken on that idea. Keith asked: “Why?” One savvy observer connected the dots: “Politics.”
As to building new RV parks on land not government-owned, Keith said they must be carefully planned, surmounting not just the development roadblocks for which government officials in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County are notorious, but also addressing issues of connections to mental health and addiction services, and of course funding to purchase RVs and build the parks. Oh, yes, that pesky EIR—Environmental Impact Report—might pose a challenge, too.
Recently, I went back to the RV park and to the RV dealer on Santa Rosa Avenue. The effects of COVID were obvious. At the RV park a “no vacancy” light was still brightly lit. The office was closed, not just temporarily, but permanently “due to COVID.” On the door there was a piece of cardboard with contact information, but so faded it was unreadable. I assume the residents have someone to contact in an emergency. It looked as if every resident was buttoned-down for COVID, with no vacancies and no need to pay a resident manager. At the RV dealer, I found an employee who was happy to report that RV sales were “booming” and “off the charts.” But clearly, this is not considered a viable solution for housing the homeless in Sonoma County.
