Annual Homeless Point-In-Time official count delayed one month due to Joe Rodota Trail relocations
The Rev. Sally Hanes Hubbell, of Healdsburg’s St. Paul’s Church, watches the daily weather report very closely. That’s because when the forecast calls for rain or overnight temperatures below 38 degrees, she and volunteers open the doors to the parish hall, converting it to a “Code Blue” emergency homelessness shelter.
Since late October, Hubbell and staff from Reach For Home have kept the heat on and put out cots almost 50 nights, including most of January. “It’s been a rough year already,” outreach worker Rick Cafferata told his volunteer board of directors during their Jan. 16 meeting. “We could use some more help with the shelter and meals.”
The St. Paul’s Code Blue shelter has been seeing between eight and 15 overnight guests. Each stay begins with a donated meal, prepared by local civic clubs, individuals and a few local businesses. Because the church serves many various ministries and other groups, the shelter must be closed very early each morning to allow for other church activities.
“We have our own parishioners to serve,” Hubbell said. “We’re a small church but we do a lot.”
The church also offers weekly showers to local homeless people which requires donated towels and as many as 19 volunteers. More help is needed, as Hubbell outlined in a letter in the Jan. 16 Healdsburg Tribune.
The annual point-in-time countywide homeless count, originally scheduled for Jan. 31, has been postponed to Feb. 28. The count is required by the federal government to provide a population basis for future grants and program funding. In last year’s count, 73 people were counted in Healdsburg, 59 people in Cloverdale, 53 people in Windsor and 63 in unincorporated county areas.
According to an unofficial survey, 90% of the north county’s population are local and have lived most of their lives here.
In total, Reach For Home and St. Paul’s has counted almost 400 “bed nights” this winter.
“We think we are preventing a lot of illness because the most vulnerable of our people are showing up.” On nights with better weather, the north county’s homeless population that is estimated at 250 people by one official count, are scattered from south of Windsor to Cloverdale. Unlike the mass encampment on Santa Rosa’s Joe Rodota Trail, the north county’s homeless people sleep alone in the brush, behind commercial buildings or in small camps along creeks or the Russian River.
Cafferata claimed that this month, county sheriff’s deputies conducted a few “sweeps” of homeless camps that private property owners complained about. Thanks to a legal ruling of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Idaho in 2018, people are allowed to sleep or camp on public property where local jurisdictions do not provide enough shelter space or housing.
Reach For Home owns or manages 19 housing units with 35 bedrooms. Two new residential properties were recently added in Cloverdale and Reach For Home’s executive director Colleen Carmichael is working with Burbank Housing, the city of Healdsburg and other partners to develop as many as 50 more units in the next three years.
The nonprofit has benefitted from recent one-time government funds and grants, plus portions of local Homeless Emergency Aid Program (HEAP) annual funding. All of the Reach For Home housing units must have a separate room for medical services, social program referrals and general office space
Homelessness has been dominating local news cycles in between the natural disasters of floods and wildfires. That might be why Reach For Home just reported one of its best end-of-year fund raising successes.
“We received $74,000 in donations, many in small amounts,” said Carmichael. “We’ve never had that kind of response before.”
She said the community’s response is continuing and donations of clothing, household goods and other support also is accumulating. Also on Reach For Home’s “wish list” is a new van to use for client transportation to medical services and other trips.
