WE ARE WITNESSING THE RESULTS OF UNITED NATIONS POLICIES, WEATHER ATTACKSand ECONOMIC TERRORISM BEING ORCHESTRATED RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES . . . WORLDWIDEJust Look at all the people displaced from the fires, soaring housing costs and rents, and cities that refuse to open up vacant tax payer owned buildings for OUR people to live in during the encroaching rainy, cold winter. DOORS CLOSED! STAY OUTSIDE.FORCED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT TO VACATE THE AREAS THE HOMELESS ATTEMPT TO CREATE HOMELESS COMMUNITIES FOR SAFETY.WHAT WOULD YOU DO IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES?THINK ABOUT THAT – BECAUSE WHEN THE NEXT ENERGY WEAPON aka MEGA WEATHER EVENT STRIKES – YOU MAY BECOME HOMELESS, TOO!
Sonoma County homeless population among the biggest nationwide
Manuel Santiago, a 52-year-old Pomo Indian, has been homeless for many years. He’s lived in tents, RVs, motels — anywhere but a shelter.
In and out of state prison since 1979, Santiago said his many years behind bars include several stints in solitary confinement. That’s left him with an aversion to crowded places like the Sam Jones Hall homeless shelter in Santa Rosa.
“I can’t be around people,” he said Friday, crouched in front of a tent he shares with another person in the city’s southwest area. “Being locked up, I was in the hole a lot. I just don’t deal with people very well.”
Santiago is one of 2,657 homeless adults and one of 715 chronically homeless in Sonoma County, which was highlighted last week in a federal report to Congress as having one of the nation’s biggest homeless populations among largely suburban communities.
The annual homeless assessment report, from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said when compared with similar-sized communities, Sonoma County also has among the highest numbers of unaccompanied homeless youth, living in shelters or on the streets, and chronically homeless people. They live without a home for a year or more.
Homelessness remains one of the most stubborn public health problems in the county, one that’s now getting worse after years of improvement. The reversal is confounding to local leaders who’ve made multiple efforts to remedy the predicament.
Actually, the issue is a big problem statewide, too. California has the largest adult homeless population this year among the 50 states, 129,972, and the nation’s highest per-capita rate of homelessness — 33 adults without homes per 10,000 people. Nearly half of the state’s homeless live on the streets rather than in shelters.
Homeless advocates say the HUD report highlighting Sonoma County underscores the local housing affordability crunch they contend is to blame for the homeless crisis.
“The basic explanation is high rents and low wages,” said Adrienne Lauby, a member of Homeless Action, which has been critical of recent efforts by city and county officials to resolve this alarming community problem.
Lauby and other advocates say there’s a severe shortage of permanent housing for area homeless people. Without such housing, they say, coordinated efforts to get people off the streets and on a priority list for permanent housing are little more than a revolving door of people coming in and out of temporary homeless shelters.
Santiago said he spent five weeks in a local Motel 6 after he was evicted last spring from the Roseland Village homeless encampment behind the Dollar Tree on Sebastopol Road. The only housing option he was given was the Sam Jones shelter, which for him has too many other homeless people.
He said many of those experiencing chronic homelessness have simply given up. “No one wants to hire me because of my record,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes. “No matter how hard I try, nothing changes.”
HUD’s office of community planning and development collects data to compile its report from homeless counts conducted on a single night in January nationwide by local agencies called Continuums of Care. Sonoma County’s count of 2,657 homeless adults living outdoors or in shelters in 2018 was 6 percent higher than in 2017.
