Page 12 - Sonoma County Gazette 12-18.indd

A Soft Landing:
Modular Buildings to Provide a Beautiful Temporary Home
HOMELESS cont’d from page 1
By Annie Silverman, Senior Programs Coordinator with Daily Acts Imagine yourself sitting on the porch, admiring the beautiful landscape,
and sharing a story with your neighbor. Walk inside to the compact but cleverly designed space, sit at the bar, and take a deep breath—you’re home.
Homes for Sonoma, a consortium of professionals from diverse fields, joined together to brainstorm solutions to the housing crisis exasperated by the 2017 fires. Prior to the fires, Sonoma County faced a competitive housing market—the county’s median house price had reached an all-time high of $576,000. The county’s homeowner vacancy rate was 1.1% while the rental vacancy rate was 3.3% (Sonoma County Economic Development Board, 2018.) These numbers reflect data collected in 2016 and do not take into account
the 5,636 structures destroyed or the 317 damaged in 2017 (CalFire, 2018.) Needless to say, those facing displacement after the fires are presented with a myriad of challenges in securing stable, safe, and comfortable interim housing.
The solution that Homes for Sonoma created
are low-cost, elegantly designed modular house communities located on private property leased and managed by a housing agency. Residents who lost their homes in the 2017 fires will be able to call this
Under Santa Rosa’s Homeless Encampment Assistance Pilot Project, the police relentlessly track down and evict campers who have no other place to go. Mr. Aaronson reported that, “Officers have a hard time knowing that they are only ‘turfing’ the problem, pushing it around from one location
to another and that, in the process of doing so, that they may be creating additional suffering in the homeless community. This work, in addition to changing nothing for the disadvantaged, has only damaged officer morale.”
new community home for a period of time within the next three years while they secure permanent housing. The homes are made to be mobile, meaning they can be deconstructed and reused for other housing applications. This model presents both a short-term solution for immediate housing relief and a long-term solution for affordable housing options.
Council members were defensive and attempted to invalidate Aaronson’s findings but members of the public staunchly supported him.
Daily Acts is proud to partner with Homes for Sonoma to host an educational workshop to install a beautiful water-wise garden at the very
first model site on December 8th, 2018. Come take part in the action as we work alongside the residents who will occupy the first five homes and build community from the ground up. . You’ll learn more about this innovative project, as well as plant selection for a drought-tolerant and rainwater- friendly garden. We invite you to help welcome the new residents—bring a potluck dish to share as we will be breaking bread while we break ground. We hope to see you there!
“Mr. Aaronson is telling the truth,” declared Homeless Action! member Kathryn Jurik, adding that homeless advocates have been told the same
thing by police for some time. “Council members seem to think that they can protect their failing policy by attacking him and throwing their own front line officers under the bus,” she said.
Saturday, December 8th, 2018 @ aPrivate Residence, please visit www. dailyacts.org/events for complete information. Please bring: A potluck dish ready to share, a wheelbarrow, gloves, water, and shovel if you can.
12 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 12/18
This year, systematic violations of international human rights standards
for homeless people have been raised again and again by highly credible sources. On October 20, the Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights announced that it had resolved on the basis of Article 25 of the Universal Declaration as well as the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that local governments have been carrying out “aggressive action in eliminating unsanctioned encampments without providing short or long term housing options for all residents without shelter and thus falling short of their obligation to honor the human rights of all residents.”
Such actions “effectively criminalize homelessness,” said Commission Chair Kevin Jones, adding that such criminalization contravenes the U.N. Committee of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and constitutes “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” in violation of U.N. Article 9.
The Sonoma County Chapter of ACLU confirmed such violations and supported the Human Rights Commission resolution calling for “a safe camping area, as promised, for immediate use with security, hygiene and sanitation facilities, trash collection and case management services” as well
as the creation “with all due haste” of safe haven villages of tiny homes with the same wraparound services. Such solutions have taken firm root in Seattle, Portland and elsewhere as a continuum of the Housing First mode, which is embraced by both the county and the city.
In September, U.N. Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha decried homeless conditions in the Bay Area as “a cruelty that is unsurpassed.” Citing
the denial of access to water, sanitation, health services and other basic necessities, Farha demanded that “Such punitive policies must be prohibited by law and immediately ceased.”
In Santa Rosa Homeless Action! has, for example, provided portable toilets to encampments on numerous occasions. In every instance, the toilets were removed by authorities within 24 hours. Adrienne Lauby, co-founder of Homeless Action! says that the current situation is dire. “Homeless people die in the rain and cold every winter in Sonoma County. Shame on us for allowing people no option other than the vulnerability and degradation of sleeping outside while public and private buildings sit empty.”