Page 12 - Sonoma County Gazette - August 2017

Neighbor to Neighbor:
Collaborating for Housing Solutions
By Angela Conte
Sonoma County’s strongest economies are quality agriculture and tourism.
It’s a place where new technology is still used as a tool to get more time with family and friends. Our cultural identity is based on diversity and openness
to all who come to visit or contribute to our workforce. Our forward-looking economic vision includes industries like outdoor recreation and tness tourism, creative arts and maker market cultures, and cradle to grave whole-person healthcare. Yet, with all this projected growth we don’t have enough a ordable housing for our workforce, leading to more homelessness, and making this one of the county’s top socio-economic problems.
When it comes to politics, Sonoma County believes in respecting all perspectives and making sound and fair decisions, but we are not immune to the political divisiveness that has taken over America which comes from fear and anger created by misinformation of special interest groups.
When the Community Speaks, Leaders Need to Listen, but...
It’s important to hear and understand everyone’s concerns about new development. Especially concerns that make sense, such as: New development may add more cars and tra c on light tra c roads; or bring more families with children into an already strapped school systems; or in some way impede on the ecosystem, but these are issues to be discussed and worked on not used to stop new development.
12 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 8/17
So, real collaboration and thoughtful ingenuity could put Sonoma County on the national map as one of the few places to break free of the growing political divisiveness contaminating the rest of the nation the way it put rural environmentalism and the term “Green Belt” into the national vernacular in the 1970’s.
Unfortunately, a ordable housing projects throughout the county have been and continue to be clouded with NIMBYism complaints, (Not in my back yard), causing many projects to stall into oblivion. So, the question becomes, how many residents have real issues to be discussed and work on for better planning and how many are using NIMBY to stop all development in their neighborhood because they don’t want to share in the problem-solving process?
What Happened in Guerneville?
A temporary emergency housing proposal for Guerneville, (a community experiencing the worst homeless crisis in Sonoma County (Reference #1)), was recently forced o the table by a very strong and vocal group of residents that did not want a temporary homeless shelter in their community, especially not one outside of town near the town’s elementary school, which was becoming identi ed as the best location for it.
Having an all-persons shelter near a school isn’t ideal, but it could have been a great start if it was developed for homeless women and children, while adult men could continue to be sheltered at the in-town Veteran’s Center. Developing both sites was well within the budget but not even considered because the only voices heard by the local leaders was a very loud NIMBY voice that got the shelter development planning shelved completely.
Guerneville has a larger homeless problem than most because the Russian River area has always been a refuge for people with restricted means; it feels more like camping than being homeless; and because diversity and open lifestyles are respected there. However, this is not just a Guerneville problem it’s a county wide problem that requires everyone working together, including the public and its leadership; something many other communities around California and the US have not been able to accomplish.
NEIGHBOR cont’d on page 13