Santa Rosa Council Expected To Declare Local 'Homeless State Of Emergency'

SANTA ROSA - The Santa Rosa City Council on Tuesday is expected to approve three emergency declarations regarding homelessness.

They include a declaration of a shelter crisis, a local state of emergency and a request for a gubernatorial state of emergency proclamation.

A point-in-time count earlier this year identified 2,906 homeless persons on a given night, two-thirds of them located in central Santa Rosa.

Two thirds of the homeless in the county and in Santa Rosa were unsheltered, according to the count.

The emergency declarations state the City's homeless include veterans, women, children, youth, disabled persons, seniors and other vulnerable people, and the rental vacancy rate in Santa Rosa is approximately one percent.

The City Council heard extensive testimony earlier this month regarding the impacts of homelessness on those without shelter and on the community at large. Conditions of "extreme peril to the safety of persons and property caused by homelessness and lack of affordable housing" in Santa Rosa require other help from "other political subdivisions," according to the local emergency declaration.

The homeless shelter crisis resolution requests suspension of state government standards of housing, health or safety regarding the use of public facilities as temporary homeless shelters. Under the resolution, the City would adopt substitute standards to ensure public health and safety.

In a letter to Gov. Edmund Brown, Mayor John Sawyer said. "It's time for the State to recognize that this crisis has risen to the level of an emergency."

Sawyer said Santa Rosa has more than doubled its funding for homeless service programs but those efforts alone cannot overcome the crisis.

Sawyer urged Gov. Brown to declare a statewide state of homeless emergency "to address this growing humanitarian crisis throughout California."

-Bay City News; image via D.C.Atty/Flickr