This is Part 1 of a two-part article.
At last week’s Sebastopol City Council meeting, Lauren Taylor, the new director of Saint Vincent de Paul Sonoma County (SVdP), gave a brief update on the status of Gravenstein Commons, Sebastopol’s second permanent supportive housing complex, which is due to open in November.
Taylor replaced former SVdP director Jack Tibbetts, who has reinvented himself as a Republican rancher running for supervisor in Oregon. (Tibbetts’ disenchantment with homeless housing was clear in a Sebastopol Times interview from last year, where he said the constraints of federal homeless housing rules made him feel that he was just in the “people-storing” business.)
Taylor previously served as director of Permanent Supportive Housing and Resident Services at Burbank Housing for nine years, where she oversaw the opening of Elderberry Commons. She also serves on the board of directors for Generation Housing.
Taylor knows that many people in Sebastopol—including some on the council—are nervous about another permanent supportive housing (PSH) complex opening up in town.
“I know there’s been a lot about the project and your previous experience with another PSH community down the street, of which I’m deeply familiar,” she said.
Taylor also said she realized there was some concern about the financing of Gravenstein Commons.
“The biggest concerns that I’ve heard are just around the financial gap that we had to complete the project,” she said.
SVdP originally expected to receive $3 million from the County for the construction of Gravenstein Commons. That, alas, hasn’t come to pass.
“We did receive a million-dollar Measure O funding from the Department of Health Services, so we’re very excited and grateful for that,” she told the council. “We have another $200,000 coming in from the Sonoma County Community Development Commission, and [for] the remaining funds to complete the project we will be using our line of credit.”
According to a report on the project that SVdP turned in to the city, “The County has taken the position that the prior $3 million commitment made by former DHS Director Tina Rivera would not be honored.”
“I’ve met with Linda Hopkins and Tracy Lyons [Hopkins’ Chief of Staff] about that,” Taylor told the council. “I’ve also met with Michelle Whitman of the Sonoma County Community Development Commission. I’ve met with Nolan Sullivan and Hunter Scott at DHS. So we have been exploring possibilities around what we can retrieve or capture from that $3 million that was committed—knowing that it was committed by a previous director and not through a legitimate notice of funding opportunity. So yeah, it’s been a bit of a struggle, but we’re committed to finishing the project regardless.”
COTS to run operations at Gravenstein Commons
The other big change in plans involved who will be the operating agency for Gravenstein Commons. While SVDP will retain ownership of the project, it has turned the running of Gravenstein Commons over to Petaluma-based COTS (Committee on the Shelterless), an experienced provider of permanent supportive housing in Sonoma County.
The two groups are happy to be working together, but it was also a marriage of necessity because that $1.8 million construction gap was only one of the financial challenges Taylor faced when she joined SVdP as director 11 weeks ago.
“There was a construction financial gap … and no long-term financial operating plan,” she wrote the Sebastopol Times this week. “Since coming on board, my top priority has been determining a successful path forward for the Gravenstein Commons project.”
That meant coming up with money for operations. Although SVdP has an operating reserve of $671,215 for Gravenstein Commons — that’s really more of an emergency fund. What it lacked — because of cuts to permanent supportive housing at the federal level — was money to pay for the daily expenses of running a PSH complex.
“Permanent Supportive Housing projects are most successful when they have Project Based Vouchers (PBVs) — funding attached to the project/units, not individuals/residents. They are nearly impossible to operate otherwise,” Taylor explained. “Gravenstein Commons does not have PBVs. We were told by Sonoma County Housing Authority it was unlikely there would be a NOFA for PBVs until 2028. This is a longer story, but housing authorities are struggling to absorb the EHVs [emergency housing vouchers] that are being terminated earlier than initially planned thanks to the current federal administration.” (Funding for EHVs is expected to run out of funding by the end of this year, rather than lasting through 2030 as initially planned.)
According to a letter to the city dated 7/26/2024, SVdP had intended to apply for Project Based Vouchers in the amount of $1,572,480. The loss of these vouchers was another big hit to the project.
And that’s where COTS comes in.
“COTS has access to two funding streams that will allow them to operate without Project Based Vouchers (for the time being),” Taylor wrote. “Those two funding streams are “Continuum of Care HUD” funding (administered by our local Continuum of Care) and “CoC Consolidated NOFO” from our local Continuum of Care. They will also be able to offset support services costs by utilizing CalAIM, which offers Medi-Cal reimbursement to support case management services.”
Taylor said SVdP plans to apply for Project Based Vouchers if and when Sonoma County Housing Authority issues a NOFO for them, “But we understand those are by no means guaranteed to the project,” she said.
(In case you’re wondering, NOFO and NOFA are basically the same thing: official public notices that a funding competition is open. NOFO stands for Notice of Funding Opportunity, while NOFA stands for Notice of Funding Availability.)
COTS Executive Director Chris Cabral explained how the partnership with SVdP would work.
“So our plan, because St. Vincent de Paul doesn’t have operating money to operate the project, COTS does have money to operate the project. However, the way that that’s going to be done is by us eliminating some of our existing master leases, right? And so folks that have been living in PSH [permanent supportive housing] already for some time, who are already stable, they already have access to clinical services … those are the folks that are going to be moving in first.”
This would begin to happen within a week or two after construction finishes, she said.
Cabral said the people moving in initially would be a more stable population than those moving in directly from the street. “They already have a relationship with a case manager. They already know what it’s like to live in PSH and live in their own home, and they’re already adjusted to that.”
Cabral said they planned to move people in slowly. “It’s a lot better for the surrounding community to take your time with leasing,” she said.
“When you put somebody in a situation that’s brand new to them—all of their neighbors are new, the community is new, they don’t know where anything is … they have to kind of learn where they are and learn their neighbors. Giving them time to do that without overwhelming them with 21 people moving in all at the same time is a whole lot better for the community. Even if it means that lease-up at 90% isn’t done until March, there’s a whole lot less disruption to the surrounding community if we move in two people, and then two people, and then two people.”
In terms of staffing, according to the staff report, there will be a full-time live-in property manager; two care managers (one full-time and one half-time); a part-time resident services manager; a part-time clinician; a part-time maintenance person; and security personnel seven days a week (though not 24-7).
According to the staff report, COTS will provide residents with case management, employment readiness, benefits advocacy, tenant dispute resolution, healthcare navigation, behavioral-health groups/individual support, AA groups, transportation assistance, and appointment coordination. Residents don’t have to accept any of these services, however.
“Currently, COTS has the infrastructure, knowledge and experience to operate Gravenstein Commons successfully. Chris Cabral and I have a great working relationship and friendship; I am very confident that this partnership is the best path forward,” Taylor said.
Some on the council also welcomed this change—though this was their first time hearing about it.
“I am pleasantly surprised—shocked—but pleasantly surprised that COTS was selected as the operator. I have a lot of confidence in Chris in particular,” Councilmember Stephen Zollman said. “I really do feel hopeful overall with this project.”
The council did have lots of questions, however, about how people would be selected for the project and whether Sebastopol could have any say in that matter. The next item on the agenda that night was a “Good Neighbor Policy” for homeless housing — a kind of ‘rules for the road’ meant to prevent the kind of problems that plagued Elderberry Commons early on.
We’ll discuss this and more in Part 2 of this article, which we plan to post later this afternoon.
SVdP, PSH, DHS, COTS, PBVs, NOFA, EVHs, CoC, NOFO, AIM...that's a lot of acronyms !
Let's hope that, during the upcoming council election, voters remember the pivotal role Sandra Maurer played with respect to enabling the rollout of Gravenstein Commons, and Sebastopol's potential financial liability if it all falls apart.
Thank you for this thoughtful and informative post. COTS partnership and the incremental transition of folks into this site will lead to the most success.
What we do for the least of us speaks to our humanity. Most people don't choose to be homeless. This is a positive step. Thank you SVDP and Sebastopol Times!