SAVS likely to miss March 3 deadline to resettle Horizon Shine residents
St. Vincent de Paul expected to break ground on affordable housing complex in May
At the last city council meeting on Feb. 6, Sonoma Applied Village Services (SAVS) president Adrienne Lauby said that the task of finding new homes for all of the inhabitants of Horizon Shine had proved far more difficult than she’d originally hoped and that SAVS might miss their self-imposed deadline of March 3 for closing the facility.
“It's tough,” she said, noting that many of the residents have psychological issues which have prevented them from doing what’s necessary to facilitate a move. “We know the struggles they have; we know the trauma in their childhoods, their level of psychological fear and difficulties in just believing that something better can happen, and that the effort that they put out will work for some good. They've had a lot of disappointment, most of them, in their lives. And so, you know, we're doing our best with a little carrot and a little stick… All I can say is that we're doing the best we can. It's messy.”
There are 22-23 people still living at Horizon Shine, “depending on who's there and who's not at any given time,” said Sebastopol Police Captain James Hickey. (Since Planning Director Kari Svanstrom is moving away, responsibility for the city’s dealings with Horizon Shine has shifted to the police department.)
“As of right now, there's possible trailer locations for eight trailers in Santa Rosa at the Commons run by St. Vincent DePaul, which would equal between eight and 10 clients that are out of there,” Hickey said. “There's also a couple of clients that are looking to move out of state… And there is another individual that's looking to try and move his trailer onto his employer's property. And one person, due to a medical situation, is trying to get their trailer moved. That leaves about 13 residents.”
“They do realize that it's crunch time and that March is coming pretty quickly,” Hickey said.
Vice Mayor Stephen Zollman and Councilmembers Neysa Hinton and Jill McLewis showered Lauby and city staff with questions about whether and how the city might be left holding the bag should the situation at Horizon Shine go sideways.
Who, for instance, was going to pay the lease to St. Vincent de Paul if several residents overstayed their move-out date? Lauby explained the SAVS would pick up that cost.
Who would pay for towing the trailers off the property and storing them elsewhere if that proved necessary. Lauby said that SAVS would pick up that cost as well.
Zollman asked if certain basics were in order: do the residents have drivers licenses and registrations for their mobile homes? Do they have insurance? Lauby said SAVS was continuing to work on this.
McLewis asked, if the eviction process took more than 30 days—really 38 days, Hinton said—why hadn’t eviction notices been handed out earlier?
“I really can't answer that question,” Lauby said. “It probably should have been done sooner. But you know, there is wiggle room on this early March date. They [meaning St. Vincent de Paul] are not actually going to start construction at the best probably till May. So if there's one or two people who end up staying there for another week or two, it's not really the end of the world.”
This announcement startled everyone on the council and City Manager Don Schwartz, who said this was the first he’d heard about Horizon Shine possibly missing their move-out date.
McLewis asked if St. Vincent de Paul knew that Horizon Shine might miss their move-out date. Lauby said they did not.
In the end, however, both City Manager Don Schwartz and Svanstrom reminded the council that Horizon Shine is essentially a private project—the lease is between St. Vincent de Paul and SAVS and the responsibility for the project belongs to SAVS and to some extent to the County of Sonoma, which is funding the project. The city’s only lever—a temporary use permit—doesn’t expire until December 31 of this year.
What makes it a concern to the city, however, is the very real possibility that Horizon Shine residents who can’t find a new home will simply move back on Morris Street.
In public comment, Kyle Falbo blasted the city council for lacking compassion and criminalizing poverty—starting with the city regulation that disallows RVs from parking overnight on public streets.
Mayor Diana Rich, who has been involved in the creation of Horizon Shine from the beginning, objected to this characterization.
“We are not a town that criminalizes poverty,” she said. “If you look at the history of what we've done, and our effort here at Horizon Shine—we didn't push these people out, we didn't ticket them, we actually tried to work with SAVS…to provide an environment that was not intended to be long term—it was always temporary—that would allow them to have an opportunity to be safe and secure and live in a sanitary environment and allow the rest of our population to enjoy our town. So that was the intent: to try to find a solution that was humane, compassionate, and served the needs of these human beings. And that's what we're trying to do even today. And so please, to the public, we are not trying to criminalize poverty. We are not trying to marginalize human beings. We are struggling with a really tough situation—we’re a little town trying to balance all of the interests…We're invested here, folks. No one wants another encampment. No one wants these people to be on the streets, and so we need to move forward.”
In a brief interview a week after the council meeting, Adrienne Lauby revealed that because of a wrong date on a previous 90-day notice to vacate, eviction notices for remaining Horizon Shine residents won’t be sent out until Feb. 28.
After that, the roughly 38-day clock will start ticking.
As Lauby explained at the meeting, “Basically we give people a three-day notice, which gets filed with the court. They have five days to respond. If they respond, they may have a 30-day option for a court date. Then there's some mediation prior to that court hearing. After that, there is a writ filed and mailed to the resident. Then the sheriff comes out within two days more or less and takes them off the property.”