Why summer is the time to think about warming centers for the homeless
Why summer is the time to think about warming centers for the homeless
Grand Jury Report slams county’s efforts (or lack of) to protect homeless from severe weather; lauds Sebastopol report on warming center
The height of summer may feel like an odd time to be thinking about warming centers for the homeless, but that’s exactly what a recent report by the Sonoma County Grand Jury suggests is necessary in order for the county (and cities) to be prepared to protect the homeless during extreme cold come wintertime.
Interestingly, the Grand Jury Report on warming centers compares the efforts of tiny Sebastopol favorably to that of the county when it comes to getting warming centers up and running. It even includes a full analysis on Sebastopol’s efforts, written this spring by Councilmember Diana Rich, in her role as the Sebastopol City Council’s liaison to homeless service providers. (See page 13 of the Grand Jury report for Rich’s analysis.)
The Grand Jury report reads, “The Grand Jury reviewed the City of Sebastopol after-action report and recommends that the reader carefully review that document … The contents reveal the difficulties and challenges that had to be overcome in a short period of time, and recommends preplanning be done in the summer months to mitigate many of these problems.”
Though it praised Sebastopol, the Grand Jury report slammed the county, saying it “failed in its critical role in protecting the health and safety of all unhoused people during severe cold weather emergencies during the winters of 2021-2022 and 2022-2023.”
It blamed this failure on inadequate coordination between various county agencies, the lack of formal policies and procedures on this issue, and the lack of advanced preparation to protect unhoused people during cold weather emergencies.
The report said advanced preparation is necessary for several reasons: to identify a facility, arrange staffing (both paid and/or volunteer) and to arrange funding for non-profits providing this service. It also takes awhile to create policies and procedures that answer questions, like “What kind of expected temperatures should trigger the opening of warming centers?”
“Because of the complexity of the solutions involved in protecting unhoused people during these weather emergencies, clear policies and protocols need to be in place,” the report reads. “Careful advance planning is essential to avoid deficiencies in the response due to last-minute mobilization, poor coordination, and inadequate communication. These policies must leave no doubt as to who is responsible for each part of the response, and how the various agencies and departments must coordinate with each other.”
While the report praises Rich’s analysis of Sebastopol’s response to the cold snap December 2022, it fails to note that Sebastopol was unable to muster a similar response when temperatures dipped into freezing territory again in January and February of 2023.
In February of this year, just as the last cold snap ended, The Sebastopol Times interviewed Fire Chief Jack Piccinini, who is also director of emergency services.
“We still have some work to do on how to coordinate this, in terms of each city making independent decisions on whether warming centers are required or not. Typically, we will reach out to Santa Rosa and other cities to see what they're doing,” he said. “But our biggest challenge simply is just being able to staff a warming center and open it.”
Because of these difficulties, he said the city often punts to local churches—or as they did this year, to the police, who transported anyone who asked to the warming center at Caritas, a Catholic Charities organization in Santa Rosa. (A handful of homeless individuals took the police up on this offer.)
Creating a plan for warming and cooling centers in Sebastopol is currently an item on Piccinini’s long to-do list.
Councilmember Rich is confident that that plan will take into consideration the issues raised in Grand Jury report.
“I’m sure he’s aware of the grand jury report and I’m sure anything the city needs to do as a result of that report will get done,” she said. “From a councilmember perspective, I can tell you that I am always accessible to our advocates for the unhoused and to our Homeless Outreach Coordinator. I trust their knowledge of and sensitivity to our unhoused population. They know that I’m here to join them in doing anything I can as a citizen or as an elected to serve the needs of that population.”
“I’m proud of what we were all able to do jointly last December, when we experienced a severe and critical cold spell that sent us all (unhoused and housed) searching for warmth and comfort,” Rich said. “I know we’re all prepared to join forces once again to serve that need. I’m sure the Chief will move forward with any policies or other steps that are needed in light of the Grand Jury Report. But in the interim, we’ll do what we always do as a small town dedicated to doing the right thing: We’ll be there for our community.”