The Future of the Homeless Encampment Pilot Project

Greetings!

At Tuesday's City Council meeting, Councilman Schwedhelm asked about an apparent inconsistency in the Contract Scope of Work being adopted for the 2017-18 Sam Jones Shelter.  Noting that Catholic Charities is expected to keep the Shelter 95% full for the year, he asked how there would be enough available beds to accommodate the many homeless which the City expects to clear out of the many encampments scheduled to be swept by Police this fall?

City staff said they would be posting timely provider performance reports on the City website, including the capabilities of the Shelter and its housing placement services.  Asked by Schwedhelm how soon the City would know success, staff indicated probably not until early next year.

Councilmember Combs followed up by asking what her colleagues would be suggesting serve as the site for the Winter Shelter program, which previously utilized the extra bed space now being consumed by the new Housing First Shelter at Sam Jones?

Which leaves the question of where and when the next encampment sweep will take place.  

Keeping up with the Police

Greetings!

At today’s meeting, Ron Young brought his upcoming court date to our attention.  We have attended the arraignments of some our homeless friends in the past, providing community support and witness to their legal processes.  I went to the Superior Court office afterward to specifically learn what I could about the time of his appearance before the judge, since Ron said his eyesight prevented him from reading the documents.

I have been constructing a process I can use to track those arrested by the Santa Rosa Police (from the online arrest logs) to the County database available on the computers in the Courthouse.  I found the information (August 31st, 8:30m in Judge Virginia Marcoida’s Courtroom), but also discovered that three days ago the County went live with an online database portal which allows anyone with access to the internet to look up the civil and criminal cases, both pending and past by name of the defendant.  No more need to go up to the Courthouse to look up information.

I came home and used the system to research the 15 people who I believe have been arrested in Santa Rosa for "Quality of Life” ordinance violations.  I still need to get better at reading the case notes and cryptic shortcut terms used by the court secretarial staff, but I’m getting closer to being able to put together a way for us to make the legal impacts of the criminalization of homelessness in Santa Rosa more transparent.  Then on to the human and social impacts.  I’m going to try to show up at some of the court appearances this week that seem like examples of what the Council was wrestling with last week.  It will get interesting to be able to identify those who the City thinks are serious and repeat violation, and what happens to them.

Maybe at our next meeting, I’ll share some preliminary analysis.

If you are interested in how to find such information, here’s the new website:  http://sonoma.courts.ca.gov.  Choose “Sonoma County Case Portal” at the bottom of the left-hand box titled “Case Information”, and follow the instructions.  Be sure to enter “Last name, First name, Middle”, and provide the scrambled code each time.

Gregory