A tumultuous August for the homeless in Marin

Sherman R. Frederick

Marinscope

It’s been a tumultuous month for the homeless in Marin, with Novato, Sausalito, San Rafael and the county taking divergent paths to alleviate the problem.

Novato quietly negotiated a deal with the California Homeless Union to keep a camp for the down and out in a downtown park operating for at least two years. The move sparked protests from some residents.

Sausalito, meanwhile, went the other way. It closed its costly city-sponsored homeless camp at Marinship Park, in part citing lack of help from Marin County.

San Rafael also closed its sanctioned homeless encampment under the 101 highway.

And, as if to punctuate the contentious issue in Marin, the San Rafael Police Department was caught on video “dropping off” a homeless man in Marin in a residential area of San Francisco. The SRPD has since apologized and said that such a tactic is not “normal.” 

This all comes on the heels of Marin County boasting that its homeless solution is working. Five hundred formerly homeless individuals have been placed in permanent supportive housing since launching the Coordinated Entry system in October 2017, the county said in a press release. 

“The County is grateful to all its community partners, especially front-line case managers, for the incredible work they’ve done getting clients into housing including increasing the pace of housing by 56% since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Benita McLarin, Director of Marin County Health and Human Services.

Novato’s city management negotiated with the homeless union to enact its new camping restriction laws without objection in return for keeping the camp in Lee Gerner Park open. Initially, the camp was only for those who occupied the park during the teeth of COVID-19. 

The city’s camping regulations would prevent the homeless from camping anywhere they wanted – something homeless leaders said they had a right to do. So, essentially, the deal traded some kind of long-term order to the burgeoning homeless problem in Novato for keeping the Lee Gerner Park camp open for another two years.  

Novato resident Melanie Swanson criticized the council for its lack of transparency in making the deal. She said the Lee Gerner Park campsite and the settlement will do nothing to deal with the larger homeless problem in Marin. 

“The city is just hiding the problem behind a $200,000 fence,” she said.

Meanwhile, Sausalito’s City Council reached an agreement to pay the California Homeless Union half a million dollars in return for allowing the city to close its Marinship Park homeless encampment as of mid August. 

Sausalito spent about $1.5 million on the Marinship Park and often complained that the county failed to pay its fair share of the cost. (The county kicked in about $170,000.) Marinship Park is now closed and it is being restored to its original park use. 

As part of the agreement, 30 former residents of the encampment will receive about $18,000 each in one-time housing stipends. The Homeless Union said the money has been spent on hotel rooms and temporary housing, but in the end the homeless person gets to decide how to spend the money. A union representative said a good many of the 30 former residents are now being housed outside of Marin. 

The incident in which a San Rafael police officer “dumped” a homeless man in San Francisco happened on July 30. Police said they received a call about an unruly man who had not committed a crime, but also did not meet criteria for holding on the grounds of needing psychiatric care. The man was known to be homeless in San Rafael with ties to San Francisco. 

Police asked the man if he wanted to go back to San Francisco and he said “yes.” So, an officer transported him to a residential area of San Francisco and left him. 

The homeless man then disrobed and started a fire. A resident caught the drop-off on video.

San Francisco authorities blasted San Rafael for the drop-off. 

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement: “It is disturbing to think another jurisdiction would drop off someone experiencing homelessness or mental health challenges in the middle of a residential neighborhood with no services or resources around. We will hold any jurisdiction accountable that is proven to engage in this behavior.”