Have questions about homelessness? Sonoma County wants to answer them

The March edition of Sonoma County's monthly public web forum on homelessness dives into the basics of the issue.

photo credit: County of Sonoma
Strategic plan goals for Sonoma County's 5 Year Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.

What's the state of homelessness in Sonoma County? In a word, uncertain.

2023 saw a sharp decline in the number of people experiencing homelessness in the county, but we don’t yet know what this year’s point-in-time count found.

Michael Gause, manager for Sonoma County’s Ending Homelessness Program put last year’s findings, though positive, in perspective.

"We saw a 22% decrease," Gause said. "So one of our largest decreases in quite some time from 2022 to 2023, but still means we have well over 2,200 individuals experiencing homelessness in Sonoma County at any time. But that was down from close to 2,900 the year before."

Gause attributed county action for a few factors behind last year’s drop in numbers.

"First and foremost, we added almost 400 types of beds, whether it was shelter beds or permanent housing beds," Gause said. "We also had major influxes of funding through the state Project Homekey that saw, you know, some new emergency shelters built, some new permanent supportive housing units built, and also really great coordination between the county, cities, and what's called the Continuum of Care."

But already in March, the Horizon Shine Village safe parking site in Sebastopol closed doors .

The property is slated for a housing project, so the closure scattered the few remaining residents to a patchwork of new places, including the fairgrounds and a nursing care facility.

Gause said the county is in the process of standing up more space at their Los Guillicos campus off Highway 12 near Kenwood,

The intention is relocating those currently residing in the sanctioned encampment at the main county campus in Santa Rosa.

Sonoma County’s Homeless Coalition - the joint body handling homeless services - is currently deciding on projects for the next round of funding.

In the meantime Gause said there’s an easy way for interested community members to learn more.

"Starting last fall, we started doing monthly webinars, I think our first was in October," Gause said. "Really designed just to kind of share a topic, share some information, and then kind of an open forum for questions and answers. And this month we're really kind of doing a kind of a ground level, 'what causes homelessness? What are some of the types of assistance someone can get? How do you get help?' Things like that."

Gause said Sonoma County's monthly homelessness information webinars have been popular, drawing between 40-60 attendees per session.

The county's webinar - Addressing Homelessness 101 - is taking place Wednesday from 5:30 to 6:30 P.M.

More information can be found on Sonoma County's Homeless Coalition web page .