‘Where I’m supposed to be:’ New CEO steps in at Petaluma’s COTS

Chuck Fernandez is leading Petaluma’s homelessness nonprofit.|

There’s one image that sticks out when Chuck Fernandez recalls that night in the Family Support Center, a homeless shelter in Santa Rosa.

Fernandez decided to sleep in one of the 138 beds at the Catholic Charities of the Diocese, where he was working at the time. But before the lights went out, he saw a father brushing the hair of his young daughter. It was so routine and so mundane yet deeply moving.

Nearly a decade ago, Fernandez, 65, says he experienced “a shift” in his life when he began interning at the shelter, one that changed the language he used, and the feelings and emotions he carried when he met people who were less fortunate.

That internship later turned into a job offer and, while hesitant at first, Fernandez ultimately decided to ditch the corporate environment and step into a new career focused on assisting those in need.

“I realized that this is where I’m supposed to be,” he said.

The journey that followed led the longtime Sonoma County resident back to Petaluma. On Monday, Fernandez stepped into the Mary Isaak Center as the new CEO of Committee on the Shelterless, filling the void left by Mike Johnson, who stepped down after five years in August. Johnson was recently named CEO of Habitat for Humanity Sonoma County.

While reluctant to embrace the executive title, Fernandez often puts the attention on the 45 employees that help operate one of the leading homelessness nonprofits in the region.

COTS Chief Development Officer Sarah Quinto said that’s one of the things that separated him from the four other finalists.

“I think that Chuck’s approach to people makes all the difference,” she said. “I mean, we’re a people-oriented business, and our business is elevating the human spirit and elevating the lives of people. Chuck is passionate about the people we serve, the staff … and I said to him at one of our first meetings, ‘Oh, you get to come in and be the hero.’ He said, ‘No, staff are the heroes.’ That makes all the difference, being a servant of the people.”

Prior to returning to Sonoma County where Fernandez has lived for nearly 40 years with his wife, Denise, and raised his two children, Haley and Parker, he was CEO of Catholic Charities of the East Bay in Oakland for the last four years.

Before that, he spent three years as the executive director of the Catholic Charities in Santa Rosa, and worked at various other regional agencies, including the Lake County Mental Health Department, Sutter Medical Foundation North Bay, Mendocino Community Health Clinic in Ukiah, the Petaluma Health Center, and Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa.

Fernandez will be taking the helm as Sonoma County continues to work through a complex homeless problem that has been amplified by last year’s destructive wildfires, county officials said.

According to a survey conducted earlier this year, almost 3,000 Sonoma County residents are homeless, an increase of 6 percent over last year, and nearly two-thirds of them were living outside. The at-risk population is over 21,000, a follow-up survey found.

COTS has been transitioning to a housing-first model that builds on its service approach to linking clients with jobs, healthcare and wellness. In the aftermath of the fires, the nonprofit established a Rapid Re-Housing center in Santa Rosa this summer, which provides financial support to help cover rental subsidies and security deposits, and has been inundated with applications.

“We’ve been going through that change for the last couple of years, that philosophy of how to care for the homeless,” Fernandez said. “I think it makes a whole lot of sense to get people in a home and then to begin working on some of the various challenges. COTS has adopted that 100 percent wholeheartedly. The staff, the board, everyone. I think it’s the right approach, I really do.”

Fernandez plans on spending the foreseeable future getting to know the organization “more intimately,” he said, understanding the details behind each program and getting out in the streets conducting outreach with staffers like Randy Clay.

Thanks to COTS’ sizable base of support, Fernandez is confident the nonprofit can help turn the tide on one of the most visible issues facing California.

“Working together collaboratively with community partners, other social services organizations, is going to be key,” he said. “There’s a lot of support from elected officials … so we’re just pleased to be part of that initiative going forward.”

As Fernandez walked through the Mary Isaak Center Tuesday, he moved slowly. He stopped to talk to each employee and each client like they were one and the same, listening quietly without distraction.

Talking and listening are vital to understanding homelessness, Fernandez said, and to make a difference in a community he feels mandated to give back to, that’s where it’s going to start.

“We all have myths and judgments, and oftentimes they’re wrong,” he said. “You start to realize, I had a support system – we all had a support system. Our dads, our moms, our relatives, our coaches, our teachers. A lot of people we serve, they don’t have that support system, and I think everybody deserves that, to live with dignity and respect and love.”

(Contact News Editor Yousef Baig at yousef.baig@arguscourier.com or 776-8461, and on Twitter @YousefBaig.)

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