Argus-Courier Editorial: City’s homeless continue dying

“You can’t raise rents 30 percent in the last three years and not dislodge people.”

-Mike Johnson, CEO of COTS

More dead bodies are turning up around town. Three were found just last month, and a total of 10 have been discovered since the summer of 2013.

At that time, a badly decomposed female body was found on McNear peninsula, just a few blocks from Petaluma’s bustling downtown. More than a year later, police have yet to determine the woman’s identity.

The latest casualty, a middle-aged man, was found at a small city park off Weller Street on Oct. 21.

Most of the deceased were homeless, part of a large and growing population of transients hunkered down in a series of makeshift encampments alongside the Petaluma River and railroad tracks.

Petaluma, with a median household income in excess of $76,000 a year, is one of the most affluent cities in the country. We have a model homeless shelter and program, COTS, that is recognized nationwide as one of the most effective and innovative of its kind.

Despite this, an estimated 900 people in Petaluma are currently without shelter. And as the weather begins turning colder and wetter, these vulnerable people face an increased likelihood that they, too, will wind up dead.

In part to prevent further deaths, Petaluma Police last week began a sweep of the city’s homeless encampments, encouraging folks to seek help from COTS and other social service agencies. Mike Johnson, CEO of COTS, is working overtime to get more homeless people off the streets before colder weather arrives. He’s gratified that some new funding has come through to enhance emergency housing programs during the winter months, enabling COTS to add 30 beds to its 100-bed emergency homeless shelter on Dec. 1.

Johnson is also thankful that the county Board of Supervisors approved a $900,000 grant for an overhaul of local homeless programs that target high-risk transients, including those with mental health or substance abuse problems. These are the people least likely to access COTS services, but who are often the most in need of help.

COTS is, and will continue doing, everything it can. But Petaluma’s homeless problem is worsening, in large part, due to the city’s affordable housing crisis. Soaring rental costs, a lack of inventory and rising home prices are making it very difficult for people to stay, or find a place to live here. With rental housing availability at less than 1 percent, rental costs have skyrocketed to levels beyond what most people can afford to pay.

Many of those who cycle through COTS’ emergency shelter each year without finding permanent housing do so not because they’re unemployed, but because they’re simply not earning enough to meet the ever-increasing cost of rent.

Meanwhile, the city’s limited number of multi-family, affordable housing complexes are in such high demand that they have 3- to 5-year waiting lists.

The dearth of affordable housing isn’t for lack of trying; Petaluma officials have made building low-income housing a high priority over the years and the city is ahead of many of its peers in what it offers. But there is a still a big gap between the supply and demand for low-income housing - a gap that’s unlikely to be filled anytime soon.

That’s because local funding for low income housing projects dried up when the state dissolved redevelopment agencies two years ago. Petaluma’s redevelopment agency had been funneling about $3 million a year to affordable housing projects, which non-profits like Burbank Housing and Petaluma Ecumenical Properties then leveraged to get federal grants to fund new housing developments.

That’s now a thing of the past.

As Petaluma’s newly elected city council members prepare to be seated next month, we very much hope that a search for solutions to the city’s affordable housing crisis will be one of their top priorities.