Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office release:

On Nov. 6, 2025, at about 11:15 p.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies assigned to the McKinleyville area were on patrol near McKinleyville Ave. and Hiller Rd. when they observed a male subject emerge from a residential driveway on Hiller Rd.

The subject who was dressed in dark clothing, wearing a backpack continued walking along Hiller Rd. as deputies tried to initiate contact with him. During this time, the subject reached into his pockets and discarded items in the bushes and onto the ground.

Deputies detained the subject, who was identified as Aaron Thomas Bjorkstrand, 42 years-old, a convicted felon, of McKinleyville.

Bjorkstrand was in possession of a stun gun flashlight and an empty gun holster. The discarded property collected by deputies included:

• A loaded Glock 22.40 caliber semi-automatic handgun
• An unloaded, non-serialized handgun determined to be a “ghost gun”.
• A loaded gun magazine
• Apple iPhone

Bjorkstrand was arrested and transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility (HCCF) and booked on the following charges:

• P.C. 29800(a)(1) Felon in possession of a firearm
• P.C. 30305(a)(1) Felon in possession of ammunition
• P.C. 24610 (a) Possession of an undetectable firearm
• P.C. 22610(a) Felon in possession of a stun gun
• P.C. 148(a)(1) Obstruct/Resist peace officer

Press release from the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services:

After delays and many unknowns during the federal government shutdown, CalFresh recipients started receiving their November benefits on Thursday, Nov. 6. This move followed an order from a federal judge earlier in the day who directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to find enough money to restore full funding for SNAP benefits by Friday, Nov. 7.

While this situation continues to be fluid, Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services Director Connie Beck said Friday morning, with the changing information and unknowns, finding out benefits started being issued last night was a “wonderful surprise” and a relief for the more than 30,000 county residents who receive CalFresh.

“In this trying time, staff and our community have really stepped up,” she said. “Not only is DHHS is the midst of hosting our own county employee food drive, but numerous local restaurants, businesses and other community residents are doing the same. I am proud to be a part of this community and very proud of this department and our staff.”

According to a news release from California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued Thursday evening, “Following two lawsuits filed by California and other states and a coalition of others, California families are beginning to see their full SNAP benefits restored on their EBT cards. Earlier today, a court ordered the Trump administration to immediately issue 100% of funding for 5.5 million California SNAP recipients. Following the regular process for providing CalFresh benefits, benefits are now beginning to be available on recipients’ cards so that families can again access the food they need.”

While this is subject to change, it means that households that would normally receive their full benefits between Nov. 1 and 7, are on track to have their full benefits available by Friday, and households that would normally receive their full benefits between Nov. 8 and 10, are on track to have their full benefits available as normal, an email from the California Welfare Directors Association stated. Households determined to be newly eligible for November are also on track to receive full benefits.

In Humboldt County, approximately 22% of county residents receive CalFresh benefits which equates to between $5.8 and $6 million a month. These benefits not only supplement the food budgets of elderly community residents, families with children and other individuals, there are many businesses in the county that accept EBT cards and rely on this income as well.

Families that receive benefits through the WIC (Women, Infants & Children) program, can expect to continue receiving them through November, despite the shutdown.

For more information about your CalFresh benefits, visit BenefitsCal.com or call DHHS’s Social Services Call Center at 1-877-410-8809.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

The Humboldt County Planning & Building Department has recently received several reports of an email scam targeting our community. 

In this scam fraudulent emails claim to be from the Humboldt County Planning Commission and may identify as a current and/or former employee. The scammer tells the victim that they have reviewed and approved their permit application and an “application approval fee” is required before approval can be finalized.

The email appears to mine information from publicly accessible documents such as agendas and related application documents and uses that information to include very specific details about the applicant’s project into the message. It also includes instructions on how to wire funds to settle the account.

The County of Humboldt does not charge or require an “application approval fee.” We would like the community to know that this is a scam. While departments such as Planning & Building may contact you regarding an application or legitimate past amounts due, the county will never ask you to:

• Mail large sums of cash
• Wire funds to a private account
• Use a credit card over the phone, or
• Pay with gift cards or pre-paid money card

If you have any questions about the status of a pending permit application, please call the Planning & Building Department at (707) 445-7541.  

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office encourages anyone who believes they may have been targeted or have been a victim of this type of fraudulent activity to report the incident immediately by calling (707) 445-7251.

Remember these tips to help protect yourself from fraud:

1. Spot imposters 

Scammers often pretend to be someone you trust, like a government official, a family member, a charity or a company with which you do business. Don’t send money or give out personal information in response to an unexpected request – whether it comes as a text, a phone call or an email. And do not open attachments in emails from unknown sources.

2. Do online searches 

Type a company or product name into your favorite search engine with words like “review,” “complaint” or “scam.” Or search for a phrase that describes your situation, like “IRS call.” You can even search for phone numbers and email addresses to see if other people have reported them as scams.

3. Don’t believe the name in an email or your caller ID

Technology makes it easy for scammers to fake email account names and caller ID information, so the name and number you see aren’t always real. If someone calls asking for money or personal information, hang up. If someone emails you asking for you to take action, do not click links in the email or open attachments. If you think the person contacting you might be telling the truth, call back to a number you know is genuine.

4. Talk to someone 

Before you give up your money or personal information, talk to someone you trust. Con artists want you to make decisions in a hurry. They might even threaten you. Slow down, check out the story, do an online search, consult an expert — or just tell a friend.   If you have an application with the Planning and Building Department call and ask.

5. Don’t rely on personal information 

Living in the digital age, access to information is easier than ever. Scammers are often able to get their hands on very personal information, providing it to their victims to make their scam look more legitimate. Don’t trust a scammer who is able to provide your personal information. If you followed the above tips and still aren’t sure, call back at a publicly listed number for the organization from which the scammer claims to be or contact your loved one directly.

Sign up for the Federal Trade Commission’s scam alerts at this link.

Visit this link to learn how to report scams.

Visit this linkto learn more about some of the common scams reported to the HCSO.

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Despite facing a $12 billion deficit this year, California’s Legislature still managed to spend at least $415 million for local projects to help lawmakers win their next elections.

CalMatters found close to 100 earmarks inserted into just one of the state’s budget bills for local projects and programs that had little apparent benefit to anyone outside the lawmakers’ districts.

Some of the earmarks raise concerns about legislative priorities in a difficult budget year, such as lawmakers spending millions from the general fund on museums, trails, parks and other amenities in wealthy communities.The spending includes $5 million in general fund money for a LGBTQ+ venue in high-cost San Francisco, $2.5 million for a private day school in Southern California and $250,000 for a private farm-animal rescue on the North Coast.

Around $250 million of the local-project earmarks were funds taken from the $10 billion Proposition 4 climate bond California voters approved last year.

Some of the Prop. 4 earmarks included:

• $26 million to programs paying farmers for private land conservation.
• $20 million to help the public access a Southern California beach gated off by a wealthy community.
• $15 million for “geologic heritage sites” including the La Brea Tar Pits — whose fossils have been used to study climate change in the last epoch.

The earmarks were approved at the same time Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers left state worker positions unfilled, suspended some health care benefits, forewent raises for firefighters, filled budget holes with high-interest bond money and took billions of dollars from the state’s “rainy day” emergency fund.

Kristen Cox, executive director of the Long Beach Community Table foodbank, said the money lawmakers spent this year to enhance communities in their districts — often for projects that some would consider frills — isn’t going to the neediest Californians.

“It’s misprioritization,” she said. “My priorities are to help the people that need it the most. Their priorities seem to be ‘Let’s make this city look gentrified and pretty and beautiful.’”

A secret process that benefits lawmakers

Many of the earmarks — one-time allotments of cash for a specific purpose or project — are fairly benign and went to local infrastructure needs such as fire stations, parks, public schools and environmental projects.

They also represent just a small portion of the state’s $321 billion budget, which pays for programs and services that typically are intended to help all of California.

But inside the notoriously secretive budget negotiation process, lawmakers also have the ability to set aside sizable chunks of money to benefit their districts through an even more opaque earmark system.

It allows them to direct money to their pet projects without leaving a fingerprint — at least until they issue a press release touting a new community perk or show up for ribbon-cutting and check-passing ceremonies.

Such spending, disparagingly called “pork-barrel spending” or “pork” for short, is hardly new or unique to California, said Thad Kousser, a former legislative staffer and political science professor at UC San Diego. He has extensively studied equity in how politicians divide up budgets for local needs.

There’s a reason it’s pervasive: When politicians keep the cash flowing back home, it helps them get re-elected, he said.

“Politicians across generations — and in every country — try to use some portion of the budget on these clear signals that they’re directing the flow of government dollars to real people and real organizations right at home in their district,” he said. “Voters reward that.”

Eyeing higher office? Send pork home

The biggest recipient of the earmarks in Senate Bill 105 appears to be the North Coast Senate district of Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire. After losing his legislative leadership seat this year, he seems to be positioning himself for a congressional bid, according to The Santa Rosa Press Democrat. If he does run, he’ll be able to tout all the cash he brought to his Senate district this year.

His district was the recipient of more than two dozen earmarks totalling more than $100 million, accounting for a quarter of the earmark funds CalMatters identified. They went to fund a regional hospital, harbors, habitat projects, schools and fire stations. His district also received $250,000 for the farm-animal rescue.

State Sen. President Pro Tem Mike McGuire during a floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on April 24, 2025. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

His largest earmarks included $50 million in Prop. 4 funds for a redwood trail that’s to run 320 miles across his district.

McGuire’s office didn’t make him available for an interview. McGuire instead sent an emailed statement defending the earmarks.

“Our state’s budget includes smart, one-time investments across California,” McGuire said. “Many in our state have been working on these projects for years to make California safer, stronger and more resilient.”

Sen. Scott Wiener, the powerful Senate Budget Committee chairperson from San Francisco, is definitely running for higher office. Wiener announced last month he’s running for Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat.

The budget included at least $9 million in general fund earmarks benefiting the voters of San Francisco who will decide whether to send him to Washington, D.C. The money went for parks, restroom improvements and “to support the preservation and revitalization of a historic LGBTQ+ venue” in the city’s Castro neighborhood, according to the budget bill which doesn’t name the venue.

San Francisco is also slated to receive $1 million for a new oncology clinic and chemotherapy center for Chinese Hospital and $250,000 for “accessibility improvements” to Wah Mei child development center.

Wiener’s office didn’t respond to interview requests.

Lawmakers complained of earmarks

None of the earmarks have a lawmaker’s name on them, making it extremely difficult for members of the public — or even other lawmakers — to decipher whose they are and which districts benefited. The governor’s administration is responsible for some.

Legislative staff told CalMatters while reporting this story that earmark requests sent to budget committees aren’t public records.

CalMatters instead used the Digital Democracy database’s ‘Find your legislators’ tool to triangulate which pork projects are in which lawmakers’ districts from earmarks inserted into SB 105. That’s one of 40 budget-related bills Newsom signed this year.

There are almost certainly more earmarks buried in the other budget measures.

The secretive nature of earmarks — and the number and size of them this year — became a source of contention in September at the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee.

Some Democratic lawmakers complained that so many last-minute earmarks had popped up in the spending bills. They questioned whether the earmarks were being fairly distributed to communities with the most need.

“For the climate bond money, the general fund money, the Medi-Cal money, the Department of Education money, across the transit money, in almost every one, there is at least one — sometimes 40 — specific allocations,” Sacramento Sen. Christopher Cabaldon told the committee.

“The broader concern about equity and balance in those earmarks is certainly a point really well taken,” said Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat representing the El Segundo area.

Nonetheless, none of the 90 Democrats who control the Legislature voted against the budget this year, according to Digital Democracy.Newsom also signed it into law. His office didn’t respond to an interview request.

Susan Shelley of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association blasted the pork-project spending as hypocritical, especially as some liberal groups and lawmakers support raising taxes or turning to voters to pass new bonds to prop up the state’s shaky finances.

Politicians, she said, like to say, “‘We need money for everything in California.’ And what are they spending the money on now? Basically gifts to the districts that make the elected representatives look good and that are not essential or not as essential.”

Pork in Prop. 4

About $275 million in Prop. 4 funds also went to backfill the state’s general fund budget covering existing environmental, fire and energy programs and for expenses such as deferred maintenance at state parks.

Using bond funds to pay for existing expenses in the general fund means there’s less bond money available to pay for the new expenditures voters thought they were supporting. The separate bond earmarks from lawmakers reflect their priorities and may not necessarily be what voters wanted either. Some of the lawmakers’ earmarks include:

• $40 million to secure public access to a beach blocked off by the wealthy gated Hollister Ranch community in Santa Barbara County and for a separate dam-removal project. Both projects are in the district of Sen. Monique Limón, who is replacing McGuire as the Senate Democratic leader next year. She shares a district with a handful of assemblymembers who may have sought the earmarks.
• Limón’s district also received $1 million for a museum in Santa Barbara “for an interactive water exhibit.” Limón replied to an interview request with an email from her spokesperson, Christina Montoya. “While the senator was not involved in Prop. 4 allocations,” Montoya said, “she is glad to see projects funded that advance the goals of the state.”
• $1 million went to the UC Davis Integrative Center for Alternative Meat and Protein, primarily at the request of San Jose Assemblymember Ash Kalra. UC Davis isn’t in Kalra’s district, but he’s a vegan and the chair of the Assembly Select Committee On Alternative Protein Innovation.
• The $15 million earmark “for geologic heritage sites” including the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles was from Democratic Assemblymember Isaac Bryan. His office didn’t make him available for an interview.

Taxpayers will pay at least $6 billion in interest and other expenses to finance Prop. 4 over the next four decades.

Using Prop. 4 to pay farmers

An example of how earmarks lock up Prop. 4 funds can be found in this year’s budget for the Wildlife Conservation Board. The $10 billion bond is supposed to provide $1 billion for the board to give out as grants in the coming years. The board uses a competitive process that prioritizes habitat project proposals to provide the most ecological benefits for California.

This year, the Legislature gave the board $339 million in Prop. 4 money to spend. But about a quarter of it — $88 million — is going to projects the board must now fund because of lawmakers’ earmarks.

Gregg Hart, a Santa Barbara Democratic assemblymember, got one of the biggest earmarks from the board’s funds — $16 million for a conservation easement on Rancho San Julian, a 13,000-acre private ranch in his district. Conservation easements are legal agreements that ensure private lands don’t get sold and turned into environmentally unfriendly developments.

In an interview, Hart said preserving the ranch’s habitat in perpetuity is in line with what voters intended when they voted for Prop. 4.

Assemblymember Gregg Hart speaks during a committee hearing on petroleum and gasoline supply on Sept. 18, 2024. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

“In my district, this is a signature ranch that is an environmental gem,” Hart said. “And preserving that is a very high-value project.”

The conservation board also must allocate $10 million in Prop. 4 earmarks to programs that will pay farmers and private wetland landowners in the Central Valley to flood their fields to provide habitat for waterbirds.

Central Valley farmers already have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal crop subsidies over the decades.

The flooded-field earmarks came from Democratic Sen. Jerry McNerney, who represents the Stockton area, and Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry representing the Davis area.

In an emailed statement, McNerney called the $10 million expenditure a “win-win for farmers and for wetlands … ensuring that migratory birds have places to rest and refuel on their long journey on the Pacific Flyway.”

The total number of earmarks relying on Prop. 4 funds has Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones of San Diego saying, “I told you so.” He urged voters to reject the bond last year.

“It was going to be pork,” he said. “It was going to be earmarked projects that the legislators are going to be able to move …. into things that really didn’t have anything to do with the story that was being told to the voters when they voted.”

Jones’ district was the recipient of some pork, though he said he made no requests for Prop. 4 money. His earmarks were from the general fund. They include $1.4 million for San Diego County dam repairs and $615,000 to the San Diego Mountain Biking Association “for building and maintaining public trails for mountain biking.”

‘What did we get?’ from the general fund

Other notable earmarks from general fund dollars, separate from the climate bond, include large one-time allocations for projects to benefit the state’s Jewish community. The Legislature has an 18-member Jewish Caucus.The funds include $15 million for the Museum of Tolerance and the Holocaust Memorial in Los Angeles as well as $5.4 million for the Jewish Community Center of the East Bay.

An earmark for $2.5 million also went “for security and other infrastructure” at Milken Community School East Campus, a private Los Angeles Jewish school with annual tuition of nearly $55,000.

The school is in Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel’s and Sen. Henry Stern’s districts. Stern’s office said the earmark for the private school wasn’t his. Gabriel co-chairs the Legislative Jewish Caucus with Wiener. Gabriel also oversees the Assembly Budget Committee. He didn’t return messages. Neither did the school.Gabriel this week attended a check-passing ceremony at the Discovery Cube in Los Angeles. He and two other local lawmakers touted getting the children’s museum a $5 million earmark from Prop. 4 funds.

Other earmarks using general fund money included at least $1.7 million for trail improvements and an urban garden in Democratic Sen. Catherine Blakespear’s wealthy coastal district, as well as $3.6 million for the Oceanside Museum of Art.

Blakespear responded to an interview request with an emailed statement.

“I’m grateful that these impactful community projects were funded through the state’s general fund,” she said. “I know they will provide immense value to these communities and their residents and are deserving of funding.”

She announced this week she would be appearing at a check-passing ceremony for one of her earmarks: $1.2 million to the city of Mission Viejo for the Oso Creek Trail Improvement Project.

Former Stockton-area Democratic state Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman said such earmarks are hardly surprising. She was proud to bring back to her district $10 million in her last term to reopen two dilapidated community swimming pools.

“I mean, that is fantastic for my district,” she said.

But she acknowledged it is a lot harder for lawmakers to justify those sorts of expenses when there are so many of them in a difficult budget year.

“I think you either hope that (people) won’t find out, or they see what stuff they’re getting, and they’re like, ‘Oh, all right, well, as long as we got ours,’ right?” she said. “What people are more concerned about is equity. ‘What did we get?’”

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When Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill last month that would have supported sober homeless housing, his reason left many scratching their heads.

Newsom said Assembly Bill 255, which would have allowed cities to use up to 10% of their state funds to pay for “recovery housing,” was unnecessary. That’s because using state funds for sober housing is already allowed, the governor said. He said “recent guidance” makes that clear.

That was a big surprise to Assemblymember Matt Haney, who had spent the past two years working on the bill Newsom was now saying had been moot all along. Haney had been under the impression that California’s “housing first” rule — which dictates that homelessness programs offer housing to people regardless of their sobriety, mental health, employment, etc. — meant sober housing wasn’t eligible for state funds.

When CalMatters asked about the “recent guidance” that allows the state to fund sober housing, the governor’s office sent a link to a 20-page document. No one CalMatters spoke to had ever seen that document before. Neither had Haney, anyone in his office, or the other stakeholders involved in his bill, including the service providers trying to build more sober housing, he said.

While the document was dated July, 2025, it wasn’t published online until Oct. 2 — the day after Newsom’s veto.

“I think it’s a terrible bureaucratic failure,” Haney said of the lack of communication. Having the state and the Legislature work together, rather than on separate parallel policies, would have saved everyone time and resources, he said.

“Why didn’t anybody say anything over the course of two years,” Haney asked, “not just to me, but to the cities, counties and providers who desperately wanted to open these beds?”

The California Interagency Council on Homelessness, which has been working on the document since late 2024, put the blame on Haney’s office for not reaching out. A preliminary draft was publicly available earlier this year as part of a February council meeting, said Executive Officer Meghan Marshall.

The new sober housing guidelines come at a time when the state is facing political pressure from some facets to shift its approach to homeless housing – both to embrace drug-free housing and to turn at least some of its focus from permanent housing that accepts everyone to temporary shelter that may come with strings attached.

A group of legislators, city housing staffers and nonprofits recently took a trip to San Antonio, Texas to tour a massive homeless shelter there, and returned with ideas on how to beef up California’s shelter capacity — which some on the trip say has been neglected as a casualty of California’s strict preference for long-term housing. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has signalled that it will shift federal money away from permanent housing and into temporary shelter, while also imposing conditions such as sobriety. California might have to get on board with that agenda, or risk losing federal funds.

While few California Democrats are supportive of anything Trump does, the continued prevalence of encampments on the streets has convinced some that the state should change its tactics.

“We need to break the logjam of the dogma that says that only permanent housing is acceptable,” said Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas. “Because what we’re de facto saying is that people are going to stay on the streets until we’ve built enough permanent housing or market-rate housing, and neither is on track to meet the need anywhere in the near term.”

But that push has some service providers worried that, in an environment where homelessness funding keeps getting cut, focusing on sober housing and temporary housing will mean less money for the permanent housing that ends people’s homelessness.

“The current trend shifts away from solving the actual lack of a home and focuses on some people’s associated issues,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination Home.

The debate over sober, temporary, or permanent housing doesn’t address the underlying income inequality that causes many Californians to lose housing in the first place and prevents their being able to afford housing afterward.

The deal with sober housing

California has required state-funded homeless housing be “housing first” since 2016, meaning it gets people into a permanent home as quickly as possible without forcing them to jump through additional hoops. The idea is that once someone is safely housed, it becomes much easier for them to get sober, find a job or take care of other issues.

Haney argues the model prevented the state from funding sober housing, which he said could be lifesaving for people who are overcoming an addiction and don’t want to live next to neighbors using drugs.

The new state guidance says sober housing can be housing first, if it’s done right. It must be the client’s choice to get sober and live in recovery housing, and they must have other local options that don’t require sobriety. In addition, sober housing providers can’t evict someone for relapsing. If a client decides they no longer want to live in sober housing, the provider must connect them to another housing option.

The guidance is more permissive than Haney’s bill. While the bill would have capped state funding on sober housing at 10%, the state guidance has no limit. But Haney worries it’s too strict in other ways. If housing providers can’t evict someone for using drugs or alcohol, they can’t run effective sober housing, Haney said.

“There are some questions as to whether anyone is actually going to step up and do this under the guidelines as written,” he said.

The state guidelines come with no money to open new sober housing beds.

Without extra funding, as more money goes to sober housing, that means less money for low-barrier housing, said Loving, who worries that shift will move the state backward. Sober housing and drug testing were the norm in the 1980s and 1990s, but people still overdosed in those environments, she said.

“Drugs were always present, even in sober living environments,” Loving said. “And that did not increase our housing outcomes. What increased our housing outcomes was the availability of actual houses for people to transition into.”

Temporary or permanent housing?

Several dozen California legislators, city housing workers and nonprofit providers traveled to Texas last month to visit a massive homeless shelter in San Antonio. Haven for Hope fits about 1,500 people on one 22-acre campus — meaning that almost anyone in the city who wants to can sleep indoors. Most of those people are required to stay sober in order to keep their spot, and healthcare, counseling and other services are offered on site.

That program is a sharp contrast from the “discouraging results” of California’s homelessness strategy, said Sen. Dave Cortese, a Democrat from San Jose who went on the trip. He’s frustrated with what he sees as California’s neglect of temporary shelter. New programs such as Newsom’s Homekey only fund permanent housing. So did the Measure A affordable housing bond in Santa Clara County.

Long-term housing is the only way to resolve someone’s homelessness, which is why it has been the gold standard in the state. But it can take years to build, and voters aren’t always patient.

“If you push all your chips to the middle of the table on permanent supportive housing, you start to lose your constituency because constituents are coming by in their cars every day and seeing more tents and more illegal encampments,” Cortese said. “And their thought process is, ‘I thought we just put a billion dollars into eradicating homelessness. What’s going on? Why is it getting worse?’”

Land is scarce and expensive in California, which would make it hard to replicate a shelter as large as Haven for Hope. But city staff in San Jose are looking into whether some version of it can be done there, said Housing Director Erik Soliván, who was on the Texas trip.

While it may seem unusual for the Golden State to look to Texas in search of advice on social services, Californians have been awed by Haven for Hope for years. CalMatters wrote about the phenomenon in 2023.

The Texas shelter has made some changes since then. About 1,600 people slept in the shelter in 2023, and the facility served 85% of the city’s homeless population.

But even that giant facility couldn’t hold everyone. The space was overcrowded, with hundreds of people sleeping on the floor on mats inches apart. Haven for Hope had to pause enrollments and put new rules in place to limit who can come in. In the last fiscal year, the population was down to an average of 1,453 people per night. About 60% of those are in a program that regularly conducts drug and breathalyzer tests.

California will have to do more to embrace that style of shelter if it doesn’t want to get left behind by the federal administration, said Elizabeth Funk, founder and CEO of shelter provider DignityMoves, who went on the Texas trip.

The Trump administration appears poised to divert money away from permanent housing and into temporary housing that comes with sobriety and other requirements. But we won’t know the extent of that change until the government shutdown ends.

“The federal government is going to come down with a bunch of money for things that don’t allow drug use,” Funk said, “and that needs to fit in our system.”

Susan Lee Wilson, age 79, died peacefully in Eureka, surrounded by loved ones on Thursday, August 28, 2025. She was born on May 31, 1946, as Susan Lee Hicks in Boston, Mass.

Susan is survived by her sister and brother, her three children and her seven grandchildren. She loved being a mother and a grandmother. 

Susan was in the first graduating class of Goldenwest College in Huntington Beach. So very curious about the world, she later attended Chapman College Afloat, sailing to many countries. She fell in love with Northern California and the redwoods while attending Humboldt State University and graduated with a master’s degree in psychology. She knew Humboldt County was the place where she wanted to settle down and have a family.  

She lived in Humboldt County for over 45 years. 

During her youth, she was sent on some high-profile assignments by various companies she worked for. She once worked in Washington DC and wrote a speech about environmental protections for the president. She also worked for JPL and lived in Iran during the fall of the shah. 

She was an avid cinephile, with movies sparking her interest in many different cultures throughout her life. She would become completely infatuated, learning all the wonderful intricacies of these cultures and sharing the newly found knowledge with so much joy. For a time, it was Egypt with the pharaohs and hieroglyphics (she even learned what the hieroglyphics meant). Then it was Italy, followed by her most prolific obsession, India. 

She had such a fierce adoration of Bollywood movies that it led to her not only traveling across India but also writing a Bollywood screenplay of her own! Written in Stone was her passion project, a story about scientists in India who make a huge discovery. It includes everything she loved about the movies she watched: romance, dance, music, science, and a dash of the supernatural. 

One could say that all the things she loved about the movies she watched was an extension of her parents’ interests. Susan had a love of the night sky and science in general, learned from her father, Gordon Hicks. She also had an encyclopedic knowledge of song lyrics, inspired by her mother and song writer Gloria Chadbourne Hicks, who also loved musicals herself. 

She worked as a registered hypnotherapist, administrator of the senior center and an ordained minister, performing many wedding ceremonies in Humboldt County. Even her jobs spoke to her interests! 

In her retirement and most recently, she went on many RV adventures with her beloved companion of several years, Eric Van Duzer, the biggest one being a yearlong, cross country road trip where she experienced Mardi Gras, visited her childhood haunts, and read Grisham novels aloud with her sweetie along the way. 

Susan believed that there is a spirit world that recycles the life energy of those who pass. So, it is fitting that her final wish was for her ashes to be spread by her family on the Mad River, a summer vacation spot she enjoyed going to with her children throughout her life and a peaceful place where she can rest as one with nature and the world.

We lost a very special lady on October 12, 2025. Helny Younger of Ferndale left this world peacefully in her sleep at age 99, just a few months shy of her birthday in early January.

She was born in Kardis, Sweden, 50 miles North of the Arctic circle on the Swedish side of the border with Finland. Her family consisted of 10 children and their parents, Karl and Hilja Waara. Her father supported the family as a customs and border patrol officer for Sweden, and was especially on the lookout for Finnish liquor smuggling. They also had a small farm with a couple of cows, chickens and grew vegetables to store for the long winters in their cellar.

Mom had her first taste of a foreign language when she went to elementary school and was required to learn Swedish. Her mother was Finnish and the family spoke Finnish at home. She also learned English and German at school.

She had to travel to a larger town at middle-school age, Haparanda, where she lived with a family and attended school. Unfortunately the family had contracted T.B. and she got it as well. One of the young girls in the family was Mom’s best friend and died from the disease, as did the rest of the family eventually. Her father Karl got her out of the home when he found out what was happening, but Helny was hospitalized for several years at a sanitarium for Tuberculosis patients. She said she learned some hard lessons about life there when she’d make friends and the disease would take them. She joked at home that all the X-rays that she had should make her glow in the dark!

Eventually she got the OK to leave and got a job in Stockholm and lived in a small apartment with some of her brothers and sisters in the Swedish capital,where she worked processing immigrants into the country as WWII had ended and many people were looking for a new home, as theirs had been destroyed by war.

Her older sister Margit had moved to the US, met an American and married. They sponsored her to come to America. She was determined to have transportation so had her bicycle shipped for a hefty fee and a lot of “who would do that” comments when it was spotted in the ship’s hold. She kept quiet.

Her first job in America was at Macy’s basement in New York City. When asked where something was located and she didn’t know she simply sent them to the top floor of the building. This usually worked, but when it didn’t she said she hid in the back room away from the angry customer.

After a couple of jobs in New York City she decided she wanted to travel across the country to meet a cousin in Eureka, so she took the train against the objections of her sister’s husband and made it safely to Eureka.

She got a job working in an office as a secretary for an engineer at Simpson Timber Company.

People were continually setting her up on blind dates and she met her first husband on one, Jim Albert of Ferndale. Jim was a partner in the small Ford dealership in Ferndale and the joke was that he was an oil man — automobile oil, that is. Her first reaction was that he wasn’t her type. After many dates later that changed and she decided to marry Jim. They had two children together, Wesley and Anita. When Jim became ill with heart disease he pushed her to attend College of the Redwoods and took some classes himself. She graduated with an AA in German.

She continued her education at Humboldt State University, when that was its name, taught English as a second language in the evenings, and earned her Masters degree.

She worked for many years teaching ESL — English As A Second Language — at Humboldt State to students from around the world.

After retirement from Humboldt State’s ESL program she spent several years traveling with her daughter, Anita and tending her large flower garden in Ferndale. She got interested in a new adventure at sixty-five years old and joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Bulgaria to teach English. In Bulgaria she met a retired shoe company executive, Don Younger, and came home with a second husband. They spent their time doing volunteer work with the Retired Executive Corps in Panama and Russia after the Soviet Union was dissolved, and Traveling around the country with their fifth wheel trailer.

Their happiness was cut short when Don contracted cancer and died relatively rapidly.

Mom could always be counted on when something was needed. She was famous for her Sunday breakfast of platter “Swedish Pancakes.” She also loved her flower garden and domestic and world travel.

She’ll be greatly missed by all who know her. She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law Wesley and Audrey Albert of Grants Pass, Oregon and grandson Mark Albert of Ferndale. She also has a brother Erling Waara in Kardis, Sweden. She had many nieces and nephews in Sweden and the U.S.

In lieu of flowers a memorial to Hospice of Humboldt, Doctors Without Borders, or a charity of your choice is suggested.

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