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Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies to clear homeless encampments from their properties last summer, holding up the California Department of Transportation as an example of how it should be done.

But in the more than nine months since, cities up and down the state have complained that Caltrans isn’t doing enough. City officials and staff say the state agency is slow, sometimes taking months to respond to their requests to clear an encampment. They complain the agency doesn’t consistently tell them when it plans to clear a camp. In at least one city, officials have no idea if Caltrans is offering services to the homeless people it kicks off its land.

And for the most part, city workers are barred from going onto Caltrans property to do the job themselves.

“The way it’s set up right now isn’t working,” said Jorgel Chavez, mayor of Bell Gardens — a city of nearly 40,000 on the outskirts of Los Angeles. “It’s too long. Folks are frustrated.”

A bill making its way through the Legislature seeks to change that by pushing Caltrans to better collaborate with cities. Senate Bill 569 would require the state agency to hire a liaison to communicate with local governments, and lay out timelines that make it clear when Caltrans should respond after a city asks it to clear an encampment.

The bill also would make it easier for cities to go onto Caltrans property and use their own resources and personnel to remove encampments and offer services. It would allow, but not require, Caltrans to reimburse cities for those efforts.

Caltrans refused an interview request and did not respond to emailed questions about its process for working with cities to clear encampments, or about the Senate bill. The agency hasn’t publicly endorsed or opposed the bill.

The bill comes amid a statewide push to remove homeless camps, and sometimes arrest the people in them, despite a widespread shortage of housing and shelters. Newsom on Monday urged cities and counties to adopt a model ordinance that would make camping in one place for more than three days illegal.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year found that cities can make it illegal to sleep outside in a public place, even if there is nowhere else for someone to go. Since then, more than two dozen California cities and counties have enacted new encampment bans, brought back old bans or made their ordinances more punitive.

As cities push unhoused people off their downtown sidewalks and out of their parks, people often resort to sleeping on Caltrans land — alongside highway on and off ramps, on medians or under overpasses. Sleeping so close to cars whizzing by carries its own risks, but it can buy them time, as Caltrans tends to take longer than cities to clear encampments.

Meanwhile, Caltrans is in the midst of a sometimes fraught transition from an agency tasked with building and maintaining highways to an agency increasingly also burdened with the difficult responsibility of humanely dismantling homeless encampments and helping unhoused residents access scarce shelter. In 2020, the agency agreed to pay $5.5 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it illegally destroyed the belongings of homeless people living on its land. Unhoused people and Caltrans workers have complained about cruel treatment and chaotic conditions during sweeps. A homeless woman was struck by machinery and killed during a Caltrans encampment sweep in Modesto in 2018.

The National Health Care for the Homeless Council has found encampment sweeps can have adverse effects on the health of displaced residents, put their safety at risk and undermine their efforts to get into housing.

Sen. Catherine Blakespear, the author of the Senate bill and a Democrat from Encinitas, said her goal is not to move unhoused people from one outdoor location to another, and that she recognizes the need to build more temporary and permanent housing — something her bill does not address. But having people living in public spaces, especially next to speeding traffic, is a “true disaster,” she said.

“I just wish Caltrans would handle the problems on their property,” she said. “But that’s not happening.”

‘We just keep swapping back and forth’

In July, Newsom signed an executive order requiring state agencies to adopt policies for clearing encampments on their properties — and held up Caltrans’ efforts as a model of success.

Since then, there has been a steady drumbeat of complaints from city leaders, said Caroline Grinder, community services legislative advocate for the League of California Cities. There’s no universal model for how Caltrans should involve city personnel when clearing a camp, so the process varies widely. Some cities say their relationship with the state agency is great.

“To other cities, it’s a real challenge to get Caltrans to respond, and they have a hard time working with them to address encampments,” Grinder said.

In a recent League of California Cities survey, 40% of cities said coordinating with state agencies was a barrier to addressing encampments. They said it’s the biggest hurdle they face, after a lack of services and a lack of funding.

A homeless encampment at the Figueroa St. Viaduct above Highway 110 in Elysian Valley Park in Los Angeles on Nov. 18, 2022. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

“This is up and down the state, in all different kinds of communities,” Grinder said.

CalMatters requested data from Caltrans on encampment removals in January, which the state agency has yet to provide.

Caltrans has funding for 30 “encampment coordinators” that manage camps along its roadways. Before removing a camp, Caltrans is supposed to warn occupants 48 hours in advance (unless the camp is deemed to pose an imminent threat to life, health, safety or infrastructure), according to the agency’s encampment policy. Once the sweep starts, people remaining at the camp are supposed to get “a reasonable amount of time” to remove their belongings, and Caltrans is supposed to store any personal items left behind. The policy also states that staff should contact service providers to request outreach at the encampment.

In San Diego, the largest, most visible encampments tend to be on Caltrans land, said Franklin Coopersmith, deputy director of San Diego’s Environmental Services Department and head of its Clean SD effort. The city receives more than 300 complaints each month about encampments on Caltrans land. City staff can’t address them, so instead, they tell residents to fill out an online form on Caltrans’ customer service webpage.

In San Jose, it can take weeks or months for Caltrans to remove an encampment. In some extreme cases, camps have lingered for a year or two, said Mayor Matt Mahan. After Caltrans clears a site, people return immediately, because they know the state agency won’t be back for three to six months, he said.

“The longer we allow people to remain encamped along the freeway or along an on and off ramp, the more the encampment becomes established and people come to the location and we get a significant accumulation of waste,” he said. It can cost between $50,000 and $100,000 to remove a long-standing encampment, he said.

San Jose has a staff of 40 outreach workers and experience preventing people from returning to encampments, Mahan said. It would be more efficient for everyone, he said, to let San Jose take over sweeps on Caltrans land and get reimbursed.

San Jose is negotiating an agreement with Caltrans that Mahan hopes will let the city clear certain encampments along on and off ramps in East San Jose.

Los Angeles reached a similar agreement with Caltrans last year.

Blackspear’s bill, which Mahan supports, would make it easier for other California cities to set up similar deals. It would require Caltrans to create a publicly accessible online database of these agreements (called delegated maintenance agreements) that other cities can use as a jumping-off point for negotiations.

Riverside has been trying to negotiate such a deal with Caltrans since September, said Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson. In the meantime, the city and the state agency aren’t always on the same page. Caltrans doesn’t consistently tell the city when it’s going to clear a camp, according to the mayor’s office, and the mayor’s staff doesn’t even know if Caltrans offers people services before forcing them off its property.

As a result, unhoused people bounce from Caltrans property, to city property, and back to Caltrans property without getting off the street, Lock Dawson said.

“We just keep swapping back and forth and it’s really inefficient,” she said.

Riverside has submitted more than 70 requests for encampment removals on Caltrans property so far this year, according to the mayor’s office. It generally takes between two days and two weeks for the state agency to clear those camps.

Caltrans spent more than $51 million addressing encampments in the 2023-24 fiscal year, according to an analysis of Blackspear’s bill by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

If the bill passes, Caltrans told the committee it would cost about $200,000 per year to hire the “liaison” tasked with overseeing communication between the state agency and local governments. If the agency reimburses cities and counties for clearing encampments, those costs could balloon into the tens of millions of dollars annually, according to the committee’s cost analysis.

The reimbursement proposal has been popular among city officials and staff.

“Outreach is not cheap,” said Coopersmith, of San Diego. His city spends about $675,000 per year on four outreach workers who have permission to go onto Caltrans land and offer shelter (if it’s available) and other services before encampment sweeps.

“Placement is not cheap,” he said. “Police, encampment disposal, all of this costs money. We also need to ensure that if we’re working on any type of state property, we want to make sure that we’re compensated for it.”

Sally Linda Goetz
January 9, 1948 to May 10, 2025

I’ve never known, and probably never will know, someone with a bigger heart, a more positive attitude, or a better smile than Sally Goetz. I actually knew Sally before the rest of my family. I met her when I was taking flying instruction and lessons from her then-husband at College of the Redwoods and Murray Field. Sally was with us during my Mom’s (Katherine Goetz - Kathy) illness and subsequent death in 1987, and during that time whenever it was a tough day, Sally always made us feel better with her positive and sunny attitude, her hugs, and her broad shoulders to cry on. One day not long before Mom passed, I still remember her admonishing Sally and me to behave because we were being “punny” and Mom was trying to “get things done.” That attitude, that smile, that love, has been a huge part of my life since then (and the puns), and I know she shared all of herself with everyone else she met.

Sally was born on January 9, 1948, in Pine Falls, Manitoba, Canada, to Cliff and Nan Richmond. Sally’s brother Phil was born in 1950, and she said one of her fondest memories was when they brought her baby brother home from the hospital. For the first six years of her life, she lived “way out in the boonies” in Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, Canada (she called it “Lake of the Hat”), on the Winnepeg river. She remembered they had wood heat, no electricity or running water, and used an outhouse (knowing she had an outhouse for the first years of her life may explain some fascinations she had with…well, bathroom outcomes…too much?). There was a short trail through the woods to her grandparents’ cottage, and the woods were her playground. Sally said she had no fear of the animals in the woods, including bears, because she thought they were just big dogs.

The family (including her grandparents) moved to Kaslow, British Columbia (BC) in 1954, where Sally started school. They then moved to Chilliwack, BC in the Fraiser Valley, where she spent the rest of her time growing up. One of Sally’s fondest memories when she started first grade was their English Setter, Mickey, would often follow her to school. The teacher would let Mickey stay in the classroom, and he’d go out to play with the kids at recess.

Sally graduated from high school in 1966 and soon moved to Winnepeg to live with her Aunt Sadie Mossman and attended vocational school and worked for the Canadian government, before moving to Vancouver.

In 1972, Sally immigrated to San Franciso, and worked in the private sector for a couple of years before working for the cities of Stockton and Visalia as a secretary. She then moved to Eureka in 1980, working at College of the Redwoods for four years, and in 1984, she began her career with the City of Eureka, starting in the Personnel department as a secretary. She was soon promoted to the City Attorney’s office, then the City Manager’s office, and in 1988 she was appointed City Clerk.

I really wasn’t surprised when Sally and Bill (my Dad) fell in love. They snuck off to Reno, Nevada, and on March 17, 1989, they were married. I lovingly refer to her as my EWSM (Evil Wicked Step Monster) because she is anything but evil, wicked, or a monster! Sally always said Bill was the love of her life, and she loved, and was loved by my Dad for more than 27 years, and during his last stay at Granada Healthcare beginning in 2013, and for many, many years before, she was at his side almost every single day until his passing in 2015. Sally and I have laughed and cried, and made really tough decisions together over the years, and I’m grateful to her for all she did for my Dad and all she’d been to him: friend, wife, caregiver, lover. And for me, Sally and I always said she never took the place of my mom, but she filled the space, and I’m so privileged and grateful to have known and loved her, and been loved by her, for all these years.

Sally took an early retirement from the City of Eureka in 1993 so she and Bill could spend more time together. She started a transcription service, North Coast Business Services, which she operated until 2010, when she became a caregiver for Dad.

After her retirement, she and Bill did a lot of airplane camping with friends and family to places like the Alvord Desert in Oregon, and the Frank Church Wilderness area in Idaho. Or, they’d fly to Gold Beach, Oregon, for breakfast, or to Ruth Lake, or to visit family in the Rogue Valley in Oregon, or land on a river bar and just have a picnic. When Bill quit flying planes, he bought and rebuilt speeders (railroad crew cars) and Sally and Bill had many adventures riding the rails from Willits to Fort Bragg, and various other speeder runs in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia.

After Bill passed, Sally moved to Humboldt Hill in 2017, and she lived there until April 2024, when she chose to move to Granada Rehabilitation and Wellness Center. At Granada, Sally visited with all the other Granada residents, and knew ALL of the staff, many of whom had worked at Granada when Bill was there. She played Bingo several times a week so she could stock up her treat drawer with the candy and cookies she won, and she had also recently taken on the job of President of the Resident’s Council.

Sally was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1973, and she always said, instead of being challenged, she celebrated all her years with MS (all 52 of them!). She also had recently been diagnosed with diabetes and was meeting the challenges that came with that diagnosis like she did any challenge – celebrating it head on!

Sally was a Christian all her life, and hosted a regular bible study each month in her home on Humboldt Hill, including baking yummy snacks. Sally loved to bake, and she made the best muffins, cookies, and cakes for everybody – family, friends, neighbors, the UPS driver, and the guys from Century Mobile Homes who worked on her house when she moved to Humboldt Hill.

Sally passed away peacefully in the early morning hours of Saturday, May 10, 2025, at the age of 77. Sally was preceded in death by her parents, Nan and Cliff Richmond, Aunt Sadie Mossman, husband William F. Goetz III, sister-in-law Lori Richmond, father-in-law Roland Stockhoff, and dear, dear friends Kathy Goetz, Rodney and Barbara Angell-Baker, Kathy Pearl, Lucky Reed, her kitties Buster and Winnie, and many other aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Sally is survived by her brother Phillip and wife Maureen Richmond, daughters Kristen Goetz (me) and Melissa Smith, and family-by-choice: Carl and Erzsi Willoughby, Suzie and Harold Reed, Teresa Pearl, Sanna Fase, John and Paula Burton, Sue and Jim Wilson, Jen and Richard Lanham, Rebecca Angell-Baker (Paul Lightowler), Vicky Angell, and her cat Ben (now lovingly cared for by the Willoughby’s).

Sally is also survived by her grandchildren and grandchildren-by-choice: Nora Glasner, Kane Smith, Darianne Smith, Jessica (Scott) Debrick, Heather (Logan) Hill, Krysteena (Josh) Gomez, Savannah Reed, Zach Reed, Grace Pearl, Jennie (Justin) Rogers, and Dylan Wilson.

Her great grand- and god-children and great-grand- and god-children-by-choice: Cody Kruger, Austynn Kruger, Easton Debrick, Wesley Hill, Aria Reed, Manolo Gomez, Violet Angell, Evan Gibbs, Alysia Hayes, Jaydee Rogers, and Ferne Rogers.

She also leaves behind long-time friends/family: William and Laura Glasner, Janne Gibbs, Dianne Reed, Chet and Sandra Dee Williams, Chuck Pearl, John and Cindy Slater, Lou and Noelle Marak, Marc Matteoli, William Honsal Sr., her friends and neighbors at Sea View Mobile Estates, Granada roommate Nancy Loring, and the entire staff at Granada who cared for her for the last year+ and became loving family. If I tried to list you all I know I’d forget someone, so please just know that Sally loved and appreciated each and every one of you, and I am grateful for the part each of you played in helping her over this last year. I’m also sure I’ve forgotten one (or more) other friends/family, but know that if she knew you, you were special to her.

Sally requested there be no funeral services, and her remains are being cremated and will be scattered per her wishes. Sally really didn’t have a favorite charity, but if you wanted to do something, I’m sure she’d appreciate a donation to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (www.nationalmssociety.org). Or, have a pizza - her most recent favorite food. Or, plant some flowers, or take flowers to a resident or patient in a nursing or care home and spend a little time visiting. And please, when you hear birds chirping, and see the flowers blooming, think of Sally.

Sally had a huge heart, and a unique ability to make each of us feel special. Remember how that made you feel and carry it with you. I know her passing has left a huge hole in our world, and in all our hearts. She is loved and will be missed - always. And on a personal note from me, 143-CYH, and thanks for being my EWSM.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Sally Goetz’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Susan Bornstein died peacefully at the Ida Emmerson Hospice House in Eureka on May 5, 2025, at the age of 78.

She was born in Denver, Colorado on December 1, 1946, to Emanuel and Ann Bornstein. A few years later, the family, including Susan’s older sister Debrah, moved to Kansas City, Missouri where she grew up and graduated high school in 1964. During that period she discovered her love for and talent in the visual arts.

In 1969 she received her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis. After moving to Boston she earned a teaching credential in art education from Boston University and taught art in middle schools for two years in the Boston area. In 1975 she moved to Baltimore with her partner, Charles Chamberlin, and began studying at The Maryland Institute College of Art and working in the Goucher College art department. She completed her MFA in 1979 and started work at The Maryland Institute, supervising student art teachers in local schools.

Susan and Charles purchased a Baltimore row house together in 1978. Two years later they married, and the following year Susan gave birth to her daughter Sarah. In 1983, she moved with her family to Arcata for her husband to join the faculty of the then Humboldt State University. In 1985, Susan gave birth to her son Matthew, completing her family.

For over 55 years, Susan worked as a professional artist and art teacher in the Midwest and on both coasts. Since moving to Arcata, she showed her work in solo and group exhibits throughout Northern California, and her paintings are owned by private collectors throughout the United States. While she was a printmaker, she was active in the Ink People, finding a welcoming and vibrant art community there, and enjoying working with Inkers, including Brenda Tuxford and Libby Maynard. In 2003 she was one of the founding members of Arcata Artisans, a collective of artists who created a cooperative gallery in Arcata, where she remained active until her cancer forced her to step back. In 2008, Susan moved her studio from Eureka to the StewArt Studios in Arcata, joining a group of artists who share the basement of the old Stewart School and enjoying the community of artists there. She shared a studio with Patricia Sennett.

When Susan arrived in Arcata, her primary medium was printmaking and specifically monotypes, often with the addition of oil pastels and/or colored pencils. That evolved into painting directly on paper.

Susan said her work was based on what she saw in her own neighborhood, the gardens and yards of friends or other immediate and familiar locations. She took great pleasure in finding unexpected combinations of colors, textures, and shapes in her everyday experience of the world. She said that the artist’s role is to notice, to take the time to see, to feel, and to respond and that the ordinary experience can become something new and unique when processed through the artist’s sensibilities.

Susan wrote, “My art is interpretive rather than representational. I am pleased when my work evokes the feel or sense of a particular place, but I am not interested in rendering or documenting. What interests me is jumping off from that initial real place or point of departure and getting involved in the subjective, personal and expressive process of making art. Color is, perhaps, the most important expressive tool in my visual vocabulary.”

“Although landscape is the point of departure for my art, the real subject of my work is the process of finding a balance - a balance of color against color, shape against shape, mark against mark - and doing this with a personal gesture and energy.”

For her entire adult life, Susan was active both as a working artist and as a teacher of art. Her teaching experience ranged from working with the elderly, instructing college-level studio courses, teaching art in public junior high school, and doing hands-on printmaking presentations to kindergartners. She served as a guest artist under the California Arts Council Artists in Residence Program on three occasions (1989, 1990, 1991) at three different school sites. She also gave printmaking and mixed media presentations to adult artists and several other school groups including her own learning-handicapped daughter’s special education class.

She also served in the Artists in Schools program. She felt it offered a unique opportunity for her to interact with school-aged children in a mutually rewarding and enriching way. It was an opportunity for her to share with them her life as a working artist in their community, to share her artistic process and her personal way of looking at the familiar, immediate environment which we have in common. She felt that the students gave back to her their unique observations, their energy and excitement as they seek out their own personal images and solutions.

Susan is preceded in death by her parents Ann and Emanuel Bornstein and her younger sister Judy. She is survived by her husband Charles Chamberlin of Arcata, her daughter Sarah Chamberlin of Arcata, her son Matthew Chamberlin of Glendale, her sister Debrah Bokowski and brother-in-law Gary Bokowski of Portland, Oregon, and her nephew Aaron Bokowski of Portland, Oregon.

There will be a celebration of Susan’s life this summer.

In lieu of flowers, please spend time enjoying the artwork on your walls, in galleries, in museums, and in artists’ studios. If you find art that gives you joy, please buy it, if you can, and help support the artists. If you feel the urge to donate, please consider supporting the Ink People.

Farewell Susan. We will remember and miss your laugh, your smile and the joy you brought into every room. We will enjoy your art forever.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Susan Bornstein’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Rosa Juana Hernandez
October 1, 1953 – April 16, 2025

Rosa Juana Hernandez was born on October 1, 1953, in Arcata to her loving parents Josephine and Juan Hernandez. She grew up in McKinleyville and later made her home in Eureka, where she spent most of her adult life.

Rosa devoted many years to working in her family’s Mexican restaurants—first at Mona’s Café, then La Paloma’s, and finally Luna’s. In her 30s, she took a cake decorating class that sparked a lifelong passion. Self-taught and exceptionally talented, Rosa created beautiful wedding cakes for friends and family throughout the years.

Her compassion extended beyond the kitchen; Rosa had a gift for caregiving and spent many years working with the elderly, offering kindness and support. She was a devoted member of the Eureka Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses and was deeply involved in community service and breast cancer charity work. Known for her generosity and spirit, Rosa was always the first to help plan a celebration or lend a hand where it was needed.

Rosa passed away peacefully on April 16th at St. Joseph Hospital, surrounded by her loving family.

She is survived by her daughter Mia Swarts; grandchildren Kevin Swarts and Alicia Riggs; sisters Linda Combs, Jessie Quijano, and Ruby Luna; brothers Manual Contreras, Art Hernandez, Nick Hernandez and John Hernandez; and many beloved nieces, nephews, and her large spiritual family in the Jehovah’s Witnesses community.

Rosa is preceded in death by her son Joshua Aven Blake; her parents, Juan and Josephine; her uncle Joe Rodriguez and aunt Sara Papageorge; brothers Johnny and George Contreras, Tony Hernandez; sisters Margaret Gentleman and Mary Hernandez; and her cherished nephews Curtis Combs and Raymond Hernandez.

A family celebration of Rosa’s life will be announced later this summer.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Rosa Juana Hernandez’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Press release from the Yurok Tribe:

The California Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP) recently announced that the Yurok Tribe was selected to receive a $26.4 million grant to build the urgently needed Yurok Tribal Health and Wellness Center.

James

“The Yurok Health and Wellness Center will significantly strengthen tribal and non-tribal communities in our rural region. More importantly, it will save lives,” said Joseph L. James, the Chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “On behalf of the Yurok Tribal Council and the Yurok Tribe, I thank California Governor Gavin Newsom for supporting this transformational project.”

Earlier today, California Governor Gavin Newsom, California Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Johnson, Director of the California Department of Health Care Services Michelle Baass, and mental health leaders participated in a press conference to announce the distribution of $3.3 billion for 124 behavioral health-related projects, including the Yurok Tribal Health and Wellness Center. Aiming to increase access to mental healthcare throughout the state, the funds will create more than 5,000 inpatient beds and 21,800 outpatient slots.

“This is the most exciting work that’s happening in the United States of America on mental health and substance abuse and behavioral health reforms. This is a really pivotal time in California’s mental health history,” said Governor Newsom.

The long-planned Yurok Health and Wellness Center will be comprised of a 24,000 square foot building with 53 beds, including 23 for men and 20 for women. The inpatient and outpatient facility will provide primary care, behavioral health and mental health services to Yurok Tribal members and the surrounding community. Offering culturally based and conventional treatment options, this integrated wellness model aims to address the physical, mental, and social health needs of local residents ranging from infants to the elderly.

“Our primary goal is to help people bring their lives back into balance,” said Yurok Vice Chairperson Rose Sylvia.

The Yurok Tribe is the largest federally recognized Tribe in California and it neighbors the second and third biggest tribal nations in the state. The Yurok Tribal Health and Wellness Center will be constructed near Martin’s Ferry Bridge on the Yurok Reservation. This location was selected based on its proximity to the three tribes.

Due to historical trauma, systemic inequities and many other complex factors, mental health issues, including substance use, are disproportionately prevalent in this rural area. However, there are extremely limited resources available to help community members confront these challenges. Those who are suffering from mental illness and/or addiction often must travel hundreds of miles to the Bay Area for treatment.

On the West Coast, the national opioid epidemic started in far Northern California, which includes Del Norte and Humboldt Counties. Per capita, these counties rank number 1 and 4 in the state for drug-involved overdose deaths. This area is also within the epicenter of California’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis. California has the fifth highest number of MMIP cases in the US. A majority of cases occur between San Francisco and the California/Oregon border. The perpetrators of MMIP-related offenses frequently target people who struggle with severe mental health issues and/or substance use disorder.

“By improving the health of the most vulnerable members of our community, the Yurok Tribal Health and Wellness Center will help us prevent future MMIP cases,” said Chairman James.

The Yurok Tribe has worked toward the goal of building a regional wellness center for more than 10 years. In 2022, the Tribe received $15 million from the state to fund a major part of the project. Shortly thereafter, the Tribe hired an administrator to continue developing the plans for the healthcare facility. The $26.4 million originated from the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Bond Act of 2024, which was authorized under California’s Proposition 1. The Tribe hopes to open the state-of-the-art Yurok Tribal Health and Wellness Center within three to five years.

In March 2024, California voters approved Proposition 1, a comprehensive initiative aimed at transforming the state’s behavioral health system. A central component of this measure is the infusion of up to $4.4 billion into BHCIP through the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Bond Act of 2024. This substantial investment positions BHCIP as a primary vehicle for expanding the state’s behavioral health infrastructure, including the development of treatment facilities.

Although Arcata has built enough housing to meet or exceed all of its new-housing goals for people making less than 120% of its median income, it’s way behind in building housing for households making more than that. 

Every eight years, California’s Department of Housing and Community Development gives local governments a number of housing units split up by income level that need to be constructed, called the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA). Arcata’s way over the threshold for people making 30-50% and 80-120% of the Area Median Income and just five units short for the households in between — but for households earning above that, only 104 out of 262 units have been constructed during this cycle. (If a household spends about 30% of its income on their housing, then it’s considered appropriate for their income level.)

It’s a complex problem caused by more than just one factor, said Arcata’s director of community development David Loya in an interview with the Outpost. There are geographical constraints: Arcata is already densely populated, and both the city and the community don’t have a desire to build out into farms and pastures or into the forest. There isn’t a lot of space left in town to build higher-end condos or houses either. 

But even if there was, it’s not cheap to develop it. To make building more housing worth it, the developers have to be able to turn a profit after buying the land and constructing the buildings. And those costs are only going up.

Additionally, much of the single-family housing stock in Arcata is being rented out. Loya said that although that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it indicates to him that there just hasn’t been enough rental housing built in the last few decades. Many owners of single-family homes have been renting them for decades at increasingly higher prices. 

Anecdotally, Loya said when he moved to Arcata in the late ‘90s, some parents of Humboldt State University students would buy houses and pay less on the mortgage than they would if their kids moved into the dorms. When they graduated, they had a money-making asset that returned more revenue than if they had simply put the money into the stock market. A lot of that housing has also deteriorated to the point where purchasing it isn’t an attractive proposition — and it costs more now than it ever has.

“Students are a captive audience,” Loya said. “They are coming here. They have to be here. They have to live here. They can’t live somewhere else and go to the university here. They have to live here. So you can continue to ask higher and higher rent prices for an asset that you don’t have to put much into.”

So Arcata is stuck with a bunch of old, expensive houses that aren’t owned by the people living in them and wouldn’t be easy to fix up even if someone did buy them, making it a much less attractive place to live for high-income professionals such as doctors and business owners who are an important part of keeping the community running. Loya said he knew administrators at Mad River Hospital who were struggling to attract doctors simply because there’s nowhere for them to live. 

Loya also pointed out that many Cal Poly Humboldt graduates can’t find a place to live after they graduate, leading to a brain drain and a dearth of innovative businesses.

“When I look back over the history of Arcata, in particular the last 70 years or so, we had a lot of interesting innovators,” Loya said, naming Moonstone outdoor gear, Yakima roof racks, and Wing Inflatables as a few examples. “There was space, housing; there were places to start a business. We’re starting to lose that. Because when people graduate, these innovative thinkers don’t have a place to land in this community. They’re taking their innovation, their smarts, their intelligence, all their experience and expertise, and exporting that somewhere else. So to me, [the lack of higher-end housing] has sort of hard-to-define follow-on consequences that really affect our overall economy and quality of life here.”

Though solutions to the problem won’t be coming any time soon, Loya is hopeful that the opening of CPH’s Hinarr Hu Moulik dorms will open up some housing for purchase. When housing associated with the Gateway Plan starts being built, retirees whose children have moved will also likely move from houses they’re not using much anymore and move into those condos. Some of those condos will also be higher-end. People will shuffle around when they have nicer options, leaving more housing available for redevelopment or for sale. 

But of course it’s extremely difficult to predict the future.

“It’s kind of like the difference between climate and weather,” Loya said. “You can’t predict the climate based on the weather today. And I feel like you know what’s happening in the rental market on a day-to-day basis doesn’t necessarily project into what the overall community need is.”

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom has a new strategy to eliminate the large, long-standing homeless encampments that have been a thorn in his side throughout his administration: Push cities to make them illegal.

The governor on Monday called on every local government in the state to adopt ordinances that restrict public camping “without delay.” He provided a hypothetical model ordinance that lays out exactly what he’d like to see banned: Camping in one place for more than three nights in a row, building semi-permanent structures such as make-shift shacks on public property, and blocking streets or sidewalks.

“There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets,” Newsom said in a statement. “Local leaders asked for resources — we delivered the largest state investment in history. They asked for legal clarity — the courts delivered. Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”

Newsom instructed cities and counties to copy his proposed ordinance or change it as they see fit. Though nothing about Newsom’s Monday missive would force cities to adopt this camping ordinance or any other, last year he threatened to withhold funding from local governments that don’t do enough to remove encampments.

Monday’s push comes with the promise of $3.3 billion to address street homelessness and mental health. That money comes from Proposition 1, a $6.4 billion bond that California voters approved in March to pay for treatment beds and permanent housing. Newsom and other state officials were expected to give more details Monday afternoon.

Newsom also warned cities that they should not prohibit camping at all times across the entire city if no shelter beds are available, and that they should “prioritize shelter and services.” He said cities should store belongings confiscated during encampment sweeps and give their owners a chance to claim them. He suggested cities give encampment residents a 48-hour warning before a sweep.

Newsom’s model ordinance would ban all camping — including sleeping with a sleeping bag or blanket — in one place for three days or nights in a row. Unless a city has enough shelter beds or affordable housing to offer their entire homeless population — which is almost never the case — that means people would be forced to pack up their belongings and move at least 200 feet every three days.

The National Health Care for the Homeless Council has found that encampment sweeps can damage residents’ health, sever their connections to services and set them back on their path toward housing.

Even in cities that have shelter beds available, going to a shelter often requires people to abandon their pets or belongings, or to go without their partner. A CalMatters investigation earlier this year found some shelters throughout California are plagued by violence, poor conditions and little oversight.

Newsom’s call to ban certain homeless encampments is the latest salvo in his ongoing fight against street camping. The push started last summer, after the U.S. Supreme Court in Grants Pass v. Johnson ruled that cities can make it illegal to camp on all public property, even if there is nowhere else for people to go. That decision overturned six years of legal protections for homeless residents in California and other western states, where cities effectively had to make sure shelter was available before cracking down on camps.

A month later, Newsom ordered state agencies to adopt policies to clear encampments on their property, and urged local governments to do the same. Since then, more than two dozen California cities and counties have passed new camping bans, resumed enforcing old bans or made existing ordinances more punitive.