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Press release from the City of Eureka: 

EUREKA, CA – Dishgamu Humboldt Community Land Trust and the City of Eureka invite the public to attend an upcoming community meeting to learn more about two affordable housing developments led by the Wiyot Tribe’s Dishgamu Humboldt Community Land Trust.

The meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, at 5:30 PM at Eureka City Hall, 2nd Floor Council Chambers (531 K Street), with a virtual participation option available via Zoom.

Register for Zoom option here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/P0ScEZHmRSin8tp4D9eEn

A Project Overview:

In July 2023, the Eureka City Council selected Dishgamu Humboldt to develop affordable housing on two City-owned parking lots located at: • 6th & L Streets (next to Eureka City Hall)

• 5th & D Streets (near the former Lloyd building site)

5th & D Street Site - This 41-unit multifamily development is designed for multigenerational households and young families. It will offer a mix of one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom apartments. The five-story building includes:

• An on-site daycare center

• Resident amenity spaces

• Architectural elements inspired by traditional Wiyot village structures

6th & L Street Site - This 52-unit multifamily project is designed to support independent elders, with a mix of studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units. The five-story building features:

• A ground-floor community dining hall with commercial kitchen for residents and community events

• An exterior community patio on the second floor to promote social connection

• 20 dedicated City Hall parking spaces in a ground-floor garage accessed from the alley

• Architectural elements inspired by traditional Wiyot village architecture

These projects represent a step forward in addressing housing needs in Eureka.Community members are encouraged to attend and learn about these important projects.

Learn more and join the conversation at:

https://talk.eurekaca.gov/affordable-housing-on-city-owned- lots/forum_topics/wiyot-tribe

For questions contact: Eureka Development Services Department at (707) 441-4160 or Planning@eurekaca.gov

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

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A new state bill would add more oversight to California homeless shelters after a CalMatters investigation exposed that many taxpayer-funded facilities are plagued by violence, mismanagement and low sucess rates.

The bill would build on an existing state law that was supposed to add basic checks on homeless shelter safety and sanitation. Previous CalMatters reporting found all but a handful of cities and counties have ignored the law.

Under the new proposal, local governments would be required to perform annual inspections of taxpayer-funded shelters, and cities and counties could lose state funding if they fail to correct code violations or keep neglecting to file mandatory reports. Shelter operators would also have to do more to inform residents of their rights to file complaints.

The oversight push comes amid a statewide boom in homeless shelters. California governments have spent at least $1 billion to more than double the state’s emergency shelter beds since 2018, federal data shows. The 61,000 beds aren’t nearly enough; the state still has three times as many homeless residents as shelter beds. Many of those who do get in also report serious problems: violence, filth, theft, mismanagement and a nagging lack of real housing to move onto.

“We’re really new in this field of operating shelters in California,” said Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, a Democrat who represents parts of Orange and L.A. counties. She authored both the initial state law and the new proposed changes. “Local municipalities need to be responsible for upholding basic standards of care, ensuring that shelters are safe, well managed and serving their intended purpose.”

Quirk-Silva first proposed more state shelter monitoring after a 2019 ACLU report revealed maggots, flooding and sexual harassment in Orange County shelters. Over the past year, CalMatters reviewed thousands of statewide shelter records, complaints, lawsuits and police logs that reveal lasting and more widespread issues, including stabbings, sex crimes, fraud allegations, staff stealing from homeless clients and shelters that kick out far more people than they house.

The existing state shelter law is supposed to require cities and counties to perform inspections and report to the state if they receive complaints about shelter conditions. But public records requested by CalMatters from the California Department of Housing and Community Development showed that, as of last summer, just nine of California’s more than 500 total cities and counties had filed the required reports.

“It was really some of your work that brought this issue of non-reporting to us,” Quirk-Silva said. “The numbers definitely showed that we had very little compliance.”

The new shelter bill, AB 750, is expected to be considered by the California State Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development in the coming weeks. While the housing agency said it is unable to comment on proposed legislation, Quirk-Silva said that more analysis is forthcoming on the resources that could be required to implement the changes.

What happens next will be significant for cities across the state, where officials have rushed to open new shelters in recent years as they ramp up street encampment clearings. Bunk bed-lined group shelters have existed in big cities since the 1980s, but communities across California are now hiring contract shelter operators to demonstrate that they’re offering alternatives to street crackdowns. The shelters are supposed to get people off the street, connect them to social services, then provide a bridge to permanent housing.

Still, statewide data obtained by CalMatters shows that fewer than 1 in 4 shelter residents move onto permanent housing. The majority keep cycling through tents, jails, hospitals and other short-term programs.

Some shelter operators and local governments say that the challenges are no surprise. The facilities are often manned by low-paid frontline workers who struggle to manage shifting budgets, scarce housing options and residents with drastically different needs — sober and addicted, healthy and severely ill, families and individuals, recently paroled and crime survivors, newly evicted and chronically homeless.

The new state shelter bill is limited in scope to focus on inspections and complaints related to building standards for public health and sanitation. Advocates say that could limit recourse for broader issues.

“This bill definitely does not at all address these other forms of abuse and malfeasance and sometimes crime,” said Eve Garrow, a senior policy analyst and advocate for the ACLU of Southern California who authored the 2019 Orange County shelter report. “We need other forms of accountability. It really is still the Wild West out there.”

Some places, including San Francisco and Monterey County, have created systems for outside groups to review shelter complaints after concerns about lacking follow up and residents facing retaliation for speaking up. Homelessness researchers also emphasize the potential of more specialized shelters to help people work through widely varied health, substance use or financial issues.

Longer term, housing experts question how the state is balancing immediate offerings like shelters with solutions to deliver lasting homes. Many favor increasing investment in subsidized housing or redirecting funds to rent assistance programs to quickly get people off the street or keep them from becoming homeless in the first place.

“We’re trying to make a broken system a little safer and cleaner,” Garrow said. “But we know that what people actually need is safe, permanent housing that they can afford.”

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Need help? Read our guide on how to file a shelter complaint or find legal resources.

Tell us your story. Help us continue reporting on shelter conditions by filling out our survey.

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NOTE: The following guest opinion was submitted by two staff members of the North Coast Growers Association, Harvest Hub Director Megan Kenney and Harvest Hub Coordinator Hailee Nolte.

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A bright spot in a bleak political hellscape has been the daffodils peaking through the soil and the daydreams of the Humboldt-grown produce sprouting in our farmers’ fields. (Looking at you, asparagus!) 

As a member of our fine Humboldt community, you probably have attended one or two (or maybe all nine) of the North Coast Growers’ Association’s Humboldt County Farmers’ Markets. Maybe it has become tradition to walk the Arcata Plaza on Saturday mornings carrying your woven baskets full of local goodies, or maybe you depend on Miranda’s local market to get your odds and ends during its season.

Either way, your farmers notice you shopping at their booths. They DEPEND on you supporting Humboldt’s working landscapes. Purchasing locally gives us all the opportunity to contribute to our local economy and the resiliency of our food system. Now more than ever we need to be uplifting our food system behind the redwood curtain. 

Why? The most recent federal funding slash targeted at small scale farms, from the USDA Local Food for Schools and Local Food Purchasing Assistance Programs, has sent schools, food banks, local tribes, and our farming advocates into action mode.

Humboldt and the North Coast have so many strong and collaboratively thinking individuals and businesses that, despite the chaos and uncertainty, we know that we can use our scrappiness to get through this together. We have come together to do some amazing things over the years, from the freeing of the Klamath River and returning prey-go-neesh to the skies to the measure banning GMO crops from being grown in Humboldt and passing of amnesty city ordinances. 

So, what action can we all take to continue to build the community and economy we want to see?

1. You can make a donation to Food for People’s Locally Delicious Farmer Fund. This funding multiplies through our community as it is spent: first to purchase food to feed our community, then to NCGA’s Harvest Hub to be able to continue connecting local farmers with wholesale buyers, and finally landing with our family farmers.

2. Support your local farmers. Eating local is a journey, not a destination, so don’t think that you need to switch all of your spending at once. What if you chose to buy just 1 item per week locally instead of from a supermarket? That store won’t notice the extra head of lettuce on their shelf, but you could make the day of a new farm by purchasing from them. Where can you find local food?

• You can buy locally grown products directly from farmers at the Arcata Plaza Farmers’ Market every Saturday (with more markets opening in communities across the county starting in May). NCGA markets accept EBT and offer a Market Match to help make local food more affordable. (You can call our local Department of Health and Human Services to find out how to apply for CalFresh/EBT if you think you qualify: 1-877-410-8809)
• You can order a Harvest Box, NCGA’s multi-farm CSA. These boxes are delivered straight to your door if you live in Trinidad, McKinleyville, Blue Lake, Arcata, or Eureka (Fortuna delivery coming soon!), cost $25, and EBT customers receive a Market Match which reduces the cost of the box to just $13.
• You can make a donation directly to NCGA to Support Food Access on the North Coast. You can tag your donation for a specific program like Harvest Hub or Farmers’ Markets, or provide a general donation that will go to the area most in need.

3. Have a school aged child? Harvest Hub works with so many amazing schools in Humboldt, Del Norte, and Trinity Counties. The nutrition directors and cafeteria staff work so hard to provide our kids with nutritious food (and did so well before the Local Food for Schools funding), so consider sending them a thank you note. Also, make sure to tell your school administrator that you appreciate their choice to provide high quality, local options for your children.

4. Reserve some extra space in your garden to grow local produce for those in need. Food for People has a gleaning program and will accept produce donations from gardens (which are tax deductible!). Hint: you can purchase locally cultivated plant starts at NCGA farmers’ markets, which can be purchased with EBT or Market Match.

Thanks Humboldt, keep it fresh!

—The Harvest Hub Team

harvesthub@northcoastgrowersassociation.org

UPDATE, 11:30 a.m.: Humboldt Bay Fire provided more information about last night’s fire confirming there were no injuries. They estimate the blaze caused about $120,000 in damage.

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Original Post: Multiple Humboldt Bay Fire engines have responded to Surfside Burger Shack on Fifth Street in Eureka to battle a fire inside. Witnesses at the scene report that crews seem to have the blaze under control and are now mopping up. 

The commotion caused the evacuation of those at Saturday night’s show at the Savage Henry Comedy Club — “The Roast of Nic Castagnola,” for what it’s worth — located two doors down. One attendee called in the fire to HBF. No one is believed to have been inside Surfside Burger Shack and no one at the comedy show was injured.

The following video was captured by LoCO colleague Gena Bernabe.

Fifth Street is currently closed between E and F streets. We will update if we hear more. 

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Maybe you’ve heard about biodiesel. Meet its cousin, “renewable diesel.” Made from oils and fats, supporters claim that it can simply replace diesel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Humboldt County is banking on renewable diesel to meet its climate obligations in its draft Regional Climate Action Plan. But is this too good to be true? Host Tom Wheeler and guest, Gary Hughes of the organization Biofuelwatch, explore these questions and to learn more about the concerns arising from the California pivot to high deforestation risk liquid biofuels.

• Biofuel Blunders by Oxfam. 
• Halt Deforestation Driving Biofuels Before It Is Too Late by Transport and Environment.
  
• The Global Fat Grab by Biofuelwatch.

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NOTE from the HUMBOLDT HISTORIAN: This article contains the text of a speech given by the author to the American Association of University Women at the Eureka Presbyterian Church on March 1, 1997. The AAUW had honored Kate Buchanan as “A Woman Making a Difference in Humboldt County” for its Women in History project.

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My sister Kate Buchanan died sixteen years ago. I am more than delighted and moved by your honoring her after all those years. Many in this room probably knew and remember Kate, but I’m sure more are present who did not know her — who only know the “Kate Buchanan Room.” I hope in these brief minutes to capture the essence of her personality, so that when you hear that name, you will feel acquainted with her.

Kate Buchanan with her brother Edgar Buchanan and Humboldt State College President Cornelius Siemens in June 1961. Photo via the Humboldt Historian.

Kate was born in Humansville, Missouri in 1904, joining a three year-old sister, now 95, and a two-year old brother, Edgar Buchanan, who became a character actor appearing in over 100 movies and several TV series before he died in 1979, two years before Kate. Kate and Edgar were always very close. Together they were a comedy team.

When she was 3, the family moved to Pleasanton, Kansas, and when she was 4, another sister arrived, pretty, sweet little Lova, who is now 88. Kate cared and played with her as if she were a doll. Eight years later, out west in Ashland, Oregon, I arrived, and Katie, now 12 years old, took me on as her new doll — and continued to mother and spoil me and my family until the day she died.

Kate always knew who she was. Even her baby pictures capture her strength. In grammar school and high school in Ashland, she and my brother were engrossed in theater, either putting on shows in the barn or attending movies, road shows, and programs in the great circular, dome-roofed, sawdust-floored Chatauqua building that now houses the outdoor Shakespeare theater in Ashland.

One play in the barn on a stage with a gunny sack curtain was attended by the neighbor ladies seated on apple boxes. As part of the action, my brother Edgar shot a gun. The frightened ladies fell off their boxes, and the red cow broke its rope and ran. From his upstairs dental office window my father saw his own cow running down Main Street.

Kate always had money that she earned. Our big yard was filled with cherry and almond trees. Each summer she picked cherries and took them to the train station to sell to the passengers. Edgar would say, “I’ll take you to the movies if you’ll buy the tickets.” In later years, she’d say, “Wasn’t I a fool to let him do that to me!”

One night the folks were gone for the evening, and Katie and Edgar enlisted my other sisters to stage a murder to frighten our parents when they came home. Kate was the victim, lying stretched on the hall floor with catsup for blood spilled on her back. A “bloody” butcher knife lay by her. Being three or four, I took the grisly affair seriously and to this day cannot eat catsup. When our parents came home. Mama walked right past Kate, saying “Get up, Katie, and clean that mess.” I guess the folks were used to their shenanigans.

Like George Washington, my first character lesson involved a cherry tree. While Kate was high in the tree, picking, I, probably four, had been told to fill my bucket with the ones that had dropped to the ground. I decided it would be easier and faster to fill my bucket with handfuls from Kate’s full buckets. She saw me, slithered down and roared, “That is called CHEATING, and don’t you EVER do that again.” I’ll never forget it. She could wither and dissolve you with her character lessons. She knew RIGHT from WRONG and throughout her life was fierce in her moral teachings to me, my sons and the hundreds of young people she directed.

Kate always knew her own mind. When she finished high school in Ashland, she told our father that now she knew everything there was to know, and she would not go with the family to Eugene, where we were moving so everyone could attend the University of Oregon. Instead, she wanted to teach — you could then with a high school diploma — and she did, in the one-room. Green Springs Mountain school for one year. She lived with a farm family with four sons and no electricity. Every night “old father Davis” read a chapter from the Bible by lamplight. That year was one of the richest in her life. She talked about it as long as she lived.

Kate had a powerful imagination, a rare sense of humor and was an artful story teller and mimic. When you were with her, the world was always big and wonderful. No one was more fun to be with. My earliest memory was being sick and Katie entertaining me with stories about the little man who lived in the stove flue. At the dinner table, she dramatized every event of the day.

When she went off to teach, she would regale us with vivid, dramatized stories, mimicking and quoting the people she worked with, her students, her landlady — everyone.

At the University of Oregon, she and my brother were the stars in the campus theater and Kate, an English Major, eamed a teaching credential. In 1927 she started teaching at Roseburg High School, where she directed all the plays and taught English for eleven years. She was more than successful — students worshipped her. When she retired in 1968 from Humboldt State University, forty-seven years after Roseburg, about twenty of her former students from Roseburg came for the retirement party. Following Kate’s death, several of them have continued to correspond with me.

She loved teaching English and American literature and I think this must have been her greatest contribution. Her dramatic ability, her humor, her enthusiasm for life and literature, her intelligence, and keen interpretive skills were her tools. From memory she could recite reams of poetry and brought Shakespeare, “Idylls of the King,” Hawthorne — all the great pieces — alive in her classrooms. She was a strong disciplinarian and demanded much from her students. She built character through literature — but she was close to the students and their personal problems and always kept them laughing and enjoying school.

Kate wanted to move on, so in 1939 she went to the University of Oregon to serve on the Dean of Women’s staff, and from there she went to Portland to Lewis and Clark College as Dean of Women and Professor of English. A summer in New York with graduate work at Columbia University and seeing Broadway plays was a high point for her.

When the war came, she applied for a position with the DuPont Company to work on The Manhattan Project at Hanford, Wash, where the atomic bomb was made, but of course then no one knew what was going on. When she applied for the job, the interviewer asked her why she was leaving her current job. She said, “I just looked him right in the eye and said, ‘How would you like to be Dean of Women in a Presbyterian College!’”

She was in charge of the housing of the thousands of women workers. We all relived that period through her colorful accounts of events and the amazing people she met. Kate was fearless in managing these women who were older, often rough, tough, worldly laborers, unlike anyone she’d ever known. In August 1945, when the bomb was dropped, she was shocked and troubled to think she had been a part of it. After the war she was offered a permanent administrative position with the company, but declined.

Kate always had many male friends, some quite seriously smitten. She collected several proposals, a few from impressive, talented, successful men. But she remained single by choice. I think she was simply too independent and never found a man who was as strong as herself. She used to laugh and say, “Every day in every way, I give thanks for my state of single blessedness.” Being a wife requires waiting and accommodating — she could never do that. She had her own goals, priorities, and life, and wanted to live it freely her way.

She loved to cook and feed people — popcorn, cookies, bountiful meals with huge portions. Her cooking was a metaphor of her personality — nurturing, generous, giving, big portions of warm and pleasant comfort. She served as confidante for so many people. Her door was always open, and she would always listen. With a compassionate heart, she soothed and instilled confidence. She made you feel important, gave good horse-sense advice that made life seem easier. She was direct, honest — but always with a sensitive heart.

My second son was born the summer of 1946, and Kate, who adored babies and children, was on hand. She came to Arcata from the University of Oregon where she was on the English faculty. President and Mrs. Gist invited us for dinner one evening, and Kate charmed them so that Gist offered her a teaching position. The temptation was too great. “I’ll stay a year just to be with the children.” She joined the faculty at Humboldt State College in the fall of 1946, That January I became seriously ill, and Kate stepped in to take charge and stayed.

My children became hers. My husband Don and the children and all their little friends adored her. She drove the children and their friends to school in her Ford, which became a magic airplane. Each child had a job — radio man, navigator, copilot, mechanic — there were motor sounds, hurried orders, SWITCH ON, CONTACT!, urgent conversations, all in make-believe. As 50-something adults, these children still talk of the fun of it.

I always admired Kate and Don’s ability to work so closely together and share so many responsibilities at home and at school. They did not agree on many issues, but each respected the other. I was doubly blessed

Kate’s politics were mostly conservative. She was religious, but as an adult did not attend a church. She would quip, “Cast your bread upon the waters and it will come back sandwiches.” She planned her own memorial service, which included four friends: a Catholic priest, a Hebrew colleague, an Orthodox Greek friend, and a Protestant minister. She explained, “I want to cover all bases — just in case.”

Cars were a passion with Kate. She taught herself to drive at 15 by observing our Dad and brother. On her first trip she took my mother to town, ripped off the barn door, took out the front gate post, and when parking diagonally on a hill in downtown Ashland, continued on through a store window. She owned a succession of cars, but the greatest was her first, a dark green Buick roadster with a rumble seat. She had waited until she had enough money to pay cash — $700. She did all business on a cash basis. A silver, naked, winged Victory figure graced the radiator cap. My beautiful sister Lova taught at Roseburg too, and the two of them were a smashing sight in that car.

We had a family orchestra. Kate loved music but was tone deaf. She could not sing, but did. She also chose to play the violin and was always just a shade off. Her rendition of “Humoresque” was excruciating to listen to. It always puzzled me that she could so accurately imitate people’s speech, but could not hear musical notes.

She devoted all her summers to caring for our aging parents.

Kate was not an idle chatterer. She did not speak unless she had something to say. Although she was a clown, she was always discreet in her joking. Any humor with a barb was aimed at the pretentious, the pompous, and the arrogant who she thought deserved it!

Kate was fiercely moral, but not self-righteous or saintly. She was a strong, life-loving, humorous, warm and compassionate human being. My family and I thank you very much for this occasion to remember her.

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The story above is excerpted from the Winter 1997 issue of the Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society. It is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.

With deep love and admiration, we remember Valene June Farlow, who passed away in Garberville, after a remarkable 24-year battle with cancer. She would have turned 90 this year, a milestone that reflected a life rich in love, faith, and adventure.

Born in Los Angeles on July 19, 1935, Val was a woman of strength, warmth, and unwavering faith. She was preceded in death by her parents, her sister Dona, her childhood friend & sister-in- law Mary. She leaves behind a loving family; her siblings Jim, Nyla, Vance, and Dina; her stepdaughter Wendie; her grandchildren Brent and Brandon and their families; and a host of cherished nieces, nephews, extended family, and dear friends, including her longtime friend in faith, Jo Ann.

Val’s devotion to her faith as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses shaped her life in profound ways. In 1953, she embarked on an unforgettable journey across the country to attend an International Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in New York City. The experience deeply moved her, and upon returning home, she was baptized, beginning a lifelong commitment to serving Jehovah God. She made the journey again in 1958, this time camping along the way with family and friends — an adventure she would never forget.

In 1967, Val embraced another great adventure, moving with her husband and stepdaughter to the Mattole River area in Southern Humboldt County. Along with her siblings and mother, she helped build a life in the rugged beauty of the Mattole River. Their home—a former logger’s cabin—became the heart of their new way of life, filled with gardens, animals, and laughter. With a milk cow, a steer named “YumYum,” and the joy of simple living, those years were filled with unforgettable memories.

Val was a gifted artist, a talented draftsperson, and a lover of books and nature. She spent years drafting maps for a title company in southern California and later for Bushnell Survey in Garberville. But beyond her skills, it was her love for people that defined her. She was a source of encouragement, kindness, and deep faith, always eager to share her hope in Jehovah’s promises of a future free from pain and suffering. This hope sustained her through years of illness, giving her peace and strength. Val was a woman of great faith, kindness, and resilience. She kept her zest for life even as she aged and through illness. Her love will continue to be felt by all who knew her and will be deeply missed.

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