More extremely low-income residents in Humboldt County spend more than half of their income on housing than in any other county in California north of Sonoma, according to new statistics released by the California Housing Partnership.

85% of extremely low-income (ELI) households here are spending more than half of their income on housing. Though other counties in the “North State” area, as the CHP defines Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Nevada, Sierra, Plumas, Shasta, Siskiyou, Tehama and Trinity counties, also spend a disproportionate amount of money on housing costs, Humboldt’s ELI residents are the hardest-hit. 

Butte County is second, with 82% of their ELI population paying more than half of their income on housing costs. Sierra County is last; only 43% of their ELI households spend that much.

Additionally, 94% of Humboldt’s very low-income households are spending more than 30% of their income on paying for housing — a higher percentage than the ELI households, at 88%. Seven other counties in the North State follow this pattern. 

California’s department of Housing and Community Development defines an ELI household as one that makes between 15-30% of the Area Median Income, though that percentage changes with how many people live in the household. A very-low income household earns between 30-50% of an area’s median. Humboldt’s median household income is $93,900, but a single person living alone making between $19,750 and $32,900 a year would be considered extremely low-income. 

Humboldt’s median rent of $1,272 per month isn’t the most expensive, although it comes close. Sierra and Nevada counties’ monthly rent of $1,350 is the highest in the region.

Check out data from other counties here.

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The City of Eureka is kicking off Mental Health Awareness Month this Sunday with a community town hall at the Wharfinger Building, where local professionals and people with lived experience will discuss some of the myths and misconceptions surrounding mental illness. 

The event, hosted in partnership with the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), will feature two panel discussions and keynote speaker Joseph Reid, the founder and executive director of Broken People, an organization providing peer support for people struggling mental health challenges. In his book, “Broken Like Me,” Reid details his experience living with mental illness and coping with the “brokenness” that comes with it.

“[Reid] is really trying to talk about the reality of mental illness and that people can get better,” said Jacob Rosen, managing mental health clinician for Crisis Alternative Response Eureka (CARE). “I believe he’s going to have a family member with him to also shed light on the fact that mental health symptoms don’t just affect the person that is having them, but can also affect the family members that are around that person, too. And those folks need support as well.”

The panel of speakers will also debunk common misconceptions about mental illness.

“One myth we hear a lot in our line of work at CARE is that people with mental illness are more violent than other people, and that’s just not true,” Rosen said. “When we look at the research, individuals with mental health issues are no more violent than the rest of the population. There are some risk factors for violence, such as previous acts of violence, but that can be true for someone without mental illness as well.”

Another common myth is that people living with mental health issues — especially severe mental illness — can never get better or live successful, fulfilling lives, Rosen continued. “And, across the board, that just isn’t true.”

Since it was formed in 2022, the city’s CARE team has been working with the Eureka Police Department (EPD) on a “co-response” initiative in which mental health professionals work with law enforcement in responding to calls involving mental health crises. When dispatch receives a non-violent call involving a mental health crisis, the call is forwarded to a CARE team member who will attempt to de-escalate the situation over the phone. 

“We’ll try to talk them through it, assess for safety, and then it might stop there and we won’t need to go out and see them,” Rosen explained. “If there is no history of violence with that person and the call is mental health-related, we will send a two-person team in place of an officer. … There are going to be calls where either that individual’s safety or other people’s safety is at risk, and we will need to co-respond with law enforcement to make sure everyone stays safe.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis or if you just need someone to talk to, you can call the 24-hour Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. For local support, EPD’s non-emergency line is 707-441-4044.

The town hall will take place on Sunday, May 4, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Wharfinger Building — 1 Marina Way in Eureka. A full list of local Mental Health Awareness Month events can be found at this link.

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From CalTrout:

This year marks a major milestone for the Eel River watershed, as Phase 2 of the Eel River Restoration and Conservation Program kicks off and the Potter Valley Project (including two dams) nears decommissioning. To commemorate this epic year of watershed renewal, California Trout was thrilled to present the Eel River Photo Contest in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Eureka! The winning photos beautifully showcase the watershed through the lenses of access, restoration, wildlife, and recreation. The Emerging Photographer winner and Best Photo winners were selected by a panel of CalTrout staff. The Grand Prize award was selected by public vote at the Eel River Expo on April 19, 2025.

Best Photo (Wildlife) and Grand Prize Award Winner

Title: Slick Mama & Pup Otter
Photographer: Talia Rose
Location: South Fork Eel River

Best Photo (Access) 

Title: Dos Rios
Photographer: Nikki Whipple
Location: Highway 162

Best Photo (Restoration)

Title: Watershed Awareness Volunteer Event at Ocean Ranch Unit
Photographer: Wiyot Tribe Natural Resources Department
Location: Ocean Ranch Unit, Eel River Estuary

Best Photo (Recreation)

Title: Red Sky at Night – Angler’s Delight
Photographer: Phil Reedy
Location: South of Smith Redwoods State Reserve

Emerging Photographer Award

Title: Liquid Gold
Photographer: Barbara Larrondo-Soto
Location: Sproul Creek

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Press release from the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury:

The Superior Court of California, County of Humboldt is requesting that the public submit more applications for the 2025/2026 Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury (term of July 1st -June 30th). The Humboldt Superior Court empanels 19 citizens to act as an independent body of the judicial system each fiscal year. The Court accepts applications from citizens representing a broad cross-section of the Humboldt County community. The Civil Grand Jury is currently meeting in-person one day a week and via Zoom one day a week (their weekly meeting schedule and time commitment may vary from 10-30 hours). PLEASE APPLY AND HELP SERVE YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY’S INTERESTS.

The primary work of the civil grand jury is to investigate and review citizen complaints concerning the operations of city and county government as well as other tax supported and non-profit agencies and districts. Based on these reviews, the grand jury publishes its findings and may recommend constructive action to improve the quality and effectiveness of local government. The civil grand jury’s role excludes the consideration of criminal indictments.

Eligibility requirements for grand jury service are:

• Citizen of the United States, 18 years or older;
  Resident of Humboldt County for at least one year before selection;
• In possession of natural faculties, of ordinary intelligence, of sound judgment and fair character;
• Sufficient knowledge of the English language;
• Not currently serving as a trial juror in any court in this state;
• Have not been discharged as a grand juror in any court of this state within one year;
• Have not been convicted of malfeasance in office or other high crime;
• Not serving as an elected public officer.

For more information and to learn more about the application process, please visit the Court’s web site: https://www.humboldt.courts.ca.gov/general-information/jury-services/civil-grand-jury.

The application can be found using the QR code above or be filled out and submitted at: https://cty-lf-web.co.humboldt.ca.us/Forms/grandjuryapps.

Thank you for your interest in your community!

Press release from California Highway Patrol:

On May 1, 2025, at approximately 0135 hours, a single-vehicle collision occurred on SR-299, two miles east of Big Flat in Trinity County.  The driver was traveling eastbound on SR-299, at an unknown speed, when the vehicle traveled off the road, down an embankment, and into the Trinity River where it became submerged.  The driver and adult passenger sustained minor to moderate injuries and were taken to Trinity General Hospital.  A search is still underway for the child.  Neither alcohol or drugs were a factor in this collision.  The cause of the collision remains under investigation by the Trinity River Area CHP.

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

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The last time Julie Crossman saw her little sister, Nanie Crossman, it was 2019 and Nanie was moving out of Julie’s San Francisco apartment, destination unknown.

For the next six years, Julie worried — especially every time it rained. She assumed Nanie was homeless, but she had no idea where she was or how to find her.

“I just couldn’t sleep at night because I was so scared,” Jule said, her voice breaking. “I was really scared that she was just, like, cold and alone.”

Then, in January, Julie got a text from her half-brother. It was a link to a CalMatters article about unhoused people voting. And it quoted Nanie.

That article launched Julie on a quest to find her long-lost sister, rekindle their relationship and — maybe — help her get off the street.

It’s estimated more than 187,000 Californians are homeless. But no one counts the number of people like Julie, who stay up late worrying, compulsively Googling their sister, father or child’s name for a clue to their whereabouts. The people who scan every face each time they pass a homeless encampment.

Their numbers are likely far greater.

Some nonprofits that work in the homeless services sector say reconnecting with family is a crucial, and often overlooked, step in getting clients off the street. Even if a family member can’t offer up their guest room or couch, they might help their loved one find housing, access addiction treatment, sign up for benefits, or simply provide emotional support — reminding them that they are important and worthy of love. But the process of finding and reconnecting with someone living outside can be difficult, both logistically and emotionally, for everyone involved.

Once the person is found, it opens up a new question: What, if anything, can be done to help? The answer is almost never simple. Despite a growing effort by homeless service providers to reunite clients with their families, there’s little data to show how often those reunifications end someone’s homelessness.

And, as Julie found when she searched for guidance, few resources exist to help families navigate this terrain.

“I haven’t found anything,” Julie said. “It’s frustrating because this whole thing is happenstance and coincidence and lucky breaks but there’s not really a road map that I can find of other people’s methods, or things they’ve done that have been helpful.”

Two sisters reunite

From the CalMatters article, Julie gleaned one important fact: Nanie was living in an RV parked on a West Oakland street. It felt like a lucky break – Julie had since moved to Oakland as well. She emailed the CalMatters reporter to find out more.

Three weeks later, on a sunny Tuesday morning, she and the reporter stood outside a row of RVs on a trash-strewn side street next to a graffiti-covered warehouse wall. It had taken a few tries to get there. Police had forced Nanie to move from her prior parking spot a week and a half earlier, so Julie and the reporter walked up and down the nearby streets, asking other RV-dwellers if they knew her.

Eventually, they found an RV that had Nanie’s name sketched near the door. Julie was scared. She worried Nanie wouldn’t want to talk to her after all these years.

They knocked — no answer. Nanie wasn’t in her RV. But they soon found her in the RV next door.

“Julie!” Nanie exclaimed, stepping outside. The sisters threw their arms around each other in a tight hug.

“What’s up, dude?” Nanie asked when they separated, as if it hadn’t been six years.

“Nothing is up,” Julie replied, beaming. The resemblance between the two sisters, now both in their 40s, was obvious: Matching dark hair, pale complexions and smiles.

From left to right, sisters Julie Crossman and Nanie Crossman reunite outside of Nanie’s trailer in West Oakland, after going six years with no contact, on April 1, 2025. Photo by Marisa Kendall, CalMatters

Julie and Nanie immediately launched into a remarkably ordinary conversation, updating each other on their lives. They discovered they both have cats. Neither has a driver’s license. Nanie described what it was like being homeless in San Francisco during the COVID-19 pandemic (she liked having the streets to herself) and talked about the time she spent living in Sacramento. Julie wanted to know about the logistical details of her sister’s life: How do you get clothes? What about food?

They kept it light. They didn’t unpack old traumas or air past grievances. Julie didn’t ask Nanie if she was using drugs or badger her about getting a job and moving inside.

Later, Julie said it took some willpower to tamp down her protective, older-sister instincts.

“I don’t want to judge her life where it’s just a fact of life. I just don’t think that’s a good way to approach it,” Julie said. “If it were me, I would just shut down. I would not want to talk to someone like that, who was asking me that kind of question.”

Julie presented Nanie with the offerings she brought: A few cans of sparkling water, wet wipes, socks and a fancy pen. She offered to do Nanie’s laundry.

“Nanie, I’m so glad to see you,” Julie said with a squeal, giving her sister another hug. “I feel like we’re just chit-chatting.”

‘It’s tougher than I even imagined’

Julie and Nanie were close as kids growing up in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. They invented games, such as using a Barbie boombox to record themselves reading children’s books in funny voices. As they got older, their conversations were so full of inside references that outsiders, including one of Julie’s former boyfriends, were left in the dark.

Nanie told a CalMatters reporter that after she became homeless, she avoided trying to find Julie. She was afraid her sister would be mad at her or judgmental — or worse, that she’d died in an accident and Nanie hadn’t known. Seeing her again was a big relief.

“I feel a lot less all alone out here,” Nanie said.

Julie walked away from their meeting with mixed emotions. She was relieved that overall, Nanie seemed OK. The fears she had — that Nanie might have physically or mentally deteriorated due to drugs, or been forced to do sex work to survive — seemed unfounded. Nanie was safe from the elements in her RV and had a community of friends.

Julie Crossman, sister of Nanie Crossman, in Oakland on April 8, 2025. After losing contact for six years, the sisters reunited after Julie saw that Nanie, who is unhoused, was quoted in a CalMatters article. Photo by Florence Middleton for CalMatters

But the meeting also raised a big question: What could Julie do to help her sister?

Nanie says she wants a relationship, not help. In the past, after moving indoors, she became depressed. In her RV, within her street community, she feels like herself.

“For now,” Nanie said, “I’m content out here. And I guess what I want from her is to understand that.”

Julie understands that as well as someone who hasn’t lived on the streets can — which is to say, not completely. She still wants to help, but she’s struggling with how. Part of her wants to open up her home so Nanie can shower, do laundry and hang out, while another part of her thinks she should instead set boundaries.

And then she feels guilty for even considering keeping her sister at a distance.

“It’s tougher than I even imagined it would be,” Julie said.

Does reconnecting with family help?

Programs throughout the state offer bus tickets out of town to unhoused people trying to reunite with family or friends. That can result in people simply becoming homeless again in a new location. But proponents say that if done with the proper support, sending someone back into the arms of loved ones can be a lifesaver.

“We heal in community,” said Gabby Cordell, who runs the reunification program at the San Francisco-based nonprofit Miracle Messages. “We’re not meant to go through life alone. And everyone matters. Everyone is someone’s somebody.”

Using Google, social media and anything else they can think of, Miracle Messages helps unhoused clients find their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, or anyone else they are looking for.

The organization receives about 50 referrals a month — mostly for cases within California, Cordell said. She and her team are able to find and get a hold of the person they’re looking for about half of the time. Sometimes, the family member is thrilled.

“It’s astounding how often we get an, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve been looking for him,’” she said.

Other times, the relationship has been badly damaged, and the family member isn’t interested in reconnecting.

The group also offers the reverse, helping people who are housed find loved ones living on the street. That’s much harder, Cordell said.

“Trying to find your brother is looking for a needle in a haystack,” she said. “Trying to find your brother who is unhoused is looking for a moving needle in 10 haystacks.”

The nonprofit has succeeded in arranging more than 115 of these more difficult reunions since around 2017, according to its website.

Nonprofit LifeMoves also offers reunification services across 17 of its homeless shelter and temporary housing sites in Silicon Valley. Only a small percentage of clients leave homelessness that way (the nonprofit doesn’t track exactly how many), said Heather Griffin, director of shelter and services for Santa Clara County.

It’s impossible to know how successful these efforts are. Neither LifeMoves nor Miracle Messages tracks what happens to people after they reunite with family.

‘That was hard:’ Another family reconnects after decades on the street

Ashanti Terrell lived a lot of her life without her father, Ashby Dancy.

He was on and off the streets of Oakland for most of her childhood, while she grew up in and out of foster care and then with her mother’s family. She lost touch with him as the years passed and she earned a master’s degree, launched a career in public safety and had three children of her own in Atlanta.

But as she got older, she felt a void. Her mother had died and her father was all she had left.

“When I was 18 years old, (I) graduated, I had nobody to go to my graduation,” Terrell said. “I wanted my dad to at least be at my graduation. I haven’t gotten married because I wanted my dad to be there, you know. I haven’t done a lot of stuff because I wanted my dad.”

Terrell had glimpses of her father over the years. Two years ago, he landed in subsidized housing in Oakland and she went to visit him. But he didn’t know who she was, she said. Whether that was because of drug use, mental illness or both, she wasn’t sure.

Last fall, Terrell got a call from a social worker. The social worker said her father was trying to get to Atlanta to see her, but got stuck in Texas and ended up in a hospital. Terrell started planning with her sister to help him. But when she called the hospital again, he was already gone. No one knew where.

She decided to pack up her life in Georgia, move to the Bay Area, and find him.

Then, while Googling her father’s name, Terrell saw him quoted in an October CalMatters article — coincidentally, the same article that helped reunite Julie and Nanie Crossman. The article said he was at a tent encampment in East Oakland.

Ashanti Terrell and her son Mekhi Terrell stand outside her father’s tent in Oakland on April 18, 2025. Photo by Jungho Kim for CalMatters

First: Ashby Dancy talks with one of his daughters over FaceTime as his daughter Ashanti Terrell holds the phone and grandson Mekhi Terrell stands nearby. Last: From left, Ashby Dancy speaks with his daughter Ashanti Terrell in Oakland on April 18, 2025. Photos by Jungho Kim for CalMatters

Terrell went looking. She drove around the area at different times of day, hoping to catch a glimpse of her father. She asked the workers at a nearby Burger King if they’d seen him.

In March, Terrell emailed the CalMatters reporter for help. The reporter showed her where to find her father’s tarp-covered tent, sitting by itself on the sidewalk.

After that, Terrell started visiting her father, stopping by to check on him, talk and give him food.

On a recent Friday afternoon, she brought her 7-year-old son, Mekhi. Dancy gave the boy a fistbump and asked about his school, and about the family’s upcoming move to Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood. But then he started talking about the 22 kids he’d had with his ex-girlfriend (something Terrell is positive didn’t happen). He mumbled, making it hard for her to understand him.

Mekhi asked his mom if they could buy Grandpa some Burger King, and she said yes, promising to come back with a burger after they picked the other kids up from school.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m here,” Terrell told her father, as they left. “As soon as I get myself together, I’m going to help you out.”

“I love you, sweetheart,” he said. And then to Mekhi: “Take care of your mom, OK?”

Terrell teared up as she and Mekhi walked away from her father’s tent. “That was hard,” she said.

He had admitted he was drunk, which disappointed her. Just like today’s Oakland — with its massive homeless encampment along East 12th Street — is unrecognizable as the city she grew up in, the man she just talked to is not the father who raised her. The father she remembers won trophies for boxing. He was a “big kid,” a gentle soul who ran around and played with her and her two sisters, did their hair in cute braids and took them camping.

“I don’t know who he is,” she said of the man in the tent. “I come from him, but I don’t know him.”

Ashby Dancy sits in a chair next to his tent while looking at his grandson Mekhi Terrell, whom he is meeting for the first time, in Oakland on April 18, 2025. Photo by Jungho Kim for CalMatters

The last real memory Terrell has of her father is from July 1998, at the same Burger King across the street from her father’s tent. It was Terrell’s 8th birthday. She was in foster care, but was visiting with her parents at the fast food chain — her favorite — to celebrate.

She moved with her mother to Chicago and then Atlanta shortly after, and lost touch with her father, who stayed behind in Oakland.

Now, Terrell wants to repair their relationship. She wants him to get to know his grandchildren, and she wants to take him to visit his 86-year-old mother in Stockton.

She also wants to save him, before it’s too late. He’s 63, and Terrell is scared that if he stays outside, he’ll fall victim to fentanyl, or one of the many other dangers of the street.

Terrell imagines helping her father will involve rehab and an assessment of his mental state — if he’s willing. She wants to figure out why he lost his subsidized housing, and if he can get it back. But she’s not sure where to start.

“Maybe 20 years might be too late,” she said. “I don’t know.”

Aryay came to Humboldt County, like many others, to live out some of the visionary propositions of the 1960s. He had so far been rewarded with beatings, arrests and a fat file in the offices of the FBI. His photo had made the front page of the San Francisco paper when HUAC (the House Unamerican Activities Committee) came to town hunting for commies and subversives. Sprayed by fire hoses along with other protestors, cops dragged him feet first down the marble stairs of city hall’s rotunda, hands jammed in the pockets of his corduroy jacket, looking like he was exactly where he wanted to be.

Even as the child of a liberal and cultured Portland family-he began violin at an early age-he reacted badly to unreasoned authority. Sent to a pre-eminent eastern college, he left during his first year with an allergic reaction to the prevailing idea of order. Only after living a year with relatives in Berkeley, who introduced him to leftist living and found him a job driving a furniture truck — beautiful music and working class politics-did he begin to find his way to health and happiness.

He enrolled at UC Berkeley, studied history, and joined SLATE, the political group that preceded the Free Speech Movement, introducing politics to the “quiet generation” of 1950’s college students, around issues like racial discrimination-yes, in Berkeley!-as well as apartheid in South Africa, atomic bomb testing but also mandatory ROTC and the segregation of women at UC football games.

From college he went east again, working for the National Lawyers Guild as an organizer wherever his skills were needed — in the Jim Crow south, north again, then back to the west coast where he worked with the Farmworkers under Cesar Chavez, and with the Panthers in some of their early organizing around breakfasts for children and the armed defense of neighborhoods.

All these now-famous actions attracted increasing violence during the Vietnam years, from Nixon’s dirty tricksters to hard-hat goons, leather-wearing bikers, and from trigger-happy cops and national guardsmen. This repression created strong solidarity on the left, but it was also met with hardening dogma and an all too familiar authoritarianism.

It was time to move to the country.

Aryay began half a lifetime of work on an old house in Manila, he started an organic garden, supported himself by knife sharpening and carpentry-and he continued to be a political organizer wherever a social ill presented itself. In mid-century America, spraying toxic herbicides had become a chief tool of forest management, highway maintenance, and yard care, and it spoke personally to anyone with allergies. Aryay and his partner, Ann-Marie Martin, worked as co-chairs of Humboldt Herbicide Task Force, and under their leadership this practice-so widely accepted as to appear “normal,” never to be questioned-turned out to be deeply unpopular with a huge swath of the public, from Native basket weavers to nursing mothers, from health workers to farm workers. Organizing is never finished-many of these toxics are still permitted-but now in Humboldt County there are rules and regulations in place. You can still see the signs in front of rural houses: NO SPRAY.

A decade later, still in Manila, Aryay and a hand-picked group of activists began a campaign against off-road vehicles that were destroying its dunes and threatening the peace and safety of the community. Again, off-road driving was an accepted activity (Ronald Regan declared it a national form of recreation) affecting only some low-value hills of sand and a fewlow-income people. But organizing begins with asking questions and when people were queried at the mall and grocery stores, it was true that they didn’t care as deeply as they might about their poor neighbors and endangered wallflowers, but they really, really wanted dune buggies off their beaches. And when they formed a coalition, and held it together for years of protests and meetings, people got their property, their personal safety, and their beaches back.

These contributions to community well-being, and many others, smaller and quieter, were never Aryay’s end goal, not what he was most proud of. When he was in hospice and wrote his own brief obit, he mentioned none of that. It was his home repair, small jobs for people of modest means-he’d place an ad in Senior News-along with his organic gardening, and especially his composting that he listed among his chief accomplishments. In musical quartets and on remodel jobs, while bowling and engaged in friendships were his greatest pleasures, most especially with long-time companion and wife,Marcia Brenta and her two children, Amelia Hughes and Mario Brown. Aryay celebrated community in their home in Bayside, honoring day of the dead and solstice for many years. He embraced excursions to Breitenbush,Oregon and Rubio, Smith River for process and rejuvenation. Aryays loud gutfaw-hawl when something struck his funny bone, was a reminder of his delight in good company.

But when he saw the need for change in our lives, he was on us. From our most private moments-to his last breaths he argued for the efficacy of the compost toilet-to the most dire challenges of sea level rise, he was organizing us like lost sheep. In his final days in hospice, his letter to the editor appeared in the Mad River Union.

“The people who survive the coming changes and challenges will have to live closer to the Earth, from [off] the Earth, and with each other.” Like a good organizer, he told those people (maybe you) to ask questions: “Questions about what of the industrial culture can be salvaged, and for how long, will be important to ask.”

Thanks, Aryay. You will be missed.Our VERBEENA. Aryay will be remembered by many family and friends in Portland, Humboldt, Berkeley, San Anselmo and Santa Rosa.

Celebration of life will be held at the Humboldt Unitarian Fellowship
24 Fellowship Way, Bayside, CA 95524
June 7th
5-8 pm
RSVP
707-601-4687

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