Reader Kim Thallheimer has this story to share, which may make you think of government in a way you are not used to thinking about it:

This is NOT a political post.

I would like to share my experience with Senator Mike McGuire’s office.

My husband and I are rideshare drivers. We paid for our registration online. The ride share company would not accept the receipt or a Vehicle History Report. It was a technicality, which I do understand, but we were going to have to wait at least a week where we wouldn’t be able to work because they would accept the receipt or VHR from the DMV. The DMV stopped providing registrations (among a few other things) at the DMV office.

Needless to say, we would have lost a considerable amount of income.

We tried everything we could think of and came to a dead end. I decided to email Senator McGuire’s office. Within a couple hours (and after business hours) a representative from the Senator’s office responded to my email letting me know that she would give this her full attention the following morning. By late morning, she sent me a form to complete. By 1 p.m., I had a copy of the new registration in my email.

I was floored! I didn’t think we would get a resolution in a timely manner. I was wrong! This is an example of our elected officials doing their jobs and a situation we don’t want anyone else to have to deal with.

In a flurry of recent legislation and initiatives, California officials are pushing school districts to convert their surplus property into housing for teachers, school staff and even students and families. Some districts have already started; now the state wants every district to become a landlord.

“I believe that California has enough resources and ingenuity to solve (the housing shortage), and the data shows that California’s schools have the land to make this happen,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said at a press conference in July. “As school leaders, we can get this done for our communities and restore the California Dream.”

But some superintendents and education analysts are skeptical, saying the idea won’t work everywhere and school districts might be better off focusing on education, not real estate development.

“I’m grateful someone’s paying attention to this, but I feel like educators are being asked to solve so many problems,” said Mendocino County Superintendent Nicole Glentzer. “Student performance, attendance, behavior … and now the housing crisis? It’s too much.”

Last month, Thurmond pledged financial incentives for districts that pass bonds to build staff housing, and the Department of Education is sponsoring a workshop for district officials to learn the ins-and-outs of real estate development.

His move comes on the heels of a report from UC Berkeley and UCLA that found school districts in California own 75,000 acres of developable land, enough to build 2.3 million housing units — which could wipe out the state’s housing shortage.

It also follows the Teacher Housing Act of 2016, which allows school districts to pursue funding sources for housing projects, including state and federal tax credits. Other pieces of legislation, including a 2022 law that went into effect in January, further streamlined the development and funding process. Other laws allow teachers to live in affordable housing even though their income might exceed the qualifying limits.

If Proposition 2, a $10 billion school facilities bond, passes this fall, schools could use that money to not only repair classrooms and other structures, but build teacher housing.

‘It’s changed my life’

A handful of districts have already embarked on projects.

Los Angeles Unified owns several buildings, including a 90-unit building that opened in April and a 26-unit building reserved for low-income families. San Francisco Unified plans to open a 135-unit building this fall. Santa Clara Unified has owned a 70-unit complex for more than two decades.

In San Mateo County, the Office of Education is working with a public-private housing nonprofit to buy an existing apartment building for local teachers. In Marin, the Office of Education joined with the county and state to build teacher housing on state-owned land near San Quentin Prison.

First: Carolina Sanchez Garcia helps her daughter Berthalinda Hernandez, 6, put on roller skates at their home in San Diego on Aug. 7, 2024. Last: Carolina Sanchez Garcia walks with her daughter, Berthalinda Hernandez, 6, and son Kanye Hernandez, 9, at a park near their home in San Diego on Aug. 7, 2024. Photos by Zoë Meyers for CalMatters

In San Diego, preschool teacher Carolina Sanchez Garcia said she cried when she learned she won a spot at the 264-unit Scripps Ranch apartment complex, built through a partnership between San Diego Unified and an affordable housing developer.

Due to the high cost of housing in San Diego, she had been commuting from Tijuana, Mexico for more than a decade. To get to work on time, she’d get up at 2 a.m., move her five kids into the car where they’d go back to sleep, and make the trek across the border to work. Her kids would brush their teeth and get ready for school at a Starbucks.

Now, her commute is only 15 minutes.

“It’s changed my life,” Garcia said. “My kids are sleeping more. I’m sleeping more. It’s made me a better mother and a better teacher. Now, I start my day feeling positive and energized.”

Kyle Weinberg, president of the San Diego Education Association, at Central Elementary in San Diego on Aug. 7, 2024. Weinberg has supported the San Diego Unified School District’s effort to build housing for teachers, low-income students and families. Photo by Zoë Meyers for CalMatters

Garcia pays $1,300 a month for a three-bedroom apartment, roughly half of market rate. The rent is similar to what she paid in Tijuana, but now she has time to cook dinner for her family, prepare for class and help her children with homework. Her kids can participate in after-school activities and spend time with friends. Her gas bill is also lower.

“I am so grateful,” Garcia said. “I think all districts should do this. Teachers need help.”

Kyle Weinberg, a special education teacher who’s head of the San Diego Unified teachers union, said the district’s housing endeavors have been successful because teachers share in the planning process, ensuring that the units’ location, size and rents meet teachers’ needs. The district paid for the Scripps Ranch development through an agreement with a private developer, and plans to pay for the next development with money from Measure U, a $3.2 billion school facilities bond that passed in 2022.

Subsidized housing is necessary, Weinberg said, because of the high cost of living in San Diego. To live in a 1-bedroom apartment in San Diego, starting teachers, who earn about $60,000, would have to pay roughly 63% of their take-home pay on rent. Teachers have long commutes and suffer from burnout, he said.

The union’s goal is to have 700 units available, serving at least 10% of the teaching staff.

“We have a staffing crisis in our district,” Weinberg said. “We need to explore all possible solutions. Along with salaries and benefits, expanding workforce housing is one of those options.”

Almost zero teacher turnover

The model state officials often point to is 705 Serramonte in Daly City. The Jefferson Union High School District opened the 122-unit apartment complex in 2022, and it now houses a quarter of the district staff. A 1-bedroom apartment rents for $1,450 a month, about half the market rate.

The district paid for the $75 million project by passing a $33 million bond specifically for teacher housing, and borrowed the rest. The rents generated by the project cover the bond payments. The district hired a property management company to handle maintenance and other issues.

Daly City is sandwiched between Silicon Valley and San Francisco, which have some of the highest rents in the country. Teachers commute from the East Bay and beyond, and the district grappled with a persistent 25% staff turnover rate annually, said district spokesperson Denise Shreve.

“I feel like educators are being asked to solve so many problems. Student performance, attendance, behavior … and now the housing crisis? It’s too much.”
— Nicole Glentzer, Mendocino County Superintendent

Since 705 Serramonte opened, the district has had near zero turnover.

“Students now start off the school year with a teacher in their classroom, instead of a long-term substitute,” Shreve said. “You have to look at the long-term benefits. We now have teacher retention and students are better off because of it.”

Lisa Raskin, a social science teacher and instructional coach for the district, said she’s struggled with housing over her 20-year career but never considered leaving. A San Francisco native, she’s committed to staying in the area — which has meant that she’s always had roommates.

When she moved into 705 Serramonte, it was her first time living in her own apartment.

“I can be with community if I want, or I can be alone. I love that,” Raskin said, noting that her neighbors and colleagues often host barbecues, game nights and other gatherings. “We call it ‘adult dorms.’ I feel safe here.”

Superintendents already overworked

But not every district can pass a bond for teacher housing. Many can’t even pass bonds to repair school campuses. And some superintendents say they’re already so overworked that undertaking a complicated project like real estate development is a near impossibility. California had a superintendent turnover rate of more than 18% last year, according to research from the Superintendent Lab, in part due to workload.

Glentzer, the Mendocino County superintendent, said housing development would be a challenge for smaller, rural and lower-income districts. Those districts face teacher and housing shortages like their wealthier, urban counterparts, but lack the ability to raise the money and hire the staff to oversee projects.

Besides, the housing shortage affects lots of people in the community — not just teachers. Mendocino County has been scarred by numerous wildfires over the past few years, plus a boom in vacation rentals that have decimated the local housing market, leaving some people to live in trailers or even their cars.

“I am so grateful. I think all districts should do this. Teachers need help.”
— Carolina Sanchez Garcia, San Diego preschool teacher

A better solution, she said, would be for housing to be left to regional authorities and for the state to fund school districts sufficiently to pay their teachers more.

Still, she understands the need. She herself lived in a district-owned home when she was superintendent of Potter Valley Community Unified School district northeast of Ukiah. The two-bedroom bungalow was next to the football field, and she enjoyed the reduced rent and proximity to work.

“There’s no question we need housing,” Glentzer said. “But when you’re the superintendent and the principal and head of maintenance and you’re teaching Spanish, how are you supposed to find the bandwidth for this? I have a degree in education. I never took a real estate course.”

Marguerite Roza, director of the policy research center Georgetown Edunomics Lab, agreed. School districts might be better off paying teachers more or targeting raises for teachers who are in high demand, such as those who work in special education, math or science.

Carolina Sanchez Garcia prepares dinner for her two youngest children, Berthalinda and Kanye Hernandez, at their home in San Diego on Aug. 7, 2024. Photo by Zoë Meyers for CalMatters

She also noted that except in those three fields, the teacher shortage is ebbing. With federal Covid relief money expiring and student enrollment declining, many districts may be laying off teachers — not hiring, she said. EdJoin, a teacher hiring board, this month showed nearly 2,000 openings for special education teachers in California, for example, but fewer than 100 for third grade teachers.

“By building housing, districts might be addressing a crisis that no longer exists.” Roza said. “School districts’ expertise and focus is to provide education. To assume school districts could take on the responsibility of being landlords efficiently is concerning.”

Growing interest in teacher housing

To help school districts learn the basics of real estate development, the California School Boards Association has been hosting workshops and providing resources for the past two years. So far, 152 of the state’s 1,000 school districts have signed up to study the idea, and the numbers have been growing, said spokesperson Troy Flint.

He acknowledged that smaller districts may not have the staff to get projects off the ground, but some are working on projects together or collaborating with their local county offices of education, he said.

“Districts see the immense value workforce housing can offer their staff, students, and communities,” Flint said. “There is widespread interest in education workforce housing as an elegant way to address the housing affordability crisis. Workforce housing also brings quality-of-life, community, and environmental benefits — and may even help address declining enrollment as district staff can afford to live with their families in the communities they serve.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Like single-family homeowners in California, landlords are facing higher insurance premiums, too. And they’re passing along some of those costs to their tenants.

Many insurance companies have stopped writing policies in the state because of increased wildfire risks, but that’s not the only reason. They say in the case of any catastrophe, the potential costs of replacing any residential or commercial property, from labor to material costs, is just plain more expensive now. So even owners of properties in areas that are not at high risk for wildfires have had their policies canceled because their buildings may need repairs or improvements. Landlords are having to find other insurers, or having to turn to the ever-growing and more expensive FAIR Plan, the insurance industry-run plan that is mandated under California law to be the insurer of last resort.

This is where the insurance crisis could worsen the housing crisis, according to some experts. Increased insurance costs for properties other than single-family homes are starting to affect the rental market — in a state where almost half of residents are renters — and could compound the state’s housing problems, they say.

Josh Hoover, an insurance broker in the Los Angeles area, handles mostly commercial accounts and said “it’s almost impossible” to find coverage for any large structure. In late 2022, Allstate said it would stop writing new property insurance in the state, including commercial policies. Then State Farm, the biggest insurer in the state, recently canceled policies for tens of thousands of homes, residential community associations, business owners and commercial apartment properties.

“Even buildings made in the ‘80s are now considered old, which is ridiculous,” Hoover said. “Most carriers want everything updated in the last 30 years. They want a new roof, electrical redone, plumbing redone — they want you to have copper pipes.”

For landlords, ‘death by a thousand cuts’

Earlier this year, Farmers canceled the policy on a 33-unit apartment building in San Bernardino that was built in the 1960s, said its co-owner, Uwe Karbenk. Karbenk found an out-of-state insurer instead of going with the more expensive FAIR Plan, but his premium has still increased by $28,000 to more than $41,000 a year.

Combined with state laws that limit how much he is allowed to raise the rent each year — 5% plus inflation, or up to 10% in some cases, with possibly other rent-control measures on the way — Karbenk said being a landlord in California is “a little bit like death by a thousand cuts.” He added that if his profit margin continues to shrink, he would rather invest in something else besides real estate.

“One of these measures, it’s not a big deal,” Karbenk said. “But over the years, it’s really difficult for mom-and-pops.”

Mike Placido in front of a four-unit rental property that he and his wife own and manage in San Gabriel on Aug. 12, 2024. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

Mike Placido and his wife are definitely a mom-and-pop. They own two rental properties, a four-unit building in San Gabriel and a duplex in Alhambra. He said they bought the properties as a way to supplement their retirement income when the time comes in a few years.

When State Farm canceled the policy on their San Gabriel property, Placido got a quote from the FAIR Plan for $8,600, much higher than their old $2,600 premium. Instead, he was able to cobble together three different policies from a Florida-based insurer to get the coverage the old policy provided for $6,500, a 150% increase. So he said he plans to raise rents in January.

“It’s not like I’m some land baron,” Placido said. “I’ll pass along as much as I possibly can, as much as the market can bear, and I’ll shoulder the rest. I have no choice.”

Yet another worry for renters

About 44% of Californians are renters, according to the U.S. Census. The median monthly rent in the state is $2,850, a third higher than the national figure, according to online real estate marketer Zillow. About 30% of the state’s renters are considered severely cost-burdened, meaning they spend at least half of their income on housing, according to an analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California. Now their rents could rise to even more burdensome levels.

Shanti Singh, legislative director for statewide renters’ rights organization Tenants Together, said “it’s still kind of an unknown how common it is” that tenants’ rents are rising along with insurance costs, partly because not all landlords say why they’re raising rents.

“It depends on the landlords,” Singh said. “Some are transparent; a lot of them aren’t.”

“It’s not like I’m some land baron.”
— Mike Placido, property owner

Any significant rent increases have not yet shown up in Zillow’s data, which shows California’s median rent is actually down about $100 compared with last year, though it has climbed higher since the beginning of the year.

In the Bay Area, two renters who didn’t want to be named out of fear of retaliation from their landlord said the rents at their live-work complex jumped earlier this year, and the reason was spelled out to them in an email that had “insurance costs” in the subject line.

Singh said she fears things will only get worse for renters as the effects of climate change, such as wildfires, continue to weigh on the affordability of insurance, and in turn, housing.

“Tenants are going to have the least recourse,” Singh said. They “always end up bearing a disproportionate brunt of what they can afford.”

Housing and climate change

Singh and others who deal with California’s lack of affordable housing expressed concern about whether certain parts of the state will eventually be uninhabitable and uninsurable — whichever comes first.

Sarah Karlinsky, director of research at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, said the lack of enough housing within already developed cities means more building “at the fringe of regions, in places that are more dangerous,” also known as the wildland urban interface, or the WUI, in wildfire speak.

“If we don’t want to continue down this road, we have to fundamentally rethink our development patterns,” Karlinsky added.

A rental sign in front of an apartment complex in Tower District in Fresno on July 27, 2023. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/Catchlight Local

Laurie Johnson, an urban planner and former chief catastrophe response and resiliency officer for the California Earthquake Authority, pointed out that some property owners in the state who own their buildings and have no mortgages might choose not to insure their properties because of the rising costs. That’s worrisome, she said.

“It feels like we want to keep our multifamily stock insured and don’t want to take the risk of losing it,” Johnson said. Hoover, the insurance broker, agreed and said he has had some clients tell him they plan to forgo insurance.

Johnson added that just as jurisdictions have been requiring seismic retrofitting in case of earthquakes, protection against fires and other catastrophes — and the ability to replace whatever might be lost — is vital: “You would be displacing so many people.”

“Tenants are going to have the least recourse.”
— Shanti Singh, legislative director for Tenants Together

The growing risks of climate change make it more important than ever for renters to have their own insurance, said Emily Rogan, senior program officer for United Policyholders, a consumer advocacy group.

Renters insurance would cover the costs for tenants to stay “somewhere else as you figure out where to live in case of a severe weather event,” Rogan said.

Effects on commercial properties and businesses

Small businesses that rent their space will be affected by their landlords’ rising premiums, too.

John Reed owns a mixed-use commercial property in Oakhurst, outside Yosemite — an area that has seen its share of fires in the past several years. Last year, his fire insurance cost about $2,800, but Berkshire Hathaway canceled his policy. He got three different quotes from the FAIR Plan, with the highest being $24,000. Then, he found a plan from Lloyd’s of London for about $14,000.

First: The MVP Commercial building. Last: John Reed outside of the MVP Commercial building. Oakhurst on Aug. 11, 2024. Photos by Tracy Barbutes for CalMatters

Reed said he will have to pass on his increased costs to his six tenants. “As a landlord, I can’t hit them with the whole burden all at once,” he said. “If I’m able to afford it, I will try to spread that out over a two- or three-year period.”

California’s insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, has unveiled a multi-part plan to address the state’s insurance woes, mainly focused on wildfires. For example, insurers will be allowed to use catastrophe models if they agree to write policies in certain areas of the state. But Insurance Department spokesperson Michael Soller pointed out that Lara also recently announced a deal with the FAIR Plan that creates a high-value commercial coverage option.

“The reforms will have broad benefits for the availability of insurance,” Soller said.

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Press release from Six Rivers National Forest:

Photo: Incident management team.

Quick Facts

• Acres: 1,621 (no infrared flown overnight, but also little growth observed.)
  
• Detection Date: August 9, 2024
  
• Containment: 0%
  
• Cause: Under investigation
  
• Crews: 8
  
• Engines: 10
  
• Dozers: 2
  
• Helicopters: 7
  
• Fixed wing: available as needed

Headlines

• Join us TODAY for an ask the Incident Commander Q&A session LIVE on the Boise Fire Facebook at 2:00 p.m.
• Get all your Boise Fire information in one mobile-friendly place! https://linktr.ee/
• Evacuations are in place for the Boise Fire for residents near the fire area in Humboldt County. For more the most current evacuation information please visit the Boise Fire linktree or visit—
• Humboldt County: https://humboldtgov.org/356/
• Siskiyou County: https://www.co.siskiyou.ca.us/

Leader’s Intent: The Boise Fire is being managed with a full suppression strategy.

Operational Update: Crews have been working along roads where possible near Short Ranch and on Le Perron Flat to create containment lines as close to the fires edge as possible to protect the private property in those areas. A structure group is in place to provide structure defense, should it become necessary. Firefighters are looking to open containment lines from the 2020 Red Salmon Fire on the southern side of the Boise Fire and to the east along the Orleans Look out Road/ Antennae Ridge.

Weather and Fire Behavior: The weather today is anticipated to continue to trend slightly cooler, with good humidity recoveries observed overnight, although less of an inversion than predicted. A very slim chance of thunderstorms over northeastern Trinity County is forecasted for today. The fire is currently aligned with several drainages with very heavy vegetation loading. This could result in active fire behavior.

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Press release from the Yurok Tribe: 

All are invited to the Yurok Tribe’s 60th Annual Klamath Salmon Festival on Saturday, August 17 in Klamath.

The 60th Salmon Festival offers enjoyment for everyone. The family friendly event features a parade, Ney-puey Fun Run, live music by Blue Rhythm Revue and Brett McFarland and the Freedom Riders, kids’ activities, basket-weaving demonstrations, Stick Game, softball, basketball, arm-wrestling and Indian Card Game Tournaments, high-quality gift items made by more than 100 local vendors and 20 delicious food options.

The Yurok Tribe decided to make this year’s festival a celebration of tribal elders because the event is turning 60. Composed by the Yurok Language Program, this year’s theme is an expression of appreciation for the tribal elders who paved the way for the Tribe’s continued success. The theme is Cho’ skuy’ soo huuew kue no’-o-muen-o-wo-nee. “May the ones that endure live well.” All festival attendees over 60 will be served a free home-cooked lunch.

Living Yurok elders sacrificed so much for everything the Tribe has today. They fought in the Salmon War in the late 1970s to preserve the Tribe’s federally reserved fishing right. Also in the 1970s, tribal elders from local tribes prevented logging companies and the US Forest Service from building the Gasquet-Orleans Road (GO-Road) through the sacred High Country. If constructed, the road would have permanently desecrated the irreplaceable intertribal prayer site.

Tribal elders made equally substantial sacrifices during the decades-long process to pass the Hoopa Yurok Settlement Act in 1988. The federal legislation set the stage for the modern tribal government.

In 2002, following the catastrophic fish kill, tribal elders and younger generations accelerated the effort to remove four dams on the Klamath River. Through bake-sale fundraisers, litigation and protests at shareholders meetings on two continents, the campaign made dam removal a reality despite tremendous odds. The dams will be dismantled by early fall in what is considered the largest salmon restoration project in history.

In recognition of dam removal, Brett McFarland and the Freedom Riders will be playing original music from their brand-new album Humboldt at the festival. The album contains a soul-stirring single called Klamath, which details the river’s near demise and the tribally driven effort to un-dam and restore the Klamath.

Dam removal will reopen approximately 400 miles of historic habitat and extensively restore the river’s natural flow regime. In time, dam removal will also significantly reduce the amount of fish pathogens and toxic algae in the river. Fisheries experts expect struggling salmon stocks to increase as the river ecosystem heals.

During the last several years, the Klamath’s salmon runs have sharply declined largely due to the dams. The 2024 fish forecast is slightly better than last year, but still below average and not nearly large enough for a commercial fishery. For the second year in a row, there will be no salmon at the Salmon Festival.

Through dam removal and restoration, the Yurok Tribe is confident that the Klamath’s salmon runs will recover. Right now, there is more positive momentum on the Klamath than ever before. Large-scale river restoration work is happening in lower, middle and upper Klamath. More habitat rehabilitation projects are planned for next year too.

The Yurok Tribe is optimistic that salmon will return to the festival menu soon.

*This year’s festival received generous support from Clean California, Green Diamond Resource Company and LACO and Associates.

The Salmon Festival parking area and shuttle are located off Klamath Mill Road. Please do not park on Highway 101.

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors will return to the dais Tuesday after a little summer vacation. What’s on this week’s agenda, you ask? Let’s have a look.

Civil Grand Jury Recommendations

The board will review and respond to recommendations made in two recent reports from the 2023-24 Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury concerning county facilities.

In the first report, “Humboldt County Facilities: Owning vs. Leasing,” the Civil Grand Jury analyzed the county’s real estate portfolio and determined that the county pays too much in rent – over $556,000 per month. The county currently has over 80 active leases across the county, some of which are “net” leases, meaning the county pays the property taxes, not the property owner, adding another $9,000 to the monthly total.

The Civil Grand Jury’s report asks: “Would the money be better spent in the long run by owning these facilities instead?”

“The County currently leases more properties than they own,” according to the report. “Fifty-three percent of the buildings used are leased, not owned. Long-term leasing tends to be more expensive than building and owning facilities. The trend towards leasing has not been cost-effective for the citizens of Humboldt County. … Most of the leased properties have been under lease for 25 years or more by the County.”

The report also suggests that the county could save money by consolidating some of its facilities. The 2020 Facilities Master Plan calls for building and consolidating operations. However, the Civil Grand Jury says “progress has been slow.”

“Consolidating County operations into fewer buildings can lead to greater efficiencies,” the report continues. “The County provides services to residents all over the county, so consolidation is not a viable option everywhere, but it is in Eureka, where the County operates in almost 50 different sites.”

Most of those sites are occupied by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which actually consolidated some of its family-serving operations at Humboldt Plaza ten or so years ago. Doing so “improved customer service” at DHHS because residents were able to “accomplish more in a single stop at a facility that is easily accessible by car or public transit.”

Combining operations into fewer buildings would also “allow for better communication” among staff and “ease daily operations between agencies.”

The report includes three recommendations:

• To update the Facilities Master Plan by Mar. 31, 2025, to incorporate achievable implementation goals.
• By no later than July 1, 2025, to evaluate funding alternatives for future property acquisitions.
• To accelerate consolidation of county operations rather than leasing new facilities.

The second Civil Grand Jury report, “Humboldt County Custody & Corrections Facilities,” calls for upgrades to several aging county facilities, including the jail and juvenile detention center, the animal shelter, Sempervirens Psychiatric Health Facility, the Coroner-Public Administrator’s office, as well as the state-run Eel River Conservation Camp and the Sheriff’s Work Alternative Program (SWAP).

“We observed common issues at several facilities including serious needs for repairs, maintenance and upgrading of buildings,” the report says. “Some physical structures are relatively new. Others are many decades old. Despite these conditions, facilities appear to be functional and serviceable. … We also noted significant understaffing, leading to substantial amounts of required overtime. These issues, along with working in already stressful positions, lead to staff fatigue.”

The 2022-23 Civil Grand Jury issued a similar report – “Custody and Corrections, and Other Humboldt County Facilities” – that called out “appalling and dangerous conditions” at the animal shelter. The county’s responses to the report were “positive in terms of making changes to address problems,” but some of the recommendations still haven’t been implemented. “In some cases, the issues already documented have become worse because of delayed actions.”

The Civil Grand Jury issued the following recommendations for each of the facilities in question:

• Humboldt County Animal Shelter: To repair the roof and repair or replace inoperable outside lights by Oct. 31, 2024.
• Eel River Conservation Camp: To ensure that all fire safety equipment and facilities are in working condition by Nov. 30, 2024.
• Humboldt County Juvenile Detention Center: To adjust the pay scale for juvenile correctional officers by July 1, 2025, to be more competitive with correctional deputies. To coordinate with Public Works to install a rain gutter “above the walkway by the grass area” by Oct. 1, 2024.
• Humboldt County Jail: To repair leaks in the roof by Dec. 31, 2024. To repair or replace “the padded parts of the wall-mounted parallel bar exercise equipment” by Oct. 31, 2024.
• Humboldt County Coroner-Public Administrator: To create a policy and procedures manual for the coroner’s portion of the position by Dec. 31, 2024. Install a keypad lock on all doors accessing areas of the office that store property or evidence by Dec. 31, 2024. To develop or purchase a computer system to inventory and trace deceased people’s personal property (not criminal evidence) by July 1, 2025. To repair walls in the evidence room to protect exposed electrical components by Dec. 30, 2024. To replace all work surfaces in the autopsy room with stainless steel by June 30, 2025.
• Sempervirens: To fill “at least half” of the vacant positions at the facility by Jan. 1, 2025.
• SWAP: To install a secure fence with a locked gate around the drainage pond by July 30, 2025. To adequately staff the SWAP Farm with a minimum of six deputies by Dec. 31, 2024.

The board will also return to the topic of oversight of the Sheriff’s Office. During its July 23 meeting, the board discussed the formation of a civilian oversight committee, as recommended by the Civil Grand Jury, to enhance transparency within the department. The board was divided on the topic and, without Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal present for the discussion, decided to revisit the topic at a future meeting. 

The board will discuss the Civil Grand Jury’s recommendations for each report during Tuesday’s meeting. County department heads will likely weigh in as well.

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Those are the big-ticket items on this week’s agenda. The county’s agenda management system is on the fritz this week, which means our AgendaBot Gennie won’t be able to deliver summaries and clever renditions of each agenda item that we’ve all come to know and love. Sad. Maybe next week.

The Board of Supervisors will meet Tuesday at 9 a.m. in board chambers at the Humboldt County Courthouse – 825 Fifth Street in Eureka. Click here for the full agenda.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s message on homelessness in recent weeks has been clear: The state will no longer tolerate encampments, and cities shouldn’t either.

Californians who live on the streets, as well as the outreach workers who support them, say they’re already feeling the difference. Places where someone used to be able to pitch a tent and sleep in peace have suddenly become inhospitable. Police seem to be clearing camps more often and more aggressively, and are less likely to give advance notice before they come in with bulldozers and trash compactors, according to anecdotal reports in some cities. Even in cities where officials said publicly nothing would change, unhoused people and activists say it’s become harder to be homeless.

But the shift, sparked by a Supreme Court ruling and then further fueled by an executive order, hasn’t caused a significant increase in shelter beds or affordable housing.

That’s led people on the streets to ask: Where are we supposed to go?

“We gotta be somewhere,” said Tré Watson, who lives in a tent in Santa Cruz, and says unhoused people are running out of places to go. “We can’t hover. We come here, they run us away. We go to any park and they run us away. We go to the Pogonip (nature preserve), and they bring bulldozers.”

Tré Watson outside the Housing Matters shelter in Santa Cruz on Aug. 7, 2024. Photo by Manuel Orbegozo for CalMatters

Homeless Californians and activists from San Diego to Sacramento told CalMatters that enforcement has become more frequent and more aggressive. Some city leaders have made their intentions to ramp up enforcement explicitly clear. The Fresno City Council recently passed an ordinance, which, if it gets final approval later this month, will make it illegal to camp on public property at all times. San Francisco Mayor London Breed said the city will launch a “very aggressive” crackdown, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Others have said they won’t make changes to their encampment strategies. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last month reaffirmed that the county won’t use its jails to hold homeless people arrested for camping, the Los Angeles Times reported. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also has been critical of criminalizing public camping.

Newsom pushes for a crackdown on homeless encampments

Homelessness has been a defining obstacle of Newsom’s career ever since he was mayor of San Francisco in the early 2000s. And it’s only become more pressing — California’s estimated homeless population has swelled to more than 181,000, at the same time Newsom is widely rumored to have presidential ambitions.

Earlier this summer, the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court handed cities a new cudgel to crack down on the encampments that proliferate across California’s parks, sidewalks and open spaces. Per the Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling, law enforcement can now cite or arrest people for sleeping on public property — even if there are no shelter beds available to them. That’s a major change from prior legal precedent, which said it was unconstitutional to punish someone for sleeping outside if they had nowhere else to go.

Roberta Titus, 67, sits outside a juice shop on Front Street in Santa Cruz on Aug. 7, 2024. Photo by Manuel Orbegozo for CalMatters

A month later, Newsom responded with an executive order directing state agencies to ramp up enforcement against encampments, and encouraging cities to do the same. The order didn’t technically require cities to act, but last week, Newsom made it clear there will be consequences for cities that don’t.

If he doesn’t see results in the next few months, and if he doesn’t feel local leaders are acting with a “sense of urgency,” he’ll start redirecting their funding, Newsom said during a news conference outside a homeless encampment in Los Angeles.

“We’re done with the excuses,” he said. “And the last big excuse was, ‘Well, the courts are saying we can’t do anything.’ Well, that’s no longer the case. So we had a simple executive order: Do your job. There’s no more excuses.”

The state agencies that will be most immediately affected by Newsom’s order — Caltrans, California State Parks and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife — did not answer questions requesting details about how the executive order will change how they clear encampments on their property, nor did they provide data on their prior abatement efforts. State Parks referred questions to the governor’s office, which did not respond.

What it’s like for homeless Californians

In Santa Cruz, enforcement has become particularly “brutal” in recent weeks, said Keith McHenry, an activist who hands out food and other supplies to homeless communities through his organization Food Not Bombs. Though, as in many cities, it’s hard to tell how much of the change is a direct result of the Supreme Court decision and executive order. The tide already was shifting toward enforcement before the justices ruled.

In April, Santa Cruz pushed between 30 and 40 people out of a major encampment in a community park, according to the city. Many of the people displaced from the park then set up tents on Coral Street, outside the local homeless shelter, McHenry said. The city cleared that camp in June. After those sweeps, some people relocated to the Pogonip nature preserve at the edge of the city. Late last month, the city swept the nature preserve.

“We can’t hover. We come here, they run us away. We go to any park and they run us away. We go to the Pogonip (nature preserve), and they bring bulldozers.”
— Tré Watson, resident, Santa Cruz

The city says just five people were removed from the Pogonip in that sweep, but McHenry suspects it was more.

The city says its strategy for dealing with homeless camps hasn’t changed.

“The City’s current practices have proven effective and are already consistent with Governor Newsom’s suggested encampment-related policies for local governments contained in his recent executive order,” city spokesperson Erika Smart said in an email.

First: Spraq, 46, stays with his dogs and a partner in a small camp outside the Housing Matter shelter. Last: An eviction notice on a tent set up on Pacific Avenue. Santa Cruz on Aug. 7, 2024. Photos by Manuel Orbegozo for CalMatters

A group of unhoused people camp outside the Housing Matters shelter in Santa Cruz on Aug. 7, 2024. Photo by Manuel Orbegozo for CalMatters

On a recent Wednesday morning, a man who goes by the nickname Spraq was packing his belongings onto a bike trailer, preparing for the sweep he thought might come later that day on Coral Street. Spraq, who ended up on the streets after the truck he was living in got repossessed about 10 years ago, was camping in the park until police kicked everyone out. He and his ex-girlfriend moved to a nearby street, and two days later, police found them, threw away his ex’s clothes and other possessions, and forced them to move on, Spraq said. So they moved into a parking spot on the street outside Costco – a place where they’d camped without issue many times before, he said. Again, police found them, said they couldn’t be there, and threw away their belongings, Spraq said.

“They kept doing that until we had nothing,” he said.

Combined, McHenry says the recent sweeps mark the biggest push to dismantle encampments that he’s seen in Santa Cruz in years. Before, he said, people would relocate after a sweep and the city generally would leave them alone for a while. This time, police have been coming back regularly to spots like Coral Street to make sure people don’t return, he said. The city recently erected a chain-link fence and orange, plastic barricades along the sidewalk to deter campers.

“There’s just a full-court press to keep people from being settled anywhere,” McHenry said.

Cities respond to Newsom’s push for a crackdown

Enforcement seems to be ramping up along the bank of the San Diego River, where about 300 people live in tents and make-shift shacks — many of whom ended up there after police kicked them out of other camps closer to town, said Kendall Burdett, an outreach worker with the nonprofit PATH. Lately, the authorities have been clearing camps along the river multiple times per week, Burdett said. Before Newsom’s executive order, sweeps happened closer to a few times a month, he said.

The riverbank includes land controlled by Caltrans and by the city, and it’s not always clear who is sweeping camps, Burdett said. But he said he’s noticing the authorities are less likely to give advance notice before sweeping, leaving him and his co-workers scrambling to help their clients. That’s making it harder to get people into housing, Burdett said. People often lose their identifying documents in sweeps — which they need to get into subsidized housing.

“That sets the whole thing back,” he said.

Other times, Burdett can’t find clients after they’re swept. As a result, sometimes clients end up losing their housing placements.

“The last big excuse was, ‘Well, the courts are saying we can’t do anything.’ Well, that’s no longer the case. So we had a simple executive order: Do your job. There’s no more excuses.”
— Gov. Gavin Newsom

San Diego already had been ramping up enforcement, passing an ordinance banning encampments in certain areas last year. But the city says recent developments have changed nothing.

“There has been no change or move to increase abatements after the Supreme Court decision or following Newsom’s executive order,” city spokesperson Matt Hoffman said. “It’s just business as usual as of now.”

In San Francisco, where Mayor Breed promised an aggressive crackdown following the court ruling, the city removed 82 tents and five other structures from the streets the week of July 29 through Aug. 2. Abatement teams engaged with 326 people during those operations — 38 of whom accepted a shelter bed — and arrested or cited nine people, according to the city.

Other cities are passing or considering new, more punitive rules as a result of Newsom’s executive order. In Fresno, the City Council granted preliminary approval last month to an ordinance that would ban camping on public property at all times, the Fresno Bee reported. Fresno County approved a similar measure.

An unhoused person on a kayak in the San Diego River on March 23, 2024. Photo by Kristian Carreon for CalMatters

Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln said on Twitter the city must “move urgently” to ensure public safety while also supporting those in need. He made plans for a public study session later this month to discuss how the city will enforce anti-camping ordinances going forward.

In Sacramento, the city is distributing fliers to educate its unhoused residents about the changes under the Supreme Court ruling. The light-blue notices, titled “Attention: Unlawful Camping,” warn that people can be charged with a misdemeanor for camping on public property.

“They’re forcing someone under threat of arrest to pack up and move all their belongings,” said Niki Jones, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness. “And people’s bodies literally can’t handle the physical stress.”

‘Where do we go?’

While Newsom has provided an influx of money for shelter beds and other services in recent years — including $1 billion in this year’s budget for Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention funds that cities and counties can spend as they see fit — his recent executive order comes with no additional funding. Last year, California cities and counties reported having roughly 71,000 shelter beds. They’d need more than twice that to accommodate every homeless Californian.

“Folks are rightly asking, ‘Where do we go?’” Jones said.

Stephanie Ross, 49, has been homeless in Santa Cruz but receives help from local activists. Aug. 7, 2024. Photo by Manuel Orbegozo for CalMatters

Even when shelter beds are available, sweeps often fail to fill them. Santa Cruz, for example, estimates between 30 and 40 people were living in the park encampment it swept in April. Just 16 of those people accepted a shelter placement. No one kicked out of the nature preserve accepted shelter.

People living on the streets of Santa Cruz say police often tell them to go to a sanctioned encampment on the National Guard Armory property — where residents sleep in tents and get meals and showers. But many people won’t even consider it. Several unhoused people CalMatters spoke to said they didn’t want to live somewhere with strict rules and a curfew.

Stephanie Ross, who has been living on the streets of Santa Cruz for seven months, recently lost everything in a sweep. All she had left was the outfit she was wearing — a dinosaur-print dress, pants covered in pink flowers and a sweater she found on the ground. On Wednesday, she met up with McHenry to pick up a new tent to replace the one she says was confiscated by police a few days ago.

Ross said she can’t concentrate on finding a job or doing anything else, because she’s constantly worried about hiding her blankets and other possessions from the police. Even so, she worries she’d chafe under the rules of the Armory tent shelter.

“I need a little bit more freedom than that,” she said.

Demarr Clark, 42, said no one offered him a bed when police recently kicked him out of his camp on the sidewalk outside the Santa Cruz shelter. He lost everything he owned, including his tent, he said. Afterward, Clark moved across the street with a new tent gifted to him by a friend.

Clark grew up in Santa Cruz, and the city always seemed like a place where you could find somewhere out of the way to camp, he said. But that’s changing, he said. “It just seems like they have no tolerance for it anymore.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.