Now that the Supreme Court has granted cities more power to ban sleeping outside, homeless Californians face a crucial decision: Try to get into a shelter, or risk going to jail.

Those able to find a shelter bed will step into a world rife with reports of violence, theft, health hazards — and a lack of accountability. Public records obtained by CalMatters show that most cities and counties have seemingly ignored a recent state law that aimed to reform dangerous conditions in shelters.

In 2021, following earlier reports of maggots, flooding and sexual harassment in shelters, the state Legislature created a new system requiring local governments to inspect the facilities after complaints and file annual reports on shelter conditions, including plans to fix safety and building code violations.

CalMatters found that just 5 of California’s 58 counties — Lake, Los Angeles, Monterey, Orange and Yuba — have filed shelter reports. Only 4 of the state’s 478 cities filed reports: Fairfield, Petaluma, Santa Rosa and Woodland, according to records from the agency in charge of implementing the law, the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

“It is shocking, number one, that there is so little reporting, considering that is part of the legislation,” said the law’s author, Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, a Democrat who represents parts of Orange and L.A. counties. “We are asking for the basics here.”

In light of CalMatters’ findings, she said she has requested a meeting with officials at the state housing agency. Quirk-Silva said she will consider audits or other measures as needed.

“Maybe we need to add more teeth,” she said. “There certainly could be a possibility that we will follow up with another piece of legislation.”

Police call logs, shelter incident reports and other records obtained by CalMatters provide a hint of what’s missing as a result of the failure to report: a child falling out of an unreinforced window in San Mateo County and being hospitalized; multiple allegations of sexual harassment in Contra Costa County; food shortages in Placer County; and deaths, mold and vermin in many places across the state.

California has spent at least $1.5 billion on shelters and related solutions since 2018, legislative reports show, on top of millions invested by cities, counties and the federal government. The facilities are designed to be a temporary stop on the road to regaining housing but increasingly function as a bridge to nowhere; the state added new emergency shelter beds at roughly five times the rate of permanent housing with supportive services from 2018 to 2023, gaining 27,544 shelter beds, federal data shows.

What happens in those shelters is largely a black box. No state agency keeps an updated list of how many shelters are operating, or where, officials told CalMatters. There is no state licensing process for shelters. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development tracks numbers of emergency shelter beds and how long people live in them, but no information about resident deaths, health or safety.

While not every city or county in California has a homeless shelter, state housing officials estimated a total of around 1,300 shelters in 2021. Municipalities continue to invest in them as a more immediate alternative to street homelessness, even as experts stress that other options – such as direct rent subsidies or housing with on-site services – are often more effective at combating the root issue.

“It’s a bad idea. At the same time, so many unhoused people are living in these congregate shelters,” said Eve Garrow, a senior policy analyst and advocate for the ACLU of Southern California. “We want to make sure those spaces are safe and clean for as long as people need them, but we also want to move away from that model.”

The 2021 state law was supposed to help enforce minimum building and safety standards for shelters by creating a new state oversight system. When people staying at shelters or their advocates file complaints, the law requires cities or counties to inspect the facilities and report any violations to the state to reconsider future funding. The catch: cities and counties only have to report to the state if they determine that a violation is severe enough.

“Each city and county has a very unique way of processing complaints,” said Mitchel Baker, assistant deputy director of the Department of Housing and Community Development’s codes and standards division. “What may be perceived as complaints or violations may not ultimately result in the issuance of a notice of violation or corrective order.”

As California and the rest of the country barrel into a new legal era for mass homelessness, promises of safe shelter will be key to determining how many people can avoid more frequent tickets or jail. Many public officials, meanwhile, cast the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass ruling as a necessary clarification after years of conflict over when cities should be allowed to dismantle tents, insisting that they will continue to offer alternatives.

“This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement after the ruling. “The state will continue to work with compassion to provide individuals experiencing homelessness with the resources they need.”

What those resources are is often hard to know, since many shelters are closed to visitors and so few places have filed state reports on conditions. People who have lived in shelters, however, paint a more dire picture.

Residents of one Huntington Beach shelter recently complained to health officials about mold, never-ending cases of pneumonia and neighbors walking around with infected, open sores. Homeless people and their families have filed lawsuits in several cities over shelter sexual assaults and wrongful deaths. In San Diego, Sharon Descans has been bouncing between shelters and a borrowed van after being evicted from a newer kind of publicly-funded tent city, where she said she weathered unpaid labor, multiple neighbors’ deaths and flashes of chaos.

“People are pulling swords on each other and hitting each other with two-by-fours,” Descans said. “All I wanted from the day I got there is to get out.”

Old problems, new failures

Up until the 1980s, many of the poorest people in California and other states could still afford rented rooms or cheap hotels. Then came a tidal wave of gentrification, wage stagnation, federal cuts to housing and cash aid, plus shocks like the AIDS and drug epidemics. In less than three decades, the state went from 37,000 dedicated beds for mental health patients to just 2,500 by 1983, according to historians at the National Academies of Sciences.

Vast numbers of people “drifted onto the streets,” the historians wrote, as promised investments in community resources proved inadequate. The “modern era of homelessness” had begun.

Large emergency shelters with bunk beds and communal showers emerged as a stop-gap, despite comparisons to jail cells or military barracks. The shelter triage approach spread as California housing construction slowed and homelessness exploded, up 40% in the past five years alone, to more than 181,000 people.

Shelters boomed thanks in large part to court rulings that forbid authorities from cracking down on homeless people solely for being homeless. In Martin v Boise, courts decided that the city violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment by ticketing people for sleeping outside when there wasn’t “adequate” shelter available.

“What has happened is cities and counties have quite explicitly raced to build more shelters in order to criminalize more people,” Garrow said. “Shelters become kind of an arm of this criminal legal system.”

Quirk-Silva proposed the 2021 shelter law after a 2019 ACLU report by Garrow documented bedbug infestations, overflowing sewage and sexual harassment by shelter workers. The findings collided with Quirk-Silva’s experience talking with people on the street near her Fullerton neighborhood about why they weren’t in shelters. Her own brother died at age 50 after struggling with housing instability, mental health and alcohol abuse.

Shelters were growing, fast, Quirk-Silva realized, and people were staying longer. California shelter residents now stay a median of about five months, or 155 days, the most recent federal data from 2023 shows — a 30% increase since 2019.

Garrow supported the 2021 law’s effort to create minimum standards for shelters. She has seen a few problematic shelters closed down in Orange County, she said, including an old transit station in Santa Ana not meant for human habitation, which previously flooded.

Still, Garrow wasn’t surprised to hear about the small number of cities and counties following through on the law, which she said several amendments weakened. One removed a requirement for local officials to regularly conduct unannounced shelter inspections. Another struck a rule to add signs with information about how to file complaints at shelters.

“I would attribute the low number of complaints not to the fact that shelters are now clean and sanitary and abiding by a new law,” Garrow said. “But to the fact that people aren’t aware.”

Under the law, cities and counties that find violations in their shelters are supposed to report any conditions that are “dangerous, hazardous, imminently detrimental to life or health, or otherwise render the homeless shelter unfit for human habitation.” But even places that are filing state shelter reports omit serious potential safety issues.

L.A. County, for example, has filed lists of its several dozen shelters and one-page inventories of violations related to rats, roaches, hot water outages and garbage. Not mentioned were issues like a 2021 conviction of a former shelter security guard on multiple sexual assault charges. Or reports of shelter deaths, physical attacks and other incidents that appear in police call logs requested by CalMatters.

Shelters after SCOTUS

On a recent Friday in San Diego’s crown jewel of a central park, Balboa Park, Sharon Descans laid down on a concrete bench under a palm tree to ease the pain in her joints after a year of constant motion. The former college swimmer said she became homeless for the first time last year, after she got sick with COVID, lost two property management jobs, fell behind on rent and got evicted.

What followed was a tour she never wanted of last-ditch housing in a city at the forefront of statewide efforts to vanquish street encampments.

Even before the Supreme Court decision, San Diego officials were moving people off the street to large publicly funded tent cities, called “safe sleeping” sites.

At a site called O Lot, Descans and many neighbors lived in Eskimo brand ice fishing huts that multiple residents said were prone to leaking during rain. Her anxiety spiked at the makeshift shelter, she said, since she didn’t have a door to lock and witnessed widespread drug use and unpredictable outbursts. One neighbor died of cancer alone in his tent, Descans said, after what seemed like days without anyone checking on him.

None of that has been captured in state reports. San Diego is one of the many California locales that has not submitted any reports after the 2021 shelter law, according to state records, despite housing more than a dozen shelters and some 10,600 homeless residents.

(Even if San Diego had filed the reports, state and local spokespeople said it’s not certain they would’ve captured operations at O Lot. Though many homeless people have temporarily lived at the tent site, nonprofit operator Dreams For Change stressed that it is not technically a shelter under federal definitions.)

When asked whether there was any process in place for complaints about homeless shelters in San Diego county, a spokesperson said only that the county does not directly operate any shelters. Under the state law, cities and counties are still responsible for monitoring complaints and reporting violations at shelters in their area with other owners or operators.

A spokesman for the city of San Diego said that it has received five complaints since the shelter law was passed, and that “city staff are working on” evaluating why a state report had not been filed.

“At all city-funded shelters, including the Safe Sleeping and Safe Parking programs, there is a comprehensive complaint process where potential issues are quickly and thoroughly resolved,” spokesman Matt Hoffman said in a statement. “Every complaint is followed up on and, if needed, action is promptly taken.”

At O Lot, Descans tried to keep her head down. She made friends with another mom whose son had also wrestled at a nearby high school. The pair heard they could earn money to work their way out of the tents by cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry for the nonprofit Dreams for Change. Descans said she was never paid around $1,000 for 55 hours of cleaning work, which she documented in photos and text message complaints to a site supervisor.

In June, Descans was “exited” from the shelter — nonprofit-speak for evicted — after forms said she had a verbal altercation with staff and allowed an unpermitted visit from her 17-year-old son, who lives with other family.

“I just feel like nobody cares,” Descans said. “It’s like cover your ass at any expense — who even cares about these homeless people?”

A Dreams for Change spokesperson said the nonprofit cannot comment on individual cases, but that it has a process for formally hiring and paying residents who wish to work. The nonprofit added that it is one of several contractors that operate safe sleeping sites near Balboa Park.

About 80 households have secured permanent housing after living at Dreams for Change’s portion of O Lot, spokesperson Kelly Spoon said in a statement. She confirmed three deaths at the site and added that, “Dealing with a diverse population, occasional altercations may arise, but physical altercations are extremely rare.”

Another current resident of the safe sleeping site, who asked not to be identified due to fear of retaliation, said he was also concerned about a lack of sufficient meals, deaths, sexual assaults reported by female neighbors, and a nagging lack of information from caseworkers about housing options.

“The animals almost get better treatment than the people,” he said. “You keep shitting on people, you’re going to get shit results.”

Shawn Swearigen also lived in a tent at O Lot before moving to a subsidized apartment last month. The grandson of a cattle rancher from Imperial County worked in construction for years, until family deaths and the 2008 housing crash landed him on the street.

The tent in Balboa Park “wasn’t bad,” he said, though it wasn’t immune from theft and mental health crises that he has found are two constants of homelessness. Swearigen valued having his own space, as opposed to being “dormed up” in a bunk bed like when he first became homeless and stayed at a large shelter. It was so claustrophobic and counter-productive, he said, that he spent the next decade trying to stay out of sight, often camping in the woods.

“It was kind of like a lack of options,” Swearigen said. “I really didn’t want to be a burden on people.”

Have you stayed at a California homeless shelter? Tell us about your experience here.

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

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our mother and grandmother. Born in Southern California, Jeannie had a busy childhood surfing Venice Beach and diving for coins thrown by visitors from the steamer ships at Catalina Island with her 6 siblings. She also recalled visiting Disneyland with her family when she was 8 on just the third day the park was open. At 4 foot 11, Jeannie was a feisty woman full of zest. She loved growing up near the ocean and enjoyed the summers at her family’s cottage in Catalina. She was tenacious like her mother with a great commitment to excellence. 

She met our father, Kenneth Gray, in 1967, following the birth of her first daughter, marrying in 1968. One of her greatest regrets was not being able to raise her first child, Kylie Hansen, who found her and our family 29 years later. From then on, Kylie was one of us like we never missed a beat. Jeannie was so happy to have her 3 daughters together for the weddings of her other two daughters, Colleen and Ginger. She and her husband Ken moved from Southern California to Fortuna in the summer of 1977 with their two daughters. They knew no one in the county. The economy was challenging, and it took some time to find work. Jeannie ultimately went to work for Jacque Debets Realty, then Crown Redwood and then finally Pacific Lumber Company, for which she was most proud of. It was not an easy job for her to get and working in the factory with her short stature was challenging. She was a very hard worker and most of all she was motivated to afford a lifestyle that would help to care for her family. Jeannie retired early and had a second calling, caring daily on weekdays for her nearby grandchildren, Kira and Hayden, until they were old enough to stay home alone. She and Ken loved their outings with the grankids, taking them to restaurants and activities and teaching them about various cultures. Those were some of the happiest years of her life. She also enjoyed their trips in their motor home with their Siamese cat, Bluesy. Jeannie was also a talented stained-glass artist and crafter. She enjoyed writing and had a natural way with words. She loved her home, gardening and most of all, cooking for her family. She was also quite funny and a natural problem solver. Her ability to get to know strangers quickly and make a connection was admirable. 

Our mother’s health faltered in recent years but her tenacious spirit continued. She worked to get the most out of her days, exercising and advocating for herself and others. This past year, her daughter, Ginger, took her to lunch every Saturday where she enjoyed fish and chips whenever possible. 

Her greatest loves were her three daughters, Kylie, Colleen and Ginger and her four grandchildren, Emmeline, Kira, Olivia and Hayden. She was always so proud of how well they were doing and the careers they had developed. She was most proud that all 3 of her children were college graduates. Something that was not an option for her. She was also proud that her grandchildren were completing their education and that they were all hard workers. She will continue to be their ongoing champion, watching from above, cheering them on to have their best lives. She would want nothing but the absolute best life for each of them. That is for certain. Her greatest act of selflessness was giving up her first child for adoption and that was the epitome of our mother. She worked hard to provide for her family. She was the exact opposite of selfish. She was loving and caring, often to the sacrifice of herself. A mother’s love like none other. That was our mother, our grandmother. We love you and miss you already. 

Jeannie is survived by her three daughters, Kylie Hansen (Kris), Colleen Dunaway (Paul), Ginger Weber (Mike) and her four grandchildren, Emmeline Dunaway, Olivia Dunaway, Kira Weber and Hayden Weber. She was predeceased by her husband, Kenneth Gray, and three of her siblings. We thank her primary care provider, Dr. Lei Han, for her compassionate and diligent care, and for helping our mom and our family to navigate her health concerns this past year. 

Jeannie will be laid to rest in Fortuna with a small gathering with her family. We hope you cook a nice meal for your family or complement them for a job well done in honor of our mother. She truly was one of a kind!

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Jeannie’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.

The family of Virginia Mae Kernen is sad to announce her passing on June 29, 2024, at 95 years of age.  Virginia (Ginny) was born March 16, 1929, to Herbert Paul and Marjorie Fay Dickson (nee Osburn) in Newton, Kansas.  She was immensely proud to be from Kansas.  Her family moved frequently as her father followed work.  While in high school, she lived with and cared for a woman in town during the week for room and board.  This way, she didn’t have to get dropped off at school at 6:00 AM on her dad’s way to work.  She had one day off after high school graduation and then started school at the Wichita – St. Joseph’s School of Nursing to become a registered nurse.  She sold her cow and steer to pay for tuition.

In June 1950, she and good friend, Anne Berry, took jobs as nurses in Del Norte, Colorado.  There Virginia met Calvin Harold Kernen on a blind date.  They were married the following December and spent over 73 years together.  She missed him very much after his recent passing in February 2024.  After living in Del Norte for a year, they lived briefly in Southern California near Cal’s sister where Virginia immediately got a job as a nurse.   They then moved to Humboldt County and purchased rural property and a home surrounded by Redwoods and hummingbirds, which she loved. Virginia quickly got a job as an OB/GYN nurse at Trinity Hospital, currently the Trinity Annex housing the Children’s Center at Cal Poly Humboldt.   After taking time off to be at home with her children, she worked years for doctors Todd, Portalupi, and Menda.  She loved being a nurse and generations of families have expressed their appreciation for her caring and kindness.  Virginia also served as the neighborhood nurse and treated many rashes, cuts, and scrapes.  She was proud to hold registered nurses’ licenses in three states. 

Virginia and Cal raised chickens, rabbits, pigeons, and sheep, adding pigs and steers for their son’s and grandchildren’s 4-H and FFA projects.  From their large garden and fruit trees, they enjoyed sharing produce with friends and family.  After working a full day as a nurse, Virginia would make jam and can fruits and vegetables.  She especially loved canning with her good friend, Barbara Applewhite.  Virginia participated in all her children’s activities, especially 4-H and FFA.  She was a sewing leader at the Arcata Bottom 4-H Club with Gerry Warren.  She spent hours helping her daughters sew and prepare garments for 4-H Dress Revues and the summer fairs.  Virginia was a master at crocheting and frequently took first place and Best of Show at local fairs with her amazing doilies.  She taught her daughters how to crochet and eventually quit entering the fairs so as not to compete against them.  Virginia and Cal were devoted supporters of the Junior Livestock Auction.  

Virginia prepared all family meals from scratch and used what the family grew and raised as ingredients.  Anyone who came at mealtime was welcome at the table.  She was a skilled baker, and her pies and trays of various cookies are legendary.  She gave plates of cookies to friends and family at Christmas and took cookies to all events.  Virginia and Cal were proud members of the Swiss Club, and they spent years serving as officers, preparing and serving food for the events, and cleaning and fixing items at the Swiss Hall.  Virginia was the scholarship chairperson for years.  She brought homemade pickles to Swiss Club dinners and donated baked items and beautiful doilies for their fundraisers.   They cherished the friendships they made at the Swiss Club, especially with Charlie and Pat King.

After retiring, Virginia and Cal enjoyed trips to Alaska, the east coast to see the fall colors, and to Switzerland.  Virginia had great memories of their last trip to Kansas to visit her family, made possible with their son’s help.  She and Cal enjoyed their last visit to his birthplace, a celebration for his 90th birthday shared with generations of family.  Virginia also appreciated her niece, Theresa, and husband, Stan, accompanying her sister, Joyce, to Arcata to visit when Virginia could no longer travel.  

Virginia was a caring and loving wife, mother, and grandmother.  She was hardworking, generous, and kind to all.  She was frank, and you always knew where she stood.  She babysat all of her grandchildren, passing on cooking, baking, canning, and crafting skills.  She is survived by her daughters, Karla (Steve) Darnall and Kay (Don) Becker, her son, Kurt (Sandra) Kernen, grandchildren:  Matthew Darnall (Kathleen Kiernan), Kathryn (Oliver) Helms, Reuben (Nickie) Rail, Diego Rail, Jeffrey (Ivy) Holmes, Christopher (Lauren) Holmes, Terris Becker, Kelsey Becker, Jess (Olivia) Kernen and Reid Kernen.  Her great-grandchildren include Hozana, Miranda, Rowan, Aurora, Hailey, Henri, Dylan and Hazel.  She is also survived by her dear sister, Joyce Bender, and numerous nieces and nephews and their families throughout the Midwest.  

Virginia was predeceased by her beloved husband, Cal, her parents, and siblings, Archie, Lloyd, Grace, Beulah, Gilbert and their spouses, brother-in-law, Dale Bender, and niece, Rhonda.  Also, by Cal’s parents, Friederick Alfred and Mary Albertina (nee: Gerber) Kernen and his siblings Lloyd, Hilda, Irene, Bertha, Madeline, and John and their spouses, and Kernen nephews Jim, Fred and Bob.

Virginia was so grateful to the dear friends who visited over the years, especially after Cal’s passing.  The family would like to thank Dr. Alison Palacios, the staff at Mad River Healthcare, Suite 3, and the staff at Especially You for their caring of Virginia.  Donations in Virginia’s name can be sent to St. Jude Children’s Hospital, or an organization related to the healthcare profession of your choice.  Arrangements are under the direction of Ayres Family Cremation.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Virginia’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.

A series of lightning strikes Monday evening resulted in a number of wildfires in eastern Humboldt. The largest of these is the Hill Fire located roughly 11 miles south of Willow Creek in the Mosquito Creek Drainage, which has now grown to roughly 2,000 acres in size, according to Cal Fire. 

“[The] fire is burning in steep, inaccessible terrain, with heavy timber and dry vegetation,” Cal Fire says. “Multiple tankers and copters are currently assigned and are working the fire.”

In response, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office has issued the following evacuation order:

EVACUATION ORDER Issued for Zone HUM-E077A: Due to the Hill Fire, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office has issued an immediate evacuation order for zone HUM-E077-A North of White Oak Creek/Grouse Creek, South of Friday Ridge Road, Forest Route 6N08A, East of Titlow Hill Rd, Twin Lakes Creek, West of Mosquito Creek/Madden Creek. Those in this zone should leave now for their safety.

EVACUATION WARNING Issued for Zone HUM-E077-B: Due to the Hill Fire, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office has issued an evacuation warning for zone HUM-E077-B North of PG&E Rod, Grouse Creek, South of Madden Creek, Forest Route 6N06, East of Mosquito Creek/Madden Creek, West of Trinity County Line. Prepare for potential evacuations, including personal supplies and overnight accommodations. Those in this zone should prepare to leave at a moment’s notice. More information will follow if an evacuation order is issued.

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Above: Timelapse video of the Hill Fire taken from the south. 

PREVIOUSLY: 

• 50 or More Lightning Strikes Ignite Wildfires Near Orleans and Willow Creek

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Facing rising business costs in a rapidly consolidating industry, Redwood Meat Co., the only USDA-certified slaughterhouse for nearly 200 miles in any direction, recently stopped processing animal carcasses, including beef, hogs, lambs and goats. The shutdown not only brings a halt to a family-run business that has been in operation since 1951; it has also had reverberating impacts across the local farming, ranching and retail sectors.

Unless an outside investment comes through soon — which is a long shot, according to Redwood Meat plant operator Ryan Nylander — then Redwood Meat Co. will likely close permanently, leaving the region’s numerous small-scale meat producers with limited options and increased costs.

Nylander didn’t have much to say when reached by phone Monday morning, offering brief replies to a series of questions. He said rapidly increasing bills for essentials such as insurance, water and utilities simply grew unsustainable.

“It was already a marginal business,” Nylander said, “but once the cost of doing business went up so much, you can’t even charge enough at our capacity [to break even].”

His uncle and longtime co-owner John “Punk” Nylander was even more succinct. 

“PG&E got us,” he said. “California got us. We’re just not running enough stuff through here to pay the bills.”

As recently as nine months ago, Redwood Meat Co. had 14 employees, according to the younger Nylander. But layoffs became necessary even before the recent shutdown. The business, which is located on the outskirts of Eureka’s Myrtletown neighborhood, slaughtered and butchered farm animals across the region, including lambs from Ferndale, organic pork from Del Norte County’s Alexandre Family Farms and beef from ranchers in Willow Creek, the Eel River Valley and beyond.

Local ranchers reached by the Outpost say that the loss of Redwood Meat Co. could threaten their own ability to make a profit selling meat, and if another option doesn’t come along soon they may be forced to make dramatic changes to their businesses. And small-scale producers are the hardest hit.

For example, Liz and Hugo Klopper are the owner-operators of Bear River Valley Beef, a family-run cattle-farming operation that sells beef directly to the public, including online and at farmers’ markets, along with some sales to local grocery stores including Wildberries. Redwood Meat Co. slaughtered and processed all of the beef they produced for the past 20 years, and Liz Klopper said she’s not sure what her farm will do now that they’ve shut down.

“I have no easy answer,” she said. “Redwood Meat is what we call critical infrastructure for local beef, and it’s gone.”

Beef, pork and other meats can’t be sold commercially unless the animals were slaughtered at a facility that’s been certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Now that Redwood Meat Co. is shut down, the nearest USDA-certified kill facilities are in Yreka and Sonoma County.

“And none are particularly viable for small operators,” Klopper said.

While Redwood Meat Co. could process a few head of cattle whenever they were delivered, local ranchers need to ship their animals out of the area and wait at least a day or two for them to be slaughtered and processed before having the meat shipped back up here to Humboldt in trucks with refrigeration or freezer trailers.

“Truck and trailer costs are pretty expensive for any operation, small or big,” Klopper said. “Redwood Meat had pretty reasonable prices, and they offered a lot of services — local deliveries, storage in their freezer locker, transportation to people like Taylor’s Sausages [in Cave Junction, Ore.] with value-added products. To find an all-in-one shop like that is pretty difficult.”

Some local ranchers were caught completely off guard by Redwood Meat’s closure. Melanie Cunningham of Shakefork Community Farm (near Carlotta) said that as a medium-sized farm that includes a cattle operation, they only get beef processed once per year, and ever since COVID they’ve had to make their appointments a full year in advance. 

“We found out two weeks after our scheduled dates that all [Redwood Meat Co.’s] dates had been canceled,” Cunningham said. “It put us all in a panic.”

Shakefork and other ranching operations in the area were notified via email back in May that Redwood Meat Co. may soon be sold, but the notice said that there shouldn’t be any interruption in service, according to Cunningham.

After learning that their dates had been canceled, Cunningham and her partners heard rumors — first that Redwood Meat had shut down entirely, then that they were still processing carcasses for some suppliers on request. “So it’s really up and down; we were in limbo,” she said.

Ultimately, the farmers at Shakefork had to pivot away from selling their beef commercially.

“Most of what we produce we can consume among family and friends,” Cunningham said. “But it does reshape our marketing plans. We will no longer be selling to farmers markets or [providing meet] to CSA [farm shares] and direct sales. It’s gonna really reduce availability.”

Larger operations may have an easier time adapting to the loss of a local slaughterhouse facility, but it’s still having a negative impact on operations, said Humboldt Grassfed Beef President and Owner Sarah Mora.

“When you lose infrastructure — which is what I would consider Redwood Meat Co., like Humboldt Creamery and the sawmill, anywhere you can take raw products turn them into consumer products — it hurts,” she said. “It doesn’t just hurt me, it hurts everybody.”

Humboldt Grassfed has been using a mobile slaughtering facility based in Petaluma for the past few weeks but will soon transition to Yosemite Valley Beef in Merced. The added logistical challenges have inevitably increased costs, though Mora said Ayres Distributing has been able to ship their products to existing customers in the Bay Area, Sonoma County and elsewhere. 

“Probably for us this challenge is something we can meet,” Mora said. “The people who really are going to be hurt are the smaller producers. … It’s not just that we’re losing [local] harvesting.  [Redwood Meat] is also a USDA cut facility, and there’s not another in Humboldt County, so we’re losing out on two fronts.”

The rising costs for local producers will only exacerbate the impacts of a nationwide spike in beef prices in recent years, a trend that’s been fueled by multiple factors, including fewer beef cattle, drought and higher grain costs.

Thomas Nicholson Stratton, who operates Foggy Bottoms Boys in Ferndale with his husband, Cody, said they’re now shipping product to and from both Modesto and Yreka for processing.

“It’s very challenging, but nonetheless it’s something that has to be done if we want to keep working as a company,” he said. The additional shipping costs have added at least $1.00 to $1.50 per pound to the company’s own costs, according to Nicholson Stratton. That forced Foggy Bottoms Boys to raise meat prices for the first time since the pandemic. 

Nicholson Stratton said that if no one comes in to save Redwood Meat Co. or establish a new local option, it could jeopardize their business and many others in the region.

“If we can’t hold things in, specific to our fuel costs and [finding] more efficient transportation, then it will be a threat to our business,” he said. “Not only that, it’s also a threat to the growth of our business.” Foggy Bottoms Boys has been looking to expand and diversify by offering pork sausage and other value-added meat products. They have several pending grant applications that they hoped would allow them to do further processing at their own farm.

“But we have to have USDA meats to be able to do that,” Nicholson Stratton said.

Redwood Meat Co.’s shutdown has also impacted local grocery stores, including the North Coast Co-op’s two locations, in Eureka and Arcata. The Co-op was the only local grocery store that received full carcasses from Redwood Meat Co. and broke them down in their own butcher operations, according to Emi Lee, the Arcata store manager. But first the animals had to be slaughtered and their carcasses gutted and cleaned at a USDA-certified facility.

“We were one of the last areas in the state that had a local processor who could do that for us,” Lee said. “We took a lot for granted having Redwood Meat here. Hopefully we can get back to that someday, but who knows when it’s ever gonna happen again.”

Consumers may already be noticing higher meat prices and missing out on products they loved. Alexandre Family Farm in Del Norte County was the longtime supplier of fresh pork to the North Coast Co-op, but Lee said the farm has been unable to find a new processor that can provide whole pig carcasses to the store.

“So we’re not able to sell their pork anymore,” Lee said. “That was really special. I’m really bummed to not be able to keep doing that.”

The Co-op is also no longer receiving full-carcass lambs from Ferndale Farms, since their meat is being processed out of the county and shipped back frozen to preserve freshness. 

“Everyone’s feeling it across the whole area,” Lee said. “Right now it’s sort of crisis mode. We need to make sure we can keep everyone in business and keep the community with locally raised beef [and other meat], even if it’s not locally processed.”

Potential solutions

Local ranchers and other stakeholders have been gathering since early May to deal with the potential loss of Redwood Meat Co., according to Portia Bramble, executive director of the nonprofit North Coast Growers’ Association.

“We have a collaborative group of producers working behind the scenes to tackle this important issue,” she said when reached by phone on Monday.

A few of those producers, along with some investment groups, expressed interest in purchasing Redwood Meat Co., but a deal has thus far proved elusive amid strict USDA regulations and the challenges of operating such an old facility that has some antiquated infrastructure. On the regulatory side, the Nylanders may need to keep the business in operation and maintain some percentage of ownership for their facilities to maintain their USDA licensing, Bramble said.

She emphasized that much of the local ranching industry’s success over the years can be directly attributed to Redwood Meat Co. and the Nylanders, who went out of their way to meet the specific and varied demands of local ranchers.

“They really had a business model that was aligned with our local producers’ needs,” she said. “That might also imply that it wasn’t the most lucrative business. There were some nuances to what they were doing. It worked for a number of years, but I’m not sure it’s a business model that could go into the future.”

Humboldt County also lacks large-scale cold storage facilities, Bramble pointed out. While some farmers, including Klopper, have installed their own walk-in freezers, many other producers struggled to line up a temperature-controlled supply chain.

”Even if they can take the time to ship animals out of the area, it’s a whole new business model for frozen [products],” Bramble said.

In meetings with local producers, including the Foggy Bottoms Boys, the North Coast Growers’ Association (NCGA) has looked for ways to keep Redwood Meat Co. afloat while also looking to the future.

”We’d like to support a new, modern facility that’s able to do more … including full-scale processing that’s also value-added,” such as making sausage, ground beef and other consumer-ready products, Bramble said. 

The NCGA has been working with the California Center for Rural Policy, the Arcata Economic Development Corporation and others on large-scale economic development planning through California’s Jobs First Regional Investment Initiative. A local initiative called Redwood Region RISE (Resilient Inclusive Sustainable Economy) has identified areas in need of investment, including meat processing.

“We’ve submitted a large-scale funding proposal to support this project of building a new processing plant on the North Coast,” Bramble said, though she noted that the process is, by design, slow and thoughtful, with input being gathered from a wide variety of business sectors. (A long-term strategic plan should be released to the public soon, she added.)

In the meantime, producers, grocers and others are hopeful that Redwood Meat Co. may yet be salvaged. In our brief phone conversation with Ryan Nylander, he said, “We’re hopeful for some investment, but if it doesn’t come through pretty quick — .” He didn’t finish the sentence.

Lee, the Arcata Co-op manager, said he floated the idea of forming an ownership co-operative to take over Redwood Meat Co., but such an endeavor would likely involve many financial and logistical hurdles, including hiring from outside the area to fill specialized positions in the slaughterhouse. In the meantime, the Co-op has had to raise meat prices to at least partially cover their own increased costs.

Meanwhile, Cunningham, of Shakefork Community Farm, said there’s one possible legislative solution on the horizon. Last year, federal legislators introduced the PRIME (Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption) Act, which would open the door to allow for legal sales of animals that have been slaughtered and processed on farms.

“We do that with chickens,” Cunningham said. “We have a federal exemption for up to 20,000 chickens on our farm, so there is a precedent.”

But under current law, as noted above, any large animal meat sold commercially has to come from a USDA-inspected facility. 

“It’s really created a bottleneck as more and more of these local abattoirs go out of business,” Cunningham said. “It really can’t pencil out these days, and it has been a story across the country, with [smaller] slaughterhouses consolidating into these massive things. We don’t want that.”

Humboldt County already has several on-farm butchers, who can be used for meat that farmers feed themselves and their friends. While some organizations, including the Safe Food Coalition, have voiced food safety concerns about the PRIME Act, Cunningham thinks the model could work well on a larger scale here in Humboldt County.

“It feels so much better to have an animal never leave our farm, never be transported — it’s just nicer way to process meat,” she said. Shipping the carcasses out the area for processing isn’t practical, economical or necessary, in her view. “It’s definitely time to rethink it if we want to have flourishing local food networks.”

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CORRECTION: This post originally misspelled Klopper, which we [okay, I] regret. —RB

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On 7/6/2024, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of bones discovered in the South Fork of the Eel River near Redway. Upon initial investigation, photos were viewed by the Coroner’s Office and determined unlikely to be human. A deputy responded to the scene, interviewed the witness, and collected the bone for further investigation. To conduct further confirmation of the bone’s origin, the Coroner’s Office elected to have the bone examined by anthropologists, who have deemed the bone as possibly human—further examination is pending. Additional follow-up searches are underway at the scene to locate further remains, with the use of deputies and two cadaver search dogs.

Anyone with information about this case is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On 7/10/2024 in the afternoon, Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the Airport Business Park in McKinleyville for the report of a dog attack.

Deputies responded to a report of a tan pitbull attacking a person and their two small dogs. The owner of the pitbull left the scene prior to the deputy’s arrival.

In order to complete an investigation to ensure the safety of the public, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office is attempting to locate the owner of the pitbull, who is described as a Hispanic or Native American male, approximately 20-30 years old, with shoulder length dark hair.

The pitbull owner was last seen leaving the area driving a small white car with tinted windows and black rims. The victim provided a possible partial license plate number, 9BHJ97.

This case is still under investigation. The owner of the Pitbull is asked to contact the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Animal Control at (707) 840-9279.