Sonoma Co. Supes Vote To Open Emergency Homeless Shelter In Los Guilicos
LOS GUILICOS (KPIX 5) -- Outrage erupted in response to Sonoma County's efforts to find a place to house the homeless. With no perfect solution on the table, the Board of Supervisors picked a controversial site for an emergency shelter.
The board had two options: to open an emergency shelter in the city of Santa Rosa or one that's eight miles east in Los Guilicos. It voted Tuesday on Los Guilicos, a location many say is impractical.
Alice Linn, who was at the meeting, says, "Los Guilicos is the Timbuktu of transit access."
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors voted to open up an emergency shelter near the juvenile detention center in Los Guilicos. This is an effort to find alternative housing for the roughly 200 people living in encampments on the Joe Rodota trail.
Many say placing the homeless there will only perpetuate the cycle of homelessness.
"Public transit is sparse that people could spend weeks or months getting nothing accomplished even years if they have to be sent out there," said Alice Lynn.
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The proposed site is about eight miles east on Highway 12. There's not a single street light on portions of the two lane road. Homeless advocates say this location is not well thought out.
They can't force anybody from the trail to go there so why would anybody who lives here move 8 miles out of Santa Rosa and have all their travel dictated by bureaucracy," said Miles Sarvis-Wilbur.
The county has set Jan. 31 as the date all the trail residents will be removed from the encampments on the Joe Rodota trail.
