There is no [insert your favorite expletive here] place to go! That’s the main cause of our homeless crisis.
Currently, this is not a problem for me, but it is for the people who call and write me in the often-desperate hope that I will know of housing for their mother or a friend or that single father with two kids in a van down the street.
I don’t know. It’s not my job. I’m not a housing listing agency.
As creative director of the Sierra Roots/No Place to Go Project (funded by a grant from the Upstate California Creative Corps), my job is to persuade and influence not only our political leaders but the community at large that we must take emergency measures to create more housing.
Not enough housing is being built, so we must redefine what housing is. Trailers, yurts, RVs, tiny homes, industrial offices, shipping containers and whatever else that meets minimum health & safety standards (i.e., running water and septic, for sure) must be declared permissible for emergency housing (aka alternative housing or desperation housing).
Zoning and other regulations must be suspended. Code Compliance should exercise its “sole discretion” not to enforce relocation of people and families if they are safe where they are and not an actual nuisance to their neighbors (e.g., solid waste, sewage, abandoned cars, illegal activities, noise, law enforcement calls).
Code Compliance currently forces people to move even if the complaint against the residents has no merit. Malicious, mean-spirited, and classist complaints should not be enforced during this homeless-housing crisis.
Everybody has the human right to be somewhere safe. Code Compliance’s job should be to help landlords and tenants comply with minimum health & safety standards because disrupting people’s lives and making them move when there is no place to go doesn’t solve the problem. It just moves it, often making it worse.
Opinion entitlement
As I wrote two weeks ago, the Sierra Roots/No Place to Go Project is conducting an unscientific community survey of opinions about alternative housing.
Basically, we are asking people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless if living in a trailer or RV would be acceptable housing for them. We are also asking property owners if they already rent or would rent their idle trailer or RV – or a space for one – on their land.
Why or why not?
Even if you’re neither a renter or landlord, we’d like your opinion too. There are two surveys: one for tenants and one for property owners. Choose to answer whichever one most closely applies to you. (Only one response per email address.)
The surveys are available on our website through June 14: https://www.noplacetogoproject.com/
Later on, we’ll be seeking your opinions on safe camps and safe parking lots.
homesearch
If you’re searching for housing, good luck with that. If you can find a place, it probably won’t be what you want. It may not even be legal, but in this market, you take what you can get.
This hardly a complete list, but here are some suggestions for western Nevada County and the region.
The Connecting Point 211 Call Center (dial 211) in Nevada County would be a good place to start. Knowing about resources is their job.
The Facebook group Nevada County Conscious Community & Housing is an open marketplace of people looking for or offering housing of all sorts.
HomeShare American River is a free housemate-matching service for Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Yuba, El Dorado and Yolo counties. This nonprofit is in a state of transition, but you can talk to the executive director Justin Ellerby at 916-360-0074 or 530-746-8681 or justin@homeshareamericanriver.org.
If you’re low income and older than 60 or disabled (any age), contact FREED Center for Independent Living at 530-477-3333 (Grass Valley) or 530-742-4474 (Yuba City).
There are likely no openings, but get on waiting lists – if you qualify (low income, disability, age) – for apartments at Cashin’s Field in Nevada City, Lone Oak senior apartments in Penn Valley, and the first three apartment buildings on Old Tunnel Road in the Brunswick Basin of Grass Valley.
There are additional apartment complexes on Dorsey Drive and Sutton Way in Grass Valley. Truckee Artists Lofts and several other apartment communities in the Truckee area also have waiting lists.
A generous gentleman in North San Juan places people, especially victims of domestic violence, in donated trailers and RVs that he rehabs. We are hoping to form a nonprofit around his activities soon, but right now, he is already overwhelmed with requests. Look for an announcement in the coming months.
The situation is desperate. If they can afford it, some folks are spending too much on motels. Other people are living in their cars, couch surfing, renting trailers, RVs, yurts, garages, attics, offices, warehouses, whatever. A homeless shelter, like Utah’s Place in Grass Valley, is sometimes the last resort.
If you need housing, I truly wish I had more useful or helpful information.
It’s not over
Our grant from the Upstate California Creative Corps expires June 30, but the Sierra Roots/No Place to Go Project is resolved to continue our efforts to find housing for the people by the people.
Alternative housing is not the best option for our citizens, but given the unconscionable failure of government and free enterprise to provide adequate housing, it’s the only option.
Please fill out our brief survey. It one thing for us to say we need to redefine housing. It’s quite another if the whole community says it.
Tom Durkin is creative director of the Sierra Roots/No Place to Go Project, which is funded by a grant from the Upstate California Creative Corps, a program of the California Arts Council. He may be contacted at tomdurkin@sierra-roots.org or www.project.sierra-roots.org. © Sierra Roots 2024