Our federal government is in an insurrectionist meltdown, but we at the No Place To Go Project intend to prove democracy is still alive and well in Nevada County.
On March 10, at 1:30 p.m., we and hundreds of citizens will exercise our First Amendment right to respectfully and peacefully assemble at the Rood Administrative Center in Nevada City to seek redress of our housing grievances.
It’s been a long, hard seven years to bring the Alternative/RV Housing Ordinance to this looming point of decision.
We’ve done it the hard way, without money or political influence because we’ve had neither. We’ve done it by enlisting our fellow citizens’ compassion in a relentlessly reasonable campaign to provide safe and affordable housing for our unhoused and homeless people.
The write thing
When I started writing this column in 2021, I didn’t think people would take me seriously.
So, I wasn’t ready for the reaction I got. I quickly learned some mean-spirited people hate me and the social justice agenda I rode in on. That’s been hard to get used to.
What really surprised me, however, was how many more people like what I write. That’s been harder to handle because they expect me to … lead.
Several groups formed around my ideas about homeless and mental illness, but they discovered I don’t know how to be a leader. Further, they learned I’m somewhat unmanageable. I don’t like being told what to do, so I don’t.
Social justice for us
In 2023, against all odds, I partnered with Sierra Roots to win an Upstate Creative Corps grant from the Nevada County Arts Council to use my creative talent to commit social justice for unhoused, homeless, other low-income people living in illegal RVs & trailers.
The Upstate grant gave me enough money to live on for the grant year and work full-time on the Sierra Roots/No Place To Go Project. It was an arts-based campaign to persuade the Nevada County supervisors to:
- Approve low-cost, owner-built, rural housing (aka Title 25).
- Write an ordinance to allow people to live in legally in RVs & trailers year-round, something some of us already do illegally.
- Sanction safe camps/parking for chronically homeless people and unhoused folks living in their cars.
I used some of the grant money to pay myself $17.50 an hour for a fictional 40-hour week. I haunted the halls of the Rood Administration Center trying to influence county staff and supervisors to adopt our proposals.
I didn’t know what I was doing, but that’s never stopped me before.
The rest of the money went to hire musicians, buy T-shirts and bumper stickers, hold singer-songwriter workshops, produce a CD of original songs, stage a concert, and shoot a documentary.
mission impossible
It was an insanely ambitious plan and impossible to accomplish the during the one-year grant. The grant ended in the summer of 2024 – but the Project didn’t.
The Sierra Roots/No Place To Go Project also died off due to lack of funding, but I’m nothing if not stubborn.
So, I finally did what had been unthinkable and mildly terrifying to me: I gathered a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens, and we formed the No Place To Go Project as an independent – and currently broke – 501(c)(3) nonprofit. www.noplacetogoproject.org (Donations are tax-deductible.)
I am the chair of the board of directors and executive director. I’m allowed to do that because I’m not getting paid. I know a dozen people who could do this job better than I, but I don’t know anybody who would do this for free.
Not to sound pretentious, but this is not a job to me. It’s a mission. I don’t have a girlfriend, and my family’s on the other side of the country. I never imagined I’d be doing anything like this, but it’s real clear to me I’m supposed to be doing this.
slow success
We didn’t accomplish any of our social justice objectives during the Upstate grant year. Government just doesn’t work that fast. Nevertheless, we’ve continued to push our housing and safe places advocacy.
Title 25 became law last year along with the tiny homes on wheels ordinance. We didn’t initiate the tiny homes ordinance, but we actively supported it.
Actually, we tried – and failed – to amend the tiny homes on wheels ordinance to include RVs & trailers. However, we rallied enough peaceful and relentlessly reasonable citizens to persuade the supervisors to direct staff to write the proposed Alternative/RV Housing Ordinance. It’s been the hot and hotly debated topic of 2025.
Safe camps/parking promise to be the burning issue of this year, but our immediate concern is the mission-critical March 10 vote on the RV Ordinance.
The ordinance is a Big Deal. Other counties have Title 25 housing and tiny homes on wheels regulations, but if the Alternative/RV Housing Ordinance passes, Nevada County will be the first county in the state to legalize living in trailers & RVs.
The RV Ordinance is a radical and innovative way to mitigate the rural homeless/housing crisis. It creates safe and legal housing without building anything or spending millions of dollars.
A small contingent of often-hostile ordinance opponents is trying to block the ordinance, effectively denying people safe and affordable housing – and letting the county continue to bleed an average of five more people into homelessness every month.
I think we have a good chance to get this ordinance passed. BUT I’ve been a government reporter much of my life, and I know nothing is guaranteed.
The supervisors and experience are telling me that they need to see a massive turnout of citizens.
If you give any kind of a damn about our college students, single-parent families, homeless youth, low-wage and essential workers, self-employed creatives, and older and disabled people on fixed incomes, Then peacefully assemble at the Rood Center on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. to practice democracy while we still have it.
Tom Durkin is the executive director of the No Place To Go Project, a nonprofit organization using the creative arts to advocate social justice for at-risk and homeless people. Donations are tax-deductible and gratefully appreciated. Durkin may be contacted atwww.noplacetogoproject.org