Springs MAC: Is the Springs being left behind?

The Springs MAC considered multiple issues where it says Sonoma Valley|

Springs Municipal Advisory Council members painted a picture of two Sonoma Valleys Wednesday night, Aug. 10, one appearing to have flourishing assets and public spaces, and the other falling behind in rent and mental health care.

The council members hosted representatives from the county to address equitable and responsive access for rental assistance, mental health support and funding to improve parks in the Springs.

“These are households who are quite frankly, at this point, being left in crisis and cannot afford to be in crisis,” new Springs MAC member Celeste Winders said on the issue of delayed applications for rental assistance. “I'd like to know specifically what steps are being taken to resolve this situation for these households that are under review.”

According to “A Portrait of Sonoma,” a study performed to measure the quality of life throughout the county, divisions exist between the quality of life in the City of Sonoma versus the Springs.

Fetters Springs/Agua Caliente West was given a quality of life ranking of 4.44 out of 10, ranked 84 out of 95 different census tract communities in the county. In contrast, downtown Sonoma scored 6.34 and Glen Ellen/Kenwood scored 6.51, both in the top third of communities in Sonoma County.

The biggest reason for these discrepancies is income and education level. Where nearly one-half of residents from downtown Sonoma have a bachelor’s degree, only 1 in 5 residents of Fetters Springs have one. And while the median earnings in downtown Sonoma were $43,664, the median income resident in Fetters Springs make less than $30,000.

Rental Assistance

Challenges facing emergency rental assistance programs in Sonoma County, but particularly in the Springs, were addressed by Dave Kiff, interim director of the county’s Community Development Commission. There are 66 applications for rental assistance, yet only eight have been paid out, he said.

“We are seeing a staffing problem with these agencies to move these along as quickly as I like and guess we'd like,” Kiff said. “Everyone is stretched in doing this work and the other work that they do because they do more than just rental assistance.”

The County faces an estimated $4.4 million shortfall in funding for its emergency rental assistance program, and only eight of the 66 applications for Sonoma Valley have been processed and approved, according to Kiff.

While denials for funding happen for a litany of reasons — from invalid COVID-related issues, to poor communication between county staff to not turning in paperwork — too many applications are taking too long to provide rental aid, Kiff said.

“I regret that this is taking so long, and I am respectful of that delay and not overly happy with it,” Kiff said. “But I do think we need to resolve this quickly. I've asked our staff to work with (community based organizations) to come up with a plan to do that quickly.”

Mental Health Services

The Springs MAC reviewed the amount of support the Valley has received from the county’s Mobile Support Team, a mental health initiative to respond to averse mental health and substance-use incidents designated to serve communities from Guerneville to Sonoma Valley.

Since Jan. 1, 2019, the Mobile Support Team has responded to 1,179 total calls, and 43 of those were in the Sonoma Valley, according to the Department of Behavioral Health — less than 4% of responses were to Sonoma Valley, even though it accounts for approximately 8% of the county’s population.

The Mobile Support Team works with law enforcement to respond to mental health or substance abuse crises with their team of licensed mental health clinicians and certified substance abuse specialists.

“Our jails are the largest mental health facility in the county,” Sonoma County Supervisor Susan Gorin said in the Springs MAC meeting. “We had an officer involved fatality of a person in mental health crisis at one of our mobile home parks in Sonoma Valley a couple of years ago. And I knew then that we needed to expand this program.”

But council members questioned the amount of service Sonoma Valley has received from the Mobile Support Team amid what Gorin described as a rise in suicides and mental illness in Sonoma Valley.

Mobile Support Team Health Program Manager Wendy Tappon said many of the calls the Mobile Support Team responds to in Sonoma Valley are for mental health crises that have potential to escalate into violence.

“For the Mobile Support Team currently in the Sonoma Valley, we do have to go out with law enforcement,” Tappon said. “The types of calls that we’re going on tend to be those higher level, more acute crises where somebody is thinking about killing themselves or there's threats of violence toward other people.”

Tappon also mentioned the labor shortage facing the mental health care system currently, adding that, “unfortunately, its one of the realities of the mental health field is that there is not enough services for the need out there. So a lot of the needs that would not have been a crisis, are turning into a crisis.”

Park neglect

The council members, as their final major agenda item of the night, finalized a letter to Supervisor Gorin demanding more financial support be given to Larson Park in Fetters Hot Springs.

Many of the council members contrasted the the lack of funding at Larson Park to the renewal projects beginning at Maxwell Farms Regional Parks in Boyes Hot Springs.

“It is insulting that Maxwell Park is getting the level of funding it has while Larson is ignored,” Winders said.

Larson Park is one of two parks in Fetters Hot Springs. Given the lower quality of life there based on information from the Portrait of Sonoma, members of the Springs MAC criticized the lack of equitable funding toward the upkeep of the park.

The letter implores Gorin to “prioritize finding the funding for this park,” and asks that “any creative measures funded Maxwell be reproduced to find funding for Larson.”

“The people with the most need are receiving the fewest benefits when the only park walkable from their house is in a state of disrepair,” the Springs MAC letter said, specifically noting the poor state of the portable toilet. “It sends a message that the people who use this park do not matter enough to have nice infrastructure.”

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.

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