Homeless residents arrive at Los Guilicos shelter in Sonoma Valley

It was midday on Sunday before the first bus rolled into the new temporary shelter at Los Guilicos with homeless from Santa Rosa’s Joe Rodota Trail.

“It’s their new community. It’s safe and it’s warm, and they are going to have good food,” said a woman with St. Vincent De Paul Sonoma County, the nonprofit operating the new shelter.

Small aluminum cabins were still being constructed as a Sonoma County Transit bus drove in to the shelter with three residents, followed by a moving van carrying the residents’ belongings. Cabins were still being constructed on Monday, said Brandon Rojas, St. Vincent De Paul shelter director.

Nine residents moved in on Sunday, Rojas said. At press time on Monday, 18 people were moved in, and they expected to have a total of 20 to 25 by the end of Monday, said Jack Tibbetts, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul, and a Santa Rosa City Councilmember.

After residents checked-in at the new facility on Sunday, Kristen Throop, a graphic designer and artist, greeted each resident offering a piece of her art commissioned by Creative Sonoma.

Kristen Madsen, director of Creative Sonoma, a division of Sonoma County’s Economic Development Board, said she put out a call early last week asking artists to help come up with “wayfinding” art for the rows of small, white structures surrounded by temporary fencing.

Throop answered Madsen’s call and came up with some 160 designs all related to small spaces and positivity, and “whittled” down the selection to 60.

The “side benefit” to the artistic wayfinding signs is the color added to an otherwise sterile-looking facility,” Madsen said. “Everyone deserves a little beauty in their lives,” she said. Members of the Oakmont Garden club added more color with flowering plants placed around the site.

Throop had with her 35 finished pieces of art fabricated on aluminum by SpeedPro imaging in Santa Rosa. She said she called the shop “in the 11th hour” asking how quickly they could make the art. It’s a three day process, Throop said, adding “they really went the extra mile” to finish the pieces, which are about 3-by-3-feet and coated for weather protection.

The first three residents got first pick of the art that will hang on the door to their cabins. One man chose the image of Abraham Lincoln in the foreground with Lincoln’s tiny cabin in the background. Another man who brought his dog with him selected the image of a dog snuggled up and yawning in its dog bed.

Some of the other images include an astronaut in his tiny chambers, a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, a baby swan nestled in its mother’s wings, and a frog resting on a lily pad.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul signed a three-month $350,000 agreement with the county to run the shelter. In addition to the cabins the site includes a warming/dining tent, portable toilets and showers, storage containers, three dog runs, medical and administrative buildings to provide services to the residents, and laundry facilities.

At least one St. Vincent de Paul staff member will be at the shelter 24 hours per day seven days a week along with either another staff member or a volunteer. On-site security will be in place from 6 p.m. to 10 a.m. daily.

The encampment has temporary 6-foot fencing as of Sunday with 8-foot poles cemented in place for the longer-term fencing promised.

The shelter has been a point of controversy for residents of Oakmont, the senior community located across Highway 12 from Los Guilicos. But almost 90 Oakmont residents interested in volunteering showed up on Friday for a meeting with Tibbetts, he said.

Noel Lyons, an Oakmont resident, stopped by on Sunday to drop off brownies and cookies to pass out to the residents upon arrival. Lyons said his wife posted a message to the community on Nextdoor, a social media site for neighborhoods, asking for donations of brownies. It became “Bonnie’s Brigade,” he said as Oakmont residents delivered enough treats to fill the trunk of their car and then some. They are borrowing freezer space from neighbors until more residents arrive.

Lyons said he was impressed by the community’s desire to help.

“Social media can amplify the negativity. It can also amplify the positive,” he said. “This is the beginning of sensitizing. There are models (of homeless shelters) out there that work.”

Several donations were dropped off at the shelter, but staffers said they aren’t equipped to handle such things as housewares and are asking people to take their donations to the nearest thrift shop.

“We really appreciate the outpouring of support,” Rojas said. But since they are still trying to get the shelter fully built and running, donors of goods are asked to “hold off” for now. They will put together a list of needs and distribute it when it is ready.

A volunteer who asked not to be named said donations of new, unused socks and underwear are always appreciated.

The temporary shelter will eventually have 60 cabins that cost the county $4,500 apiece, and is scheduled to be closed April 30, though county officials have not committed to that date.

At an informational meeting held at the Berger Center in Oakmont on Jan. 17, Chris Godley, director of emergency management for Sonoma County, said it was the county’s “intent” to have a more permanent solution.

Sonoma County supervisors approved $2.2 million for emergency shelters to move the homeless encampment out of the area that stretched about two miles along the Joe Rodota Trail. The trail became infested with rats and trash, and violence and theft created unsafe living conditions.

Susan Gorin, 1st district supervisor who lives in Oakmont, was the lone dissenter on the Board of Supervisors in selecting the Los Guilicos location as a shelter, arguing that it is too far from services.

For their safety, residents of the Los Guilicos facility are not allowed to leave on foot. Hourly shuttles will transport the residents to the transit center in Santa Rosa during the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. There is a curfew in place during the hours the shuttle does not operate. Drug and alcohol use is forbidden within the shelter.

The 64-square-foot cabins have a bed, heat and electricity with windows and a locking door.

Contact Anne at anne.ernst@sonomanews.com.