"Right now, we live under a tremendous amount of tension and pressure."
Bay City News, News Partner
MARIN COUNTY — Ranch workers in Point Reyes National Seashore, who are destined to lose their jobs and homes within a year following a new land management plan by the National Park Service, received some hope for relief from the Marin County Board of Supervisors Tuesday.
In a unanimous vote, the county Board of Supervisors voted to pass a shelter crisis declaration, a three-year ordinance that takes place immediately. It allows the county to bypass certain housing codes and create temporary dwellings on private and unincorporated land.
Back in January, 11 family ranchers and over 90 tenants on ranches at the national park learned they could no longer run cattle operations. A new land use agreement was part of a legal settlement with environmental groups to secure sufficient grazing land for the preservation of the native tule elk.
Tuesday's declaration was made possible by the state's Shelter Crisis Act. That 2017 legislation, which was recently extended to 2036, allowed local jurisdictions to temporarily suspend certain housing laws to speed the production of emergency shelters for the homeless.
Sarah Jones, director of the Marin Community Development Agency, said that emergency shelters can take on a variety of living situations that don't qualify as permanent housing.
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"They include a group homeless shelter, mobile homes or RVs, and cabins without a permanent foundation," Jones said, referring to tiny homes on wheels and other temporary dwellings.
The state law requires the declaration of a shelter crisis, and the adoption of local standards for emergency shelter. Jones said that with those two elements in place, the Community Development Agency will be able to permit a much wider range of accommodations than they could before.
"This will be one of the first tools in our toolbox," said Jones.
Some of the standards they will explore include septic pump and haul code enforcement, permitting and oversight of the emergency shelters, as well as how to transition from temporary solutions to permanent housing.
"We want to do this in conversation with our communities, starting with West Marin communities," she said.
"I am a landowner, and I have been an entitled, complacent resident of Point Reyes Station. I'm ashamed and appalled by the situation we're in," said Mark Switzer with the Point Reyes Station Village Association.
He urged the board to work with other jurisdictions to secure land and remedy a situation that, he said, is antithetical to community.
Gary Naja-Riese, who runs the homelessness and coordinated care division with the county's department of Health and Human Services said the ordnance ends in three years but could be extended.
"Any project would have to be completed and closed within three years," he said. "I think we should see that these temporary emergency shelter sites don't go on for too long, that there's active engagement to be able to resolve them as temporary and get folks into a permanent housing destination."
Naja-Riese said that only individuals identified as homeless would be able to occupy a temporary shelter.
"Most members of the public are familiar with street homelessness and visible encampments," he said, adding that homelessness includes people living in structures that do not meet legal housing standards.
"I think one of the reasons why our point-in-time count went up a little bit in West Marin in 2022 was through the extensive engagement with community partners out there, who brought to light circumstances where individuals were living in structures on private properties and lands that didn't meet the definition of housing," he said, referring to a finding that farmworkers were living in farm buildings and other structures on farm land.
Cassandra Benjamin was the author of a 2024 study on housing in West Marin County. She is the interim director of the Marin Community Foundation, a philanthropic nonprofit that works on affordable housing and homelessness.
"In our study, we found that of the low wage renters interviewed, 78% were living in housing with a major health or safety violation, 78% of our low wage renters," said Benjamin. "We aren't a community that has any emergency or interim options. We aren't like in a bigger city or jurisdiction where you could rent motel rooms for people or voucher them in some way."
In its 2024 point-in-time count, Marin County had 1,090 unhoused people. That included 302 in shelters and 788 unsheltered, that is living on the streets or in vehicles.
Agnes Chow, a consultant with the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin, said her organization has already identified several sites where emergency housing can be created.
Several ranch workers, speaking Spanish, testified during public comment, including a man named Enrique, who identified himself as representing the community of the Martinelli Ranch. He thanked the supervisors for passing the declaration but asked for a more permanent solution in the form of job creation and permanent housing.
"I thank you for everything you have done and for this very important step, but this is not enough," he said. "Right now, we live under a tremendous amount of tension and pressure. I am a family man. I am the father of a son with an extreme disability, and, as you can imagine, this situation is very, very worrisome. What will happen to his life?"
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