by Ellen Farmer
Imagine your home is flooded, burned down or crushed by falling trees and powerlines. What would you do? How would you feel? What would you tell your family members who live with you? Where would you turn for short- and long-term aid? Would you consider yourselves “homeless”?
Countless homeowners in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties have faced this dilemma in the last five years, and it’s maybe just dawning on some of us that — legally — they are on their own. Contacting their insurance companies, filling out paperwork, applying for assistance, and securing temporary housing is considered the problem of the individual homeowner.
And what about renters who lost everything? They seem to be at the mercy of FEMA agents, who, while possibly sympathetic, routinely process denials, and have no stake in the long-term success of hardworking individuals in our community who maybe lost their car to get to work, all their possessions, and the home their children slept in and did homework in to prepare for school the next day. In Pajaro, they even lost their middle school, which was caked with mud for weeks causing extensive damage and upheaval for families.
Santa Cruz County has been working on prevention and disaster preparedness. Millions of dollars have been directed toward homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing for those priced out of rentals. But what can we do to house “climate refugees” after a crisis hits? Our habit of looking away when an unhoused person panhandles at an intersection (okay — maybe it’s just me) might be causing us to inadvertently ignore climate refugees. But what does this term mean?
Refugees are people who need housing through no fault of their own. They need to be given refuge until they can re-settle after a natural disaster. We often think of people escaping violent political regimes in far-off countries as refugees. But more and more large numbers of people are losing their homes to climate disasters like wildfires and floods, sea-level rise, storms, and landslides. How can we adjust our thinking, planning, and budgeting to respond to this emerging need?
What kind of response would you expect if it was you? Why didn’t we immediately create more safe parking lots for CZU lightning fire survivors wanting to live in RVs? There were a few, for example, along Highway 1 in Davenport. We have what feels like zillions of empty parking lots and office buildings and industrial spaces in Santa Cruz County. What’s stopping us from using them?
It’s heartening to see the people of Lahaina respond to the fire there by creating Ohana Hope Village, temporary tiny homes for approximately 88 families burned out of their homes in early August. Pretty fast work! But more than 2200 homes were lost. Assuming the rebuilding will go more quickly in Lahaina because of the flat, semi-urban terrain (when compared to the Santa Cruz Mountains), there are still probably more than 1,000 families living in hotels indefinitely.
The town of Talent, Oregon faced this dilemma in the fall of 2020 when a drought-driven wildfire swept through the low income neighborhood where most service workers lived. Their children made up a good percentage of the population of the school district, and the workers were essential. So creative citizens, including the mayor, a community bank, a nonprofit affordable housing developer (who already owned land) and private nonprofit social service agencies joined forces and created a temporary mobile home park for these families so they wouldn’t move away. They asked the state of Oregon to buy the mobile homes (for which they got a volume discount, of course) so undocumented families wouldn’t have to prove themselves to FEMA and the federal government.
Recognizing that some people don’t have savings or a pension or flood insurance, these communities chose to act. Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties could follow their example.
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Talent quickly jumped into action following the Almeda Fire (September 2020) to design, engineer, and construct the first locally-driven transitional housing site within the nation.
This unique project represents the Talent Community’s quick action and responsiveness to the mass displacement of thousands of community members.
“The Board of Directors and the City Council remain committed to ensuring that each and every member of the Talent Community can return to their home, whether FEMA-eligible or non-FEMA-eligible. This project is unique in that it specifically helps those who are non-FEMA-eligible return to their homes and schools,” according to the project website.
The Timeline
September 8, 2020 — Almeda Fire displaces more than 2,000 community members in the Talent Community
September 16, 2020 — Agency’s Board of Directors approve temporary shelter concept for Gateway Site
September – January 2021 — Design and engineering of the Gateway Transitional Project
February 3, 2021 — Agency held a well-attended Town Hall on the Gateway Transitional Project
February – March 2021 — Agency works with partners to finalize project funding
April 5, 2021 — Agency receives Temporary Emergency Accommodations approval for the Project
April 19, 2021 — Agency publishes invitation to bid for the construction of the Gateway Project
May 13, 2021 — Agency receives bids for the construction of the Project
June 14, 2021 — Agency holds groundbreaking for the Project
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Talent has remained committed to funding the project through outside resources. The Agency continues to attract financial backing from partners who understand the importance of bringing families back to their communities. The agency received the following funding commitments to realize the project:
- $1,000,000 Oregon Housing and Community Services grant +
- $700,000 Oregon Housing and Community Services ultra-low interest (1%), payment deferred loan (3 years) +
- $38,500 People’s Bank of Commerce Foundation design and engineering grant +
- $250,000 People’s Bank of Commerce Foundation phase I construction grant +
- $75,000 Oregon Community Foundation grant +
- $150,000 Rogue Action Center grant +
- $47,500 Rogue Climate grant +
- $12,000 Medford United Church of Christ donation = $2,273,000
In addition to these significant monetary contributions, the agency has received thousands of hours of in-kind contributions and work from partners and local volunteers.
So what is stopping us in the Monterey Bay region? It comes down to two things, according to experts. First, a landowner needs to be willing to forego any profit they can get from the value of their land for the period of time the temporary mobile home park will be in existence. This is no small thing in the Monterey Bay Area where the common wisdom is that landowners should hold out for the highest price for their private property. When does social good outweigh the potential for short-term monetary gain? And why isn’t a lease agreement for a reasonable period of time, like 3-5 years – the time it takes to build permanent affordable housing – less attractive than sitting on land put to no purpose? Governments could apply some homeless service money to leasing the land. But there is also plenty of public land and church-owned land currently not being used.
The second issue is management. It seems nobody wants to be the landlord. There are “horror stories” of communities falling apart because one or two tenants cause trouble. A well-meaning student trailer park set up during Covid became a law enforcement problem due to one or two tenants. No appropriate government or nonprofit agency was prepared to deal with this. Students at UC Santa Cruz where close to 10 per cent of students are literally homeless — living in cars or couch surfing — simply want UCSC to set up safe parking now until more student housing is actually built.
DignityMoves, an organization that’s contracting with communities to build temporary homeless housing villages across California, works with an organization called Abode Services that provides live-in onsite housing managers with social work skills. Through an $8 million grant in partnership with the County of Monterey, a cluster of small homes are proposed for people who have been living outdoors on the river levee in Pajaro. DignityMoves plans to build the units, and Abode Services will manage them so 35 people will have a safe place to sleep through the winter. Tenants will have the services of housing navigators to find appropriate permanent housing as it becomes available, and units will be freed up for more people experiencing homelessness.
Can this model be applied to climate refugees? President Biden has also just freed money to be granted by the Federal Department of Transportation under Pete Buttigieg, to transform empty office buildings along transportation corridors into housing. Could some of this be used for climate refugee housing?
The folks working in Talent, Oregon describe grassroots groups springing up all over the country in towns large and small to pick up the pieces where public services are lacking. Examples can be seen at the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief website mutualaiddisasterrelief.org. Many local nonprofits are picking up the slack for fire and flood survivors in our region, but is this a longterm solution?
United Way, a venerable and familiar organization in our region, recently sent an email letter soliciting donations for their worldwide Disaster Resilience program. This was welcome news to me. Glad to see someone besides Jose Andres of World Central Kitchen getting ahead of things.
So, as a community, if our hearts are in the right place but we just haven’t faced this before, how will we act? Who will be the leaders? When can we get started?