Homeless Population Swells 38 Percent in Rohnert Park and Cotati Over One Year

The number of homeless people in Sonoma County grew by 40 percent in the past two years, including a 38 percent increase in homeless in South County, according to a long-awaited survey released Tuesday.

In January,  blanketed every vineyard, creek bed and doorway — in both rural and urban parts of the county — in search of the county's true shelterless population county.

By region, Petaluma, Rohnert Park and Cotati, and the Central Santa Rosa area saw the largest increases in homeless individuals and families, according to Mike Johnson, the associate executive director for the Petaluma-based Committee on the Shelterless, which also runs a permanent low-income housing facility in Rohnert Park called .

“Think of this as 34 new homeless individuals and families in the county every day,” Johnson said in a statement.

The count, done by the Santa Cruz-based research team Applied Survey Research, found that nearly 13,000 people in the county have been homeless at one point over the past year, including 33 percent of people who said that job loss was the primary reason that they were homeless.

Numbers from COTS confirm this alarming trend, according to Johnson. COTS reported that 39 percent of the people seeking shelter, food and other crucial services are homeless for the first time. In addition, 53 people and more than 20 families are waiting to get into COTS right now.

Comparatively, last year, there were less than 20 people and about 10 families on the waiting list.

Together with deep cuts to state funded safety net programs, homeless service providers worry about more people being left without the assistance they need.

“We fear that the safety net in Sonoma County is being shredded just when it is needed most,” said John Records, executive director at COTS, which also runs a soup kitchen and a variety of programs aimed at getting people into permanent housing. 

Among other results of the survey, 42 percent of the homeless said they had shelter and were sleeping outdoors, on the street, in parks or encampments on a regular basis. Shelters, too, reported an increase of 14 percent in people.

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