For the first time, people living in substandard ranch housing in West Marin were included in the county’s biennial snapshot of its homeless population. The most recent count, released last week, includes the roughly 60 people who moved out of a condemned Bolinas ranch and into an emergency R.V. park next door.
An additional 25 people were counted at other unidentified farm encampments at several locations in West Marin, according to new statistics from Marin County’s Department of Health and Human Services.
The latest count, taken on a single January morning, offers a snapshot of the homeless population, not a precise count. It found that Marin’s overall homeless population had fallen by nearly 3 percent since 2022, after an increase of more than 8 percent in that year’s tally.
At the same time, the percentage of chronically homeless people—those with disabilities or people unhoused for more than a year—fell by 24 percent. Officials credit the drop to Marin’s “housing first” approach to homelessness, believing that permanent shelter is needed before problems such as addiction, mental illness and unemployment can be addressed.
In the past, the survey has focused on Marin’s urban and suburban areas. But as the county began efforts last year to move residents out of 23 ramshackle structures on the Tacherra ranch in Bolinas, it began reconsidering its approach to the count.
The roughly 60 residents at the Tacherra ranch, nearly all of them Latino, were not included in the 2022 count. But as county officials learned more about their living conditions, they decided that they should have been.
Under federal regulations, structures that lack functional plumbing and electricity are not considered housing, and people living in such inhumane conditions are considered homeless. Many of the structures at the Tacherra ranch did not meet this basic federal housing benchmark.
“It really became apparent that the conditions of their housing really didn’t constitute housing at all, and so they were added to the count this year,” said Carrie Sager, the county’s senior homelessness program coordinator.
By January, residents of the Tacherra ranch had moved next door to an emergency R.V. park they named Bo-Linda Vista. The survey counts people spending the night in emergency shelters as well as those living on the streets, in cars or in homeless encampments. Because the R.V. park is considered short-term emergency housing, Bo-Linda Vista residents were counted this year as “sheltered homeless” rather than “unsheltered homeless.”
“The inclusion of individuals from farm encampments in West Marin sheds light on a previously obscured aspect of homelessness in our county,” said Gary Naja-Riese, director of the county’s Homelessness and Coordinated Care Division.
In all, the count identified 85 people who are living in West Marin farm encampments or had been living in them before being relocated to emergency shelters. Encampments include anyplace where a group of people are living in one or more tents, trailers or substandard housing structures.
County officials did not conduct onsite inspections of farm encampments during the survey, but they included residents of ranch housing who had previously received county support services and had described their substandard living conditions to county staff.
“These are unhoused or marginally unhoused people living on private property,” said Chloe Cook, manager of the West Marin Multi-Services Center. “Social services are not allowed to go on private property and inspect living conditions.”
The survey, known as a point-in-time count, is required of all counties that receive federal funding from United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. The results are preliminary and will be adjusted as outreach workers conduct research and followup interviews with people identified in the survey.
“It is a snapshot of a specific day in a very specific timeframe,” Ms. Cook said. “It is not considered a comprehensive count by any of us. We do not have an accurate count of how many people are living in inadequate, potentially homeless conditions on ranches in West Marin.”
The count is conducted in late January by teams of volunteers and outreach workers who set off at 5 a.m. and travel down every road in every census tract in the county. The early start ensures that people are not double counted after they have begun waking up and moving to different locations.
(Ms. Cook set off at 5 a.m. to conduct one inspection but got two flat tires while driving through Samuel P. Taylor State Park. She resumed her search in a county vehicle.)
Staff surveyed town centers, residential neighborhoods and beach parking lots from Stinson Beach to Dillon Beach, including those in the Point Reyes National Seashore.
“West Marin has a lot of hidden homeless living on private property, but most of the people living in their vehicles are pretty much living on the road,” Ms. Cook said.
The decrease recorded in the 2024 count was smaller than the spike that occurred during the pandemic. Overall, the homeless population fell from 1,121 to 1,090 between 2022 and 2024, a decrease of 2.8 percent. By contrast, the 2022 count, conducted during the pandemic, showed an increase of 8.4 percent, even as federal, state and local governments redoubled their efforts to provide housing support.
County officials say their “housing first” approach is working for the chronically homeless. Since 2016, Marin has created 483 new units of permanent, supportive housing, Ms. Sager said. To make sure residents of those units can continue living independently, the county offers rent support and case managers who connect people with health care, financial and budgeting advice, and mental health and addiction treatment.
Such services are also being made available to residents of Bo-Linda Vista until they can move into permanent housing.
The Bolinas Community Land Trust is in the process of purchasing the Tacherra ranch and plans to build permanent housing there with technical support from Habitat for Humanity-Greater San Francisco. The trust hopes to break ground on the project in early 2026 and complete construction by the summer of 2029.
The county recently won an $8.6 million state grant to support both the construction of the new housing and the provision of services to residents of the R.V. park, which is located between the Tacherra ranch and the Bolinas fire station, on Mesa Road.
“We’re very proud of what we’ve been able to do in partnership with the B.C.L.T. at Bo-Linda Vista,” Mr. Naja-Riese said.
The county’s decision to bring residents of farm encampments into the homelessness count was important and overdue, said Ms. Cook, who became director of the county’s human services department in West Marin two years ago.
“This is the result of the deep work we have done in the last few years to connect with our Spanish-speaking immigrant community in very intentional and focused ways,” she said. “Because of that, we’ve been hearing more about their living conditions and becoming more concerned.”
The homelessness survey found that 45 percent of unhoused people countywide identified as white, 21 percent as Latino, 17 percent as Black, 3 percent as Asian, 2 percent as American Indian, 2 percent as Native Hawaiian, and 9 percent as multi-racial.
Overall, Marin County is 85 percent white, 17 percent Latino, 7 percent Asian, 4.3 percent mixed race, 2.7 percent black, 1 percent American Indian and .3 percent Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.
Most homeless residents counted in West Marin were Latino. Although most lived on housing at ranches or dairies, many of them are employed in non-agricultural industries.
“These are our neighbors, our friends, the parents of the children in our schools,” Ms. Cook said. “They are West Marin’s core workforce. They clean our VRBOs, they take care of our elders, they provide childcare, and they work in our restaurants and stores.”