When Skylar Smith, who lives out of his van in Point Reyes Station, spoke at a county-held forum on homelessness in West Marin last week, he had one point to make: We need to look at homeless people as humans. Imperfect humans, he conceded, but deserving of basic respect.
“They’re not these things that we need to pity,” he said. “They’re your brothers, they’re your neighbors.”
His statement stood out amid a discussion of statistics and strategies by the county’s top officials working to end chronic homelessness. Skylar is one of an estimated 140 homeless people living in West Marin, according to this year’s point-in-time count.
That number represents a 41 percent increase from the last count, in 2017, when surveyors tallied 99 homeless people in West Marin. Ashley Hart McIntyre, the homelessness policy analyst for Marin, thinks the rise in large part results from methodological changes. “The number of people we’ve counted has gone up, but I don’t know how much of an actual increase that reflects,” she said.
Although he’s lived in his van for two years now, Skylar, 20, is much better off than most homeless people. He is part of the 30 percent who hold a job—as a dishwasher at the Station House Café—and has saved money to buy an R.V., which he plans to soon move into with his girlfriend and his dog.
“The issues for me are a lot less strenuous than people’s chronic homelessness. I actually have a roof over my head and a car to travel in,” he said the morning after the forum, held last Wednesday at the West Marin School gym.
When he was 16, Skylar moved to Fairfax from eastern Oregon to live with his father. But the two did not have a good relationship, he said, and after his dad kicked him out when he turned 18, he rented a room for $300 a month in Fairfax. But then, he said, his landlord turned on him, and the situation reached a breaking point when the landlord threatened his girlfriend.
Skylar bought a van for $1,400 and moved in, taking only his essentials. For the past two years, he’s parked near public bathrooms, cooked in secluded corners and kept a low profile to avoid confrontation.
“The hardest part is getting comfortable in a community, finding the right resources that you need,” he said. “It took me a good year before I felt completely comfortable in this community to actually park my van in certain places and not have a panic attack.”
Skylar is also part of the 37 percent of homeless people who are on the streets due to relationship issues—the leading cause of homelessness. The other top causes are mental-health issues, substance use and physical-health issues, according to statistics given last Wednesday.
“Homelessness is really the result of a lot of social and economic factors piled up on top of each other,” Ms. McIntyre said to the crowd of about 50. Although being homeless is a choice for a small percentage of folks, she said, the vast majority want to be housed.
She explained later to the Light, “The conditions under which they’re housed is kind of the sticking point. Often people don’t want to be placed in a scenario where they’re not treated like adults.”
As a result, the county places its most vulnerable homeless people in permanent supportive housing without overbearing rules or mandated sobriety. So although there are services available for people like Skylar, the county is more focused on getting a roof over the heads of the people who are at risk of dying on the streets.
“As the length of homelessness increases, costs go up, complaints from the community go up, and people’s vulnerability goes way, way up,” Ms. McIntyre said.
Howard Schwartz from the St. Vincent De Paul Society of Marin likened the county’s system of care to the way an emergency room works. “If I come in with a broken wrist and somebody comes in after me with a heart attack, even if it’s five hours later, they should get prioritized,” he said.
Mr. Schwartz is one of several representatives from various county departments and philanthropic organizations that together make up the county’s Whole Person Care program. He and other representatives helped kick off what Supervisor Dennis Rodoni called the “beginning of a long-needed conversation about homelessness in West Marin.”
Patty Lyons, the Marin Health and Human Services program manager who directs staff at the West Marin Services Center, laid out her vision. The center, in operation since 1972, offers comprehensive services that support self-sufficiency in West Marin, from authorizing public assistance benefits to organizing congregate meals.
“We are here to provide any sort of guidance or information you might need,” she said.
The center partners with organizations like the Coastal Health Alliance and Community Action Marin to offer mental-health services and connect homeless people with the county’s service system.
Ms. Lyons acknowledged Kenisha Arlove and Peter Planteen, whose job is to begin the engagement process with homeless people in unincorporated areas of the county.
“If it takes eight years to bring someone inside, they walk with someone that long,” Ms. Lyons said.
After the forum, Mr. Planteen said that although it was helpful for the agencies to explain what they do, he wished the event had been more personal. He’d like to see more forums, especially one in Bolinas, in hopes of attracting more homeless people. (Only three attended last week’s meeting.)
Whole Person Care has housed 160 people since the beginning of 2018, and 95 percent of them are still housed. Ms. McIntyre could not say if the program had housed people from West Marin, and she acknowledged that too little focus has been put on West Marin in the past. Yet the county is in the process of remedying that, she said, by focusing time and money in the area.
Anecdotally, she said she’s heard that homeless people in West Marin are tougher to engage and more independent. Still, she believes the housing-first strategies the program has employed in incorporated areas will be effective along the coast.
Jim Pellegrin, a member of the West Marin Community Services board of directors, said that although the gym was full of people who support the plight of the homeless, many people in Point Reyes Station are afraid of homeless people or think that giving help enables them. “We really need political support,” he said. “Not just services, we need a will.”
West Marin’s Sherrif’s station commander Jim Hickey echoed his sentiment. “It takes a community to cure a community,” he told the room.
Ms. McIntrye said her team is happy to speak to any community group or organization about addressing homelessness, and when she was asked what residents could do to help, she called on them to open their granny units and advocate for affordable housing.
If you or someone you know is in need of immediate housing assistance, call (415) 473.HOME.