Down and out on the Rodota Trail

December 16, 2019

I just came back from a walk in an outdoor psychiatric ward. It’s better known locally as a homeless encampment.

A couple of months ago this long narrow tent campground appeared almost overnight along the Joe Rodota walking and biking trail that parallels Highway 12 and connects the cities of Sebastopol and Santa Rosa here in Sonoma County. Whereas the local homeless population had previously tended to congregate under bridges and other out of the way places, the Rodota Trail tent village is highly visible to anyone driving along Highway 12. I’ve been driving by it for weeks now, and today decided to check it out.

Walking along the paved trail, I first noticed a sign next to piles of garbage. The county sign warns pedestrians and bikers to avoid this section of the trail due to unsafe conditions created by the illegal encampment. Then I saw individual tents, followed by groups of makeshift shelters made of tarps, wooden pallets, and various salvaged pieces of cardboard, bamboo, and sticks. And more piles of garbage, scattered trash, and lots of dogs.

A woman walking ahead of me was carrying a jug of water on her head and a plastic water bottle in her hand, and when she inadvertently dropped the water bottle she couldn’t stoop to pick it up. So I retrieved it for her, and we chatted briefly in front of her tent. A white woman probably in her 4o’s, she was missing most of her teeth. I asked her how she likes living there, and she replied, “I hate it. Everybody steals from you here.”

Another white woman, pushing a shopping cart full of junk, confirmed the statement about thievery while ranting about the trials and tribulations of being homeless. She also told me about watching her grandparents being murdered in front of her when she was a child. A third white woman cheerfully lectured me about the health benefits of coconut oil while she smoked a cigarette.

Amidst all the squalor and negative human energy I did encounter a couple of rays of light. A well dressed woman escorted her young daughter who was handing out candy and bags of nuts to the nutty squatters along the trail. An old man named Bruce was there as a volunteer for the Homeless Action organization to assess the needs of the camp inhabitants. He told me that his group provides wooden pallets for the campers to put under their tents when it rains, and Homeless Action also provides food, socks, and other essentials to the residents.

The overwhelming impression I came away with is that these people are not homeless due to a housing shortage but because of mental illness or substance abuse problems that rob them of any coping skills they might once have had. Even Bruce admitted that drug use is a major cause of the thievery that plagues these destitute squatters. But he went on to explain that often these damaged souls turn to drugs and alcohol to avoid facing their “demons” – sexual abuse or violence that they experienced earlier in life. They can’t face their pain, he said, so they use drugs to escape their demons.

As sorry as I feel for these miserable human beings, I don’t believe that society at large can or should tolerate the garbage, crime, or human waste that these folks create in public spaces. My short term solution would be to make it illegal to sleep in public places, and to institutionalize most homeless people in mental hospitals or rehab centers, permanently if necessary. We might have to raise taxes to pay for such mandatory housing and counseling, but if so, so be it.

The longer term solution is for these suffering people to find healing and a sense of belonging wherever they can. A neighbor of mine was, he jokes, “residentially challenged” until recently, sleeping in his car for several years until he overcame his depression by finding community and stability in a local church.

Homelessness is not, in my view, primarily caused by a lack of money. It is a psychological and emotional problem with a social and spiritual solution: family, community, Jesus, meditation, Buddhism – whatever works.

So I hope that the people I met today on the Rodota Trail of tears can find a path of return to their spirit within, their inner moonlight, their guardian angel, their God or Goddess.

A path to their true, lasting home.

(Note: To read about another encounter I had with a homeless person, read Remorse for a Good Deed in the personal essays section of this website).