Petaluma motel site in line for $15 million from state for homeless housing conversion
The Montero Way property is up for purchase by the city and conversion into homeless housing under the state Homekey Program.
Petaluma welcomes first nine homes at People’s Village emergency shelter site
The first phase of Petaluma’s pilot emergency shelter housing program called the People’s Village is complete, and new residents are being welcomed to nine brand-new units on the site.
Petaluma homeless residents anticipate March move-in at tiny home village
At least nine of the planned 25 housing units have been installed at the site alongside the Committee on the Shelterless’ Mary Isaak Center homeless shelter on Hopper Street site.
February 2022 | Working with Those Experiencing Homelessness
Part I: Interview with Jamieson Bunn, Chief Development Officer, COTS (Committee on the Shelterless)
Commentary: Tiny homes a big solution for Petaluma
Committee on the Shelterless CEO Chuck Fernandez throws in for the tiny home project.
Volunteer Profile: Katie Haas
When Katie Haas was growing up in San Francisco, kids used to knock on the door and ask if her Dad could come out to play. It might have hurt Katie’s feelings back then, but now she’s grateful for the love of kids and play that her Dad gave her.
She’s shared that love with COTS for over ten years in lots of different ways.
Right now, we think she’s in her perfect role. Katie’s a wonderful artist herself, who works in acrylics and collage, so we’re thrilled to have her as part of the art team at the Kids First Family Center. Once a week, she joins a coordinator from our nonprofit partner Drawbridge to help kids create paintings, sculptures, calendars, light catchers—you name it.
“I’ve loved art since I was little,” Katie says. “It’s been of core importance in my life. I think in our culture we don’t value it as much as we should. I’m glad I can show children that art is something to value and that you can grow from art.”
Katie says she grows from the art sessions, too, and singles out Drawbridge Coordinator Susie Butler as an inspiration. “She knows how to connect with a huge open heart,” Katie says. “I learn from her. She knows the right things to say to make them [the kids] feel self-confident. She’ll compliment them in a really honest way. She just makes them feel seen and loved.”
When not at COTS and not absorbed in her own art-making, Katie has plenty to do, much of with her family. She cares for her aging mom, volunteers with Hospice, helps paint the scenery at Cinnabar Theater, sings in a choir, and, together her husband Al (also a COTS volunteer) produces a small folk concert series in her living room.
Right now, Katie is creating a series of paintings inspired by her father’s childhood class pictures. “They’re from the thirties. I love how in those days you were just who you were in front of the camera. You didn’t smile because you were being photographed like people do today. You smiled because you felt like it. These kids, their expressions, you feel like you could almost read their minds. I feel really connected with them.” Visit katiehaasartstudio.com to feel that connection yourself.
Katie encourages people to give volunteering a try. “Being homeless seems really horrible. I think I just recognize that suffering people need other people. We all like to feel like we’re helping out.”
Thank you, Katie!
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Volunteer Profile: Tracey Rose
Tracey Rose does a lot of planning and preparation for her art sessions at Kid First Family Shelter.
We have kids of all ages and interests staying with us, and Tracey creates a variety of projects to make their minds jump and their fingers itch. Sometimes, she’ll have a happy crowd in her workshops: joyful, focused kids drawing, pasting and painting.
But the families that stay at the shelter often have challenges around transportation or scheduling. And sometimes a kid will be there, but he’ll want to play a video game—not draw. So, sometimes Tracey will work with a smaller, quieter group.
The last time she came, there was only Angelina, a curly-haired 5-year-old girl who wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her afternoon.
“I kind of grabbed her,” Tracey says. “’I have lots of fun things’ I told her. ‘Do you want to do art?’” Like a true professional, Tracey gave Angelina a great time. She had three projects with her that day and Angelina chose to make a necklace. Tracey helped her design her pattern, string the beads and secure it around her neck. “She was showing it off. She loved it,” Tracey says.
“But I was feeling disappointed. When you’re planning, you always have an idea of how things are going to go. And this wasn’t it. I wanted more kids.”
Then Angelina asked: “Why do you come here?”
“It was great that she asked me that,” Tracey says. “I thought about it. She made me think about it. And I told her it’s because I love creating art and I love sharing with people. Her smile after that was so big.”
Then Angelina wanted to do more. They made a bracelet for her mom to match the necklace Angelina had made for herself. Her Dad teased and asked where his present was. Tracey and the little girl quickly made him a Valentine’s rock.
“My face hurt I was smiling so hard,” Tracey says. “To be able to give a child something to hang onto, something to create, the opportunity to say, ‘Look what I did and I’m giving it to you,’ that’s wonderful. It lifted her. It made her laugh. What’s better than that?”
We are grateful that Tracey gifts us with her talent, her joy and her flexibility. We are grateful for the lift she provides the kids at COTS—sometimes for many of them, and sometimes for just one precious girl.
COTS kids are not the only ones to benefit from Tracey’s generosity. You can find her reading stories in the children’s area at Copperfield’s once a month. She’s the one who brings in her own stick puppets and her felt board and characters. She’s also a volunteer for Verity, providing outreach education for grade school kids on the difficult topics of staying safe and being body aware. And she volunteers with Marin’s Bread and Roses, shepherding great bands to convalescent hospitals, schools, community centers and shelters.
She and her husband Jeremy are both teachers, but both have had long and varied careers, and Tracey has never been far from a paint brush, sewing machine or paper bead jewelry. They met at Cinnabar Theater in the 1970s. Tracey was starring in “Spoon River Anthology” and her soon-to-be-husband Jeremy was designing and running the lights. By the time the next production was in rehearsal, they’d married. Living in Marin, they raised two talented and “fierce” daughters. They moved back to Petaluma 14 years ago and celebrate their 43rd anniversary this year.
Thank you, Tracey!
Show your support by donating today!
Want to read more stories about our volunteers? Visit our volunteer appreciation homepage by clicking here!
Share Tracey’s story with your friends and family:
COTS Day Use Services for Evacuees
Dear COTS Community,
Please spread the word: Evacuees are welcome to use the Mary Isaak Center, 900 Hopper Street, Petaluma for showers, laundry, meals and phone charging. All services are free.
Showers and laundry services are available between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Please note that our washing machines are few, so you may have a wait.
COTS is now also serving three meals a day to anyone who is hungry. Meal hours are below:
Breakfast: 7:30 to 9 a.m.
Lunch: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Dinner: 5 and 6 p.m.
Volunteers Needed!
If you’re a regular COTS volunteer, we could use your help coordinating laundry and showers. Please get in touch with the front desk: 707-765-6530 x120.
We would be very grateful for the following donated items to help us serve the community:
• Towels and wash cloths
• Shampoo, body wash
• Bedding/sleeping bags
• Laundry detergent
• Toilet paper
• N95 masks
Thank you to everyone in our community who is pitching in to help those who have been evacuated due to the fires. Thanks especially to our first responders who are keeping us safe. Together, we are proud to be Sonoma Strong!
COTS September Newsletter: Going green and keeping kids safe
Sow success with the COTS Hour Seed Fund
Every year in November, we host The COTS Hour: a huge fundraiser where we gather with our community and share stories of hardship, resilience, and triumph. This year, The COTS Hour will be held at 8 a.m., November 14 at the Petaluma Veterans Memorial Hall. We’re expecting 450 people to attend and raise funds in support of our vital programs and services throughout the year.
We wish we could host all of Sonoma County at The COTS Hour, but we know many of you can’t join us because you’ll be out of town or clocking in to work. This year, you can help before the event by giving to The Seed Fund. Your support demonstrates our community’s investment in our neighbors experiencing homelessness – and encourages our guests to give generously on November 14!
Join us and help us continue this crucial work: click here to donate to The Seed Fund and launch your fundraising page today!
Saving the planet one free meal at a time
What does our work at Mary’s Table have to do with global environmental health? Quite a bit!
About 35 percent of all food in the United States never gets eaten—at a huge cost: a greater need for agricultural land; gallons of precious water wasted; and greenhouse gas emissions that went for nothing.
But thanks to all the food donations we use each year at Mary’s Table, 98 tons of perishable food go into people—not landfills. And those scraps that we don’t use go into animals or into compost. Many thanks to Recology for helping us develop a robust composting program.
We couldn’t feed our guests without the support of many, many food providers, including our local grocery stores and farmers.
And our volunteers are absolute climate heroes. They coax every delicious, usable bit out of our fruits and vegetables.
Healthy development happens when kids are safe
Here are a few good bits of news from our Kids First Family Shelter.
“Eddie” clings to his grandmother. She’s his anchor in the world. At school, he couldn’t sit down at his desk without his grandmother by his side, couldn’t make it through the rest of the day once she’d said her goodbyes. After moving into KFFS and finding the stability it provides, Eddie is starting to feel more confident. Two weeks ago, he walked into his classroom all by himself and stayed the entire day. We predict he’ll be able to ride the school bus on his own soon.
When “Valerie” arrived at the shelter, she was shy and wasn’t using speech the way other kids her age do. Today, although no one would call her a chatterbox, she’s begun to relax at the shelter, to come out of her shell, and to speak more. Your support helps give all our kids at KFFS the space to breathe and to feel safe again. Thank you for investing in Sonoma County’s next generation!
Housing lets us breathe
There are few words tenants dread more than, “We’re selling the house.” That’s because those words are usually followed by “And you’re going to have to move.”
Six tenants in COTS’ shared Integrity Housing program recently heard both phrases. Their landlords had rented to the Integrity Housing program for six years at a very affordable price, but they had reached the conclusion that they had to sell the home.
COTS had to deliver 60-day notices to move to all the formerly homeless tenants. We let them know that we’d try our best to find them new housing within the program, but that we couldn’t make guarantees.
The residents are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Only one resident brings in income greater than $1,000 per month. All of them have severe and painful health challenges.
“I couldn’t breathe or focus when we got the notice,” one resident said. “I just kept thinking, ‘I am too old to be out on the streets again.’”
“I had no options,” said another. “I didn’t know what to do.”
A husband and wife who live together in the house were preparing for the possibility that they might need to split up—that there might be space and rent money enough for only one of them.
“We were working on housing plans,” said COTS Case Manager Debbie Robbins. “Those were some tough discussions.”
We were determined not to lose hope. COTS had received a grant from the Finley Foundation in 2018 to purchase a house, and we realized we now had an incredible opportunity: if we could buy the property before it went on the market, we could keep our clients housed and generate income to support COTS’ programs for the long-term.
With the help of the Finley Foundation, the generous sellers, and our amazing community, we closed on the house on August 30, 2019! We are so grateful to the following partners and businesses who made this happy ending possible:
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- the Finley Foundation, which provided funding for the purchase.
- the sellers, Dennis and Terry Merrill, who worked with us in the same of spirit of ease. cooperation and generosity that characterized all their business dealings with us.
- Bonnie Merrill, a local realtor and past COTS volunteer, who connected us with Dennis and Terry in the first place – and helped bring them into the Integrity Housing program.
- Dan and Rene Foppe of DNR Pest Control, who donated the necessary pest inspection.
- Terry Lewis of North Coast Inspection, who donated his inspection services.
- Rebuilding Together Petaluma, which is going to help us with repairs and upgrades on the property. (Sign up to volunteer at rtpetaluma.com/volunteer!)
- and Bill Gabbert and Karl Bundesen of Century 21 Bundesen who negotiated the sale and donated all their fees.
With the addition of the house to our permanent Integrity Housing portfolio, we will be able to house clients in Petaluma long into the future. We could not have done it without so many generous community members pitching in to help us make it happen.
“I hope people will see this as a model for providing affordable housing,” said one resident.
Richard Stark, a COTS client and a long-time Petaluma resident whom people might remember from his days playing piano at Copperfield’s, says that he remembers many afternoons chatting with Mary Isaak in her backyard back in the early 1980s. “We were talking about a way forward for humanity,” he said, “about saving the world.”
Mary went on to co-found COTS with her friend Laure Reichek and the help of thousands of supporters.
“I didn’t know it then,” Richard said, “but she really did it. She saved people. And her work saved my life.”
Please join us at The Big Thanks
We can never thank you enough for your support.
But we’d like to try!
Please join us at The Big Thanks at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 15 at the Petaluma Woman’s Club.
We’ll show you how we put your support into action—what your donations, your volunteer hours, your advocacy accomplish. And we’ll enjoy great music from Hannah Jern-Miller as well as good company, food and drink.
We are so grateful to you for your support. Thanks to you, COTS can now provide the supports to keep over 400 people in permanent housing annually and 140 people in shelter on any given night.
This is a free event. Please RSVP by clicking here!
COTS August Newsletter: Backpacks, bounty, and Business in the Ballroom
Styled for school success
Many thanks to the Petaluma Valley Rotary and the Active 20-30 Club of Petaluma for getting our kids excited about going back to school. New backpacks, school supplies, shoes and clothes help kids feel like they fit in. That’s especially important for the kids in our programs who have often experienced a lot of upheaval and are starting out as “new kids.”
Petaluma Valley Rotary is supplying brand new backpacks stuffed full of supplies and the Active 20-30 Club is taking kids shopping for school clothes. Together, their efforts will mean a better start to the school year for all COTS’ kids and families!
Investing in our children
Sonoma County has invested heavily in Rapid Re-Housing—a program where short-term rental assistance is paired with services to help homeless families stabilize quickly, and soon, shoulder their household expenses independently.
There are good reasons for that investment. According to a 2015 study, five families can be stabilized through rapid re-housing for the same price it takes to house one family in a transitional housing program. We’re finding that study to ring true here in Sonoma County. On average, COTS will pay about $6,000 in rental support to our Rapid Re-Housing landlords as our clients get back on their feet. And over 90 percent of our clients remain housed once our assistance ends.
In our last fiscal year, which ended June 30, we housed more than 200 people through Rapid Re-Housing.In the month of July, 2019, we housed 45 additional people through Rapid Re-Housing.
Wise and efficient use of our limited resources is good for the entire community. And the beautiful thing is that it’s best for our families, too. Nothing is more disruptive for a child than a period of prolonged homelessness.Permanent housing correlates to better health, better academics and a more successful adulthood.
Thanks to all our supporters for investing in COTS’ life-changing programs and services.
Feeding a crowd and caring for the planet
Over half of the produce grown in the United States goes to waste, according to the Journal of Consumer Affairs of the National Resource Defense Council. Part of the waste comes down to aesthetics: we just won’t buy it if it’s not sleek and pretty.
But anyone who gardens knows that wonky fruits and vegetables taste just as good as their more elegant counterparts. And anyone who’s been to Mary’s Table knows that we are always on the look-out for fresh produce. We serve over 7000 meals a month, and we’ve pledged to fill each one of them with fresh fruits and vegetables.
Preserve Sonoma Farm Kitchens, The Center for Spiritual Living and Jacobs Farm Del Cabo just helped us with that pledge.
Merrilee Olson owns and operates Petaluma’s Preserve Sonoma Farm Kitchens and she’s dedicated her life to using the whole harvest. Merrilee secured a donation of 780 pounds of organic tomatoes from Jacob’s Farm Del Cabo in the Santa Cruz area. Then she enlisted the help of her fellow congregants at the Center for Spiritual Living in Santa Rosa to turn those tomatoes into 600 jars of marinara sauce for Mary’s Table.
Last Saturday, the volunteers donned hair nets and close-toed shoes and persevered through heat, noise and technical difficulties to create beautiful jars of sauce that we’ll serve at Mary’s Table and give away to residents in our housing programs.
The Center for Spiritual Living chose COTS as a beneficiary of its 2019 charitable giving. Congregants were eager to do even more, Merrilee says. “I put out the word that I needed volunteers and people came.” Merrilee had eight volunteers from the Center helping her and one paid staff member.
Jacobs Farm del Cabo was one of California’s first certified-organic farms. “At Jacobs Farm del Cabo we recognize the unsustainability of food waste and are proud to donate fresh organic produce to community organizations like Mary’s Table,” says Marketing Coordinator Wylie Bird.
According to waterfootprint.org, it takes 26 gallons of water to produce a pound of tomatoes, so using these 700 pounds of tomatoes that would have gone to waste is ensuring thatover 18,000 gallons of water were used well.
Thank you to everyone involved in this heroic effort! When we take care of each other, we can also take care of the planet.
Reminder to all our supporters: Mary’s Table, 900 Hopper Street, is open to the public free of charge for lunch and dinner. Hours are 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. every day. Please help us get the word out to anyone who is struggling to make ends meet.
Business in the Ballroom and Picnic in the Parking Lot
Thank you to everyone who came to Business in the Ballroom on July 25 at the Hotel Petaluma. We were thrilled that so many people came out to recognize and commend our incredible business supporters!
Many thanks to the people and organizations who made the event possible: the Hotel Petaluma; the Petaluma Area Chamber of Commerce; Side Dish; Jackson Family Wines; Lagunitas Brewing Company; and Century 21 Bundesen. Thanks to Joy Regan for her lovely photos.
COTS co-founder Laure Reichek celebrating at the COTS Community Picnic
Thanks also to everyone who came to our COTS Community Picnic on July 11 to celebrate the expansion of our free meal program. Now, in addition to our regular lunch offering, our dinners are open to anyone in the community who is having trouble making ends meet. There’s no paperwork involved. Our stalwart volunteers serve lunch between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. and dinner between 5 and 6 p.m.
Restaurants to the rescue!
Two of Petaluma’s finest restaurants have each taken over a meal slot at Mary’s Table. McNear’s restaurant is preparing and delivering Thursday evening dinners and Seared is delivering Monday lunches. These generous deliveries will supplement the meals prepared by our volunteers and staff on other days of the week and give our clients a taste of Petaluma’s best.
Together with his wife Carrie, owner Ken O’Donnell delivered and served the first meal on Thursday: baked chicken with a garlic glaze, pesto pasta and vegetables. What a treat! Thank you!
Client profile: Don
The urge to beautify our surroundings is universal. For Don, for many years, his design space was limited to his walking stick, a craggy piece of 100-year-old Eucalyptus. He pressed into the wood his mother’s birthstone, a ring from a happy period of his life, stones and talismans, each representing births and deaths and friendships.
Don’s childhood in Sonoma County was rough, he says. He joined the military and discovered a mechanical aptitude. He worked a variety of jobs but fell into homelessness when one personal tragedy followed another and another. He camped and couch-surfed and occasionally stayed in shelters. He prided himself on keeping a clean and tidy campground. That all changed when a driver making an illegal turn sent Don flying off his bike. He landed yards away with bruises, a concussion, and multiple broken ribs and limbs. The driver fled, never to be seen again.
Still convalescing, he entered our Permanent Supportive Housing program ten months ago. He shares a mobile home with another gentleman and works with case manager Kathleen Sinnott. She helps him get to his medical appointments and wade through the paperwork from his accident.
Don still has the walking stick, but, now, his mobile home is his canvas. Boxes and cans line the kitchen shelves in artistic displays; just-plumped pillows perch on the couch; animal figurines pose together on the television; in the garden, sun catchers surround his thriving tomato plants.
“I just like things nice,” he says.
