SANTA ROSA, Calif. — As a cold rain pelted the parking lot, the gates opened and the cars began to roll through.
In an aging Nissan was a 74-year-old longtime farmworker whose landlady had booted him to raise the rent. A 65-year-old disabled woman pulled her Ford Fusion up to the small trailer, where she could at last plug in her sleep apnea machine.
Then there was Patsy Perez, 55, who had learned about the fledgling "Safe Parking" program at the county fairgrounds lot after pleading to spend the night in her Volvo outside a downtown shelter.
"I think it's heaven-sent," said Perez, who since losing her housing two months ago said she has often been rousted by police or "messed with" while trying to catch some sleep in her car.
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors created the safe parking program in late January as an emergency response to freezing weather, making it one of just a handful on the West Coast. (Similar programs operate in Santa Barbara County, San Luis Obispo and San Diego County.)
But lawmakers here went one step further. In what Sonoma County advocates for the homeless called a "pinch me" moment and a "watershed," supervisors removed a ban on the "use of vehicles for human habitation" from the county's anti-camping ordinance.
"Our mantra is decriminalization," said Supervisor Shirlee Zane. "It was just stupid to say it's illegal to sleep in your car. For some people, all they own is their car."
"It's definitely cutting against the trend," said Jeremy Rosen, policy and legal director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which has tracked ordinances across the country that ban sleeping and camping in public spaces. "They're saying we understand that people in this economy don't have any place to go."
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The catalyst was a cold snap.
Jennielynn Holmes, director of shelter and housing for Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Santa Rosa, which operates the safe parking program under county contract, awoke to a 19-degree December morning and headed to her drop-in center to hand out oatmeal.
"A man walked up to me and his entire face and beard was covered in frost," Holmes said. "I just said, 'That's not OK.' I canceled my meeting and warming stations were open by that night."
Holmes had allies at the Board of Supervisors, Zane among them. She was doing her own hand-wringing. In Santa Clara County, four homeless men had frozen to death on the streets. She dialed the county administrator and said, "Nobody is going to freeze here," she recounted.
Momentum for solutions had been building since fall, when Georgia Berland, who launched the Sonoma County Task Force for the Homeless three decades ago, teamed up with the nascent Elder Advocates for Community Health and activists from Santa Rosa's Occupy movement.
Safe parking for those with vehicles — an estimated 20% of the 3,300 homeless county residents living outside — was on their list, and the board seized the opportunity.
By late January, they settled on the fairgrounds lot and unanimously moved to expand motel vouchers and change the law that banned "inhabiting" vehicles.
Berland was among those who stepped to the podium during the recent board meeting. "This morning is like a miracle to me," she said.
A former campsite for equestrians, the fairgrounds lot has restrooms and showers. In deference to neighbors, however, the program will probably close by spring, as the board and advocates seek to replace it with one that uses private church and other lots.
Housing may be pricier in San Francisco or Santa Clara counties, but Sonoma County has one of the state's highest costs of living when wages are taken into account. Homelessness has been exacerbated by the recent recession and a 1% apartment vacancy rate. The death of redevelopment agencies has slowed affordable housing construction. Shelter waiting lists are long.
As supervisors push for long-term solutions — among them a recently launched veterans housing program — they hope to ensure that short-term needs are met.
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