Marin County Is Back at It With Its NIMBYism
By: Matt Charnock
Tags: Bay Area, Housing, San Francisco, Homeless, Economy

Being a NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) is basically someone who feels like this: Sure, we want to help vulnerable people — but, like, not if it inconveniences me in the slightest. The Bay Area is full of these folks, who support the idea of housing homeless people in theory, but won’t tolerate it their neighborhood.

Marin has gotten the reputation of taking NIMBYism to the extreme over the years. Lots of things have led to the county being closed off and elitist in many ways, including a lack of public transit as an intentional decision to keep some people out. Now, the county is back at it.

Recently, the Marin County Board of Supervisors’ vote to forego a plan of buying a Novato hotel (that could potentially house some 70 unhoused people) through the Homekey program, a California-wide initiative that uses federal coronavirus relief to buy hotels and other buildings with the intention of repurposing them into supportive housing.

The Marin Board said the reason that they couldn’t move forward with the property is because they weren’t able to settle on an agreement with the Inn Marin Hotel’s owners on the $18 million asking price.

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But to those familiar with Marin, it’s little surprise that the board was flooded with complaints during those prior assemblages about how the project would be “a bad fit” for the community. (Infamously trendy and highfalutin SF neighborhoods like South Beach and the Presidio have also previously let their NIMBYism get in the way of mitigating local homelessness by rejecting — or grossly condemning — city-operated navigation centers.)

Nevertheless, it looks like the nearby insular homeowners and renters got their entitled wish.

“We’re satisfied and happy with the outcome,” commented Pat Davidor, a resident who lives close to the Inn Marin, to the Chronicle, noting that she and her family believe such projects are better-suited areas farther from subdivisions. (Which, alas, would exclude much — if not all — of the Bay Area properties that would qualify to receive a grant from the state’s Homekey program.)

The rates of homeless in the Bay Area have steadily increased over the past decade, seeing a 47% growth between 2017 and 2019 alone — one of the biggest two-year increases in the state. Marin County’s rate of homelessness fell by 7% during that same time (though, counts of unhoused people are hard to be accurate).

District 5 Supervisor Judy Arnold, whose district includes Novato, said she believed the Marin Board hadn’t had the time to properly discuss the project with neighbors of the would-be shelter; the City Council recently delayed suing to stop the proposal and instead urged the Marin Board to hold a community meeting on the idea.

“I believe that as a community we need to find ways to support our most vulnerable residents here in Marin and I believe that finding permanent supportive housing is an effective way to do that,” said Arnold. “That said, my position on this particular project was a result of the inadequate process and timeline we were forced to work within the state’s Homekey grant process.”

Suffice to say the City Council knew very well what they were doing: shifting Marin County’s failure to help decrease rates of homelessness in the Bay Area to its residents, rather than its representatives.

“It was a good try, [just the] wrong location,” Davidor added to the newspaper. “Our hope is that money will become available in some other way and that more homeless housing can be created. But spread it around more, so other parts of the county can take their share.”

The good news: The Marin County Board of Supervisors did unanimously vote on Tuesday to push forward with purchasing an 18-bedroom hotel at 1591 Casa Buena Drive in Corte Madera and a 44-unit office space at 3301 Kerner Boulevard in San Rafael to be developed into transitional and permanent housing units for those experiences homelessness in the region.