Homeless Action! Joins Effort to Stop Sonoma County Government Evictions Organization calls county vacate orders for nearly 200 low income renters from trailers and modest dwellings "shameful"

Posted on November 16, 2021 by Jonathan Greenberg

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Sonoma County Homeless Action! announced on November 10, 2021 that it will support the Stop All Government Evictions (SAGE) campaign in its effort to urge the Board of Supervisors to pass a moratorium on Permit Sonoma evictions of low income renters.

Homeless Action issued a press release, which can be read here, is the region’s leading homeless rights organization. It release stated,

“Sonoma County government has stealthily become the greatest source of the removal of affordable safe housing in the North Bay and its code enforcement agency is responsible for more evictions of low income renters and homelessness than any corporate landlord in Sonoma County.”

Homeless Action supports the fast-growing Change.org petition to Stop All Government Evictions from safe affordable housing, now signed by more than 1,000 people (read and sign here). The release also linked to this awareness building video campaign featuring Copperwoman Saso, a local 70 year old grandmother who currently faces homelessness due to a Permit Sonoma vacate order on her safe, affordable tiny home.

In the 3-minute video (embedded below), songwriter Copperwoman performs an original housing rights song, “Everybody Needs A Home” with images of her performing at local rallies and showing off her beautiful tiny home in the Forestville woods. The video, produced and marketed by the Sonoma Independent, has already seen on YouTube by more than 50,000 adults living in Sonoma County.

In the press release, Gail Simons, a member of the Homeless Action! organization, stated, “This kind of activity on the part of the county is salt in the wounds of county residents in the lowest income brackets because they are housed and the county is forcing them into homelessness.”

In the midst of the devastating Covid-19 pandemic on top of the already existing monumental housing shortage, this is cruelty that could have and should have been avoided.”

Homeless Action is helping to publicize the Stop All Government Evictions campaign and is organizing an awareness rally for the cause, featuring Copperwoman and others, at the Arlene Francis Center in Santa Rosa, tentatively scheduled for December 12.

Jonathan Greenberg

Jonathan Greenberg is the editor and publisher of the award winning Sonoma Independent, which he founded in 2015 to serve the public interest with insight, solutions and advocacy.

Jonathan has been an investigative legal and financial journalist with 40 years of experience contributing to national publications. His professional career began as a fact checker at Forbes Magazine, where he advanced to the role of the lead reporter in creating the first Forbes 400 listing of wealthy Americans. Jonathan has been an investigative financial and political journalist for such national publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Mother Jones, Forbes, Town & Country, Money, GQ, Manhattan, Inc., The New Republic, and Alternet. From 2011 through 2017, Jonathan was a blogger for the Huffington Post, where his narrative-transforming reporting and analysis about subjects like Bernie Sanders, Monsanto and Native Hawaiian water protectors achieved some of the widest readership of any HuffPost writer on these subjects.

Jonathan was a Web 1.0 pioneer. In 1996 he started Gist Communications, a disruptive new media company that competed successfully with News Corp’s TV Guide Online. In 1997, Gist was one of just 14 websites in the world to be named a winner of the First Annual Webby Awards in San Francisco. Following Gist and the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Jonathan served, in 2002 and 2003, as Policy Director for the New York City Council’s Select Committee on Lower Manhattan Redevelopment, where he directed media and public policy campaigns and was the city council’s lead analyst for federal relief programs.

In 2007, Jonathan founded Progressive Source Communications, a public interest digital advocacy company that has created scores of impactful videos and campaigns to build awareness of solutions that serve the common good. Progressive Source owns the Sonoma Independent.

Jonathan is a graduate of Yale Law School's Masters Degree in Law fellowship program. A fuller bio and links to Jonathan's work can be found at JonathanGreenberg.com.