As part of coordinating Sonoma County’s recovery from last year’s fires, The County Board created the Office of Recovery and Resilience. They are now in the process of collecting input on their first draft of a recovery plan. I attended the first of several community meetings on July 10th, 2018.
The plan concentrates on addressing five strategy areas; Community Preparedness and Infrastructure, Housing, Economy, Natural Resources, and Safety Net Services. As someone interested in ACEs and trauma, this raised several concerns for me. First, it suggests that these five areas are separate and independent, when all our work in trauma-informed care highlights how our tendency to take someone’s problem and make them deal with it in several different offices just adds to their difficulty. As just one example, someone with low-income probably faces housing issues and needs safety net services. Second, this method does not really face head on the issue of the community trauma from the fire and the aftermath. Finally, we are missing the opportunity to address what we want Sonoma County to be ideally, not to simply replace what was lost.
If you share these concerns, there is something you can do about it. Please attend an upcoming Sonoma County Recovery & Resilience Plan Workshop and add your thoughts. Here are the dates and locations for the remaining meetings. You can still go online to RSVP.
July 25th, 6 - 8 pm: Petaluma Community Center
Aug 2nd, 6 - 8 pm: Finley Center
Aug 8th, 6 - 8 pm: Sonoma Veterans Building
The structure of the meetings is simple: after some introductory comments about what is happening now in response to the fire, about half the meeting time is spent in small group discussions, capturing individual comments and ideas. Here is a sampling of what was discussed in my group.
Community Preparedness and Infrastructure – there was concern about improving public notification systems, and fire identification (infrared camera) systems. In our group, there was discussion about training local community groups to assist in emergencies (e.g., be available to contact frail neighbors, etc.) I spoke to the need to allocate more attention/resources to help County agencies train their staff in their roles as emergency responders. (Something mandated, but not always prioritized or adequately funded.)
Housing – To no surprise there were many comments on the already tight rental market and the high cost of housing, pre-fire. My group mentioned relaxing the rules on granny units as a way to increase availability of more modest housing.
Economy – My group mentioned the impact on the service economy and other work indirectly impacted by the fire.
Natural Resources – The presenters emphasized the importance of preventing runoff and fire damage to watersheds such as Lake Sonoma and Mark West.
Safety Net Services – This was the area that was most relevant to the issue of human trauma. My points were; 1.) trauma is long term, and human services will need to be funded long after the physical damage is repaired, 2.) services such as mental health services were underfunded even pre-fire, 3.) studies of other disasters (Katrina, et al.) show that underserved communities often feel neglected and benefit less from recovery efforts, thus adding to their trauma, 4.) discussing recovery in 5 separate areas ignores the interrelationships and leads to siloed thinking, and 5.) the goal should not be to return to a pre-fire state, but to take the opportunity to envision what we want Sonoma County to be. (Not #Sonoma County Strong, but #Sonoma County Stronger) I was fortunate to have two folks in my group from social services who agreed with and added their own thoughts on these points. I also provided them with a copy a paper on the thoughts of MARC grantees (including Sonoma County) impacted by disasters.
Based on experience and feedback, they may slightly modify how future meetings will be conducted. I would strongly advise anyone attending a future meeting, to make whatever comment they feel is important, irrespective of the structure of the discussion. For example, I put in a plug for the work performed by County Animal Services, rescuing animals in the fires, even though it would not be considered a safety net service. I also feel that the issue of metrics is important. Measuring whether burned homes are eventually replaced is a simple and positive piece of data. However, measuring the impact of the fire on the homeless and marginally housed is more challenging and potentially more revealing. What issues and ideas would you want the County to consider?
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