.Project Pushback

Residents of a Watsonville neighborhood are pushing back against a proposed housing project meant to help homeless individuals staying along the Pajaro River levee. They say that local officials have ignored their concerns over crime and safety and are moving ahead without addressing complaints connected to the encampment.

City and county officials say that the community should stand behind efforts to address homelessness in the area, which leaves neighbors feeling their voice is being drowned out.

The “Recurso de Fuerza” (Resource of Strength) tiny home micro village was first proposed in 2023 as a joint effort between the counties of Santa Cruz and Monterey to address homelessness along the Pajaro riverbed. For years, unhoused people have camped in the levee area at the border of Watsonville and Pajaro and are particularly vulnerable during events like the Pajaro flood in 2023.

Additionally, the Pajaro River Flood Risk Management Project, which will construct levees and improvements along the lower Pajaro River and its tributaries, is slated to begin in 2024. This means that the encampment would have to be moved at some point in the near future.

In late 2022, Monterey County officials surveyed the enclave of around 50 people to determine the problems they faced. Occupants of the camp cited immigration and citizenship assistance, job development, mental health services and substance abuse intervention as prerequisites for housing stability.

Monterey County received in 2023 an $8 million Encampment Resolution Funding grant from the State of California, which will be used to create Recurso de Fuerza. The management of the 34-unit facility would be a collaboration between Monterey County’s Homelessness Services Program, Santa Cruz County’s Health and Human Services department and the City of Watsonville.

In April 2024, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors approved a $5 million agreement with San Francisco-based nonprofit DignityMoves for the development of the facility, and $2.5 million to manage the village and provide services for the first two years. DignityMoves has experience running similar projects throughout California.

Originally set for a June 2024 groundbreaking, the project has stalled and is expected to begin later this year.

A rear lot on the premises of the Westview Presbyterian Church in downtown Watsonville was selected as the site for Recurso de Fuerza, which is located off the Highway 129 thoroughfare. It is roughly a half mile from the Pajaro levee campsite and was chosen in order to ease the transition for future residents and maintain an access corridor.

But residents of a mobile home complex on the 100 block of West Front Street have begun to voice their opposition to the project. The complex runs up against the levee area where the encampment is situated, and neighbors say they have been subjected to increasing crime and harassment by people connected to the encampment. Numerous residents are now saying that city and county officials failed to adequately inform them of their plans for the micro village, and that the move will create a corridor of crime and unsafe conditions for both residents and the encampment dwellers.

What About Us?

Enedina Rodriguez has lived in this mobile home complex for 25 years. Lopez, like many other residents, is a working-class Mexican immigrant who made Watsonville her home. But she currently feels endangered by the encampment just yards from her dwelling. Rodriguez sits in her living room accompanied by five other neighbors. They have gathered here to share some of their alarming experiences.

Rodriguez recalls an incident in which a person from the encampment began ransacking the garbage bins on the curb in front of the complex. When Rodriguez asked her to stop, the woman reacted aggressively, threatening her with bodily harm.

“She began chasing me, wielding a shovel,” Rodriguez says in Spanish. “Then she threatened to slit my niece’s throat with a machete. We called the police and they took her away.”

Other neighbors complain of car break-ins and vandalism in their front yards and say that they feel like they are under siege in their own homes.

“Some of them don’t do harm, but others do. They are not well from their senses; one day they could be good and another they are doing bad. And in one of those [bad days] they could take our life,” Rodriguez says.

The police get called constantly, according to residents, but the issues persist in an area that they say is neglected by their representatives due to its socio-economic demography. While the neighborhood is just minutes from city hall, it is in an isolated industrial area with little through traffic.

Lorena Vasquez lives at the end of Walker Street, across from the mobile home complex. She runs a daycare out of her home during the day and works nights as a caregiver. Over the last several months, Vasquez says she has been “terrorized” by a man she believes has connections to the encampment.

In April 2024, a man began camping out in his car in front of Vasquez’s home for days on end, even trying to peep inside her house. Initially, Vasquez assumed it was an unhoused person needing a place to park and did not call the police. But things took a turn when the man tried to break into her home. Vasquez then called police and he was picked up for trespassing, according to arrest records.

That’s when Vasquez learned that the man—Daniel Zavala Zavala—had previously been arrested for shooting a gun into an occupied dwelling in February 2022. After learning this, Vasquez quickly filed for a temporary restraining order in April of this year.

But one night when she was out to dinner, she saw through her doorbell camera that Zavala had returned and was intent on breaking in.

“He was going all around the outside of the house trying to get in. He was holding a machete. That’s when I called the police and I told them that Daniel Zavala was back,” Vasquez says in Spanish.

He was arrested again and was still in custody as of July 22.

Watsonville Police spokesperson Michelle Pulido says that there have not been an] unusually high number of calls for service coming from the neighborhood in the last months. She did say, however, that the department has heard concerns from residents about crime in the area and has engaged with the public on the matter.

In late June, a community meeting was held for residents in the greater downtown area and Pulido says that crime concerns were brought up. Also in attendance was Watsonville District 1 Councilmember Eduardo Montesino, who represents residents of West Front and Walker.

Montesino says that the city has been turning a blind eye to the issue of homelessness and is fully behind the Recurso de Fuerza project. As for concerns over safety, he disagrees that the project will increase crime.

“What [residents] are experiencing is the few people that are on the streets that are causing havoc, but they’re not seeing the vision that we also got to do something about the homeless population. They’re our neighbors, and people just are not seeing where there’s the potential to see something different and help people out of that situation,” Montesino says in a phone interview.

But there is also pushback to the project within the council itself, with one member concerned that the city and county are getting in over their heads.

‘Service Desert’

Watsonville District 5 council member Casey Clark says that the first time he heard about the Recurso de Fuerza project in June 2023, he felt it had already been decided without input from Watsonville city officials. One of his main issues is the site selection, which he says he has brought up to county officials.

“I see it going somewhere more appropriate and I have suggested two sites to the County of Santa Cruz, which I just get told ‘No,’” Clark says in a phone interview.

Clark argues that the Westside Presbyterian Church site is a “service desert” and says that other sites are more suitable for the project. The facility will include an indoor and outdoor dining area, showers, lockers and a housing navigation center.

A key detail is that the micro village is meant as temporary, transitional housing for a period of six months. Enrollment in the program is voluntary and there is already a waitlist for the units, according to Monterey County officials.

Clark says that the organization tapped to manage the facility is not equipped for the task. Earlier this year, Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County (CAB) was chosen to contract with Monterey County as operators for Recurso de Fuerza.

Emily Watson, interim director for Homelessness Prevention and Intervention Services, says that CAB is uniquely positioned to take on the management of the project and has extensive experience working with unhoused populations. CAB is planning to staff 10 to 15 workers at the site, including case managers for the residents.

The neighbors on West Front Street say that the encampment occupants’ rights are being held in higher regard than their own.

“Why is our voice not being heard?” asks Catalina Torres, who is a spokesperson for the group and has attended multiple city council meetings to bring the issue forth.

“They need to stop this [project] and take the time to find the right place for it outside the city. They have rights, but what about our rights?” Torres says in Spanish.

Councilmember Montesino says it’s not up to the council to say yes or no on the micro village, as it controlled by the county and state. He wants the West Front Street residents to keep an open mind.

“I just want people to realize and to listen to what the actual project is. I want people to be open,” Montesino says.

Santa Cruz County District 4 Supervisor Felipe Hernandez, who represents Watsonville, says he is in favor of the project. According to Torres, she and other residents have reached out to his office to raise their concerns. Hernandez categorically denies that they have made any attempts to reach him. But even if they had, Hernandez won’t budge on his support for Recurso de Fuerza unless there is a consensus from Watsonville officials to halt it.

“So, I’m fully onboard for the project and indifferent to the opposition until there’s some alignment [amongst the council],” Hernandez says in a text message.