Editorial: Marin moving with care in addressing Binford vehicle encampment

The county’s three-year goal of eliminating the longstanding homeless encampment along Novato’s Binford Road is approaching its deadline.

There has been significant progress in winnowing the number of RVs parked for as long as five years along Binford – despite a posted 72-hour parking limit. The number that once totaled around 150 vehicles has been reduced to 66.

The county’s $1.6 million state grant aimed at relocating campers, including buying their RVs to provide them with cash with which campers could find other housing, has been reducing the population and vehicles, leaving more difficult cases to resolve.

The county had promised that it would eliminate the line of illegally parked RVs after the conclusion of its three-year relocation program which ends in 2026.

Binford’s encampment of RVs grew during the pandemic. RVs parking along public streets had become a growing sign of Marin’s homeless problem and the county and cities enacted tougher parking limits to prevent them collecting in other locations. Those crackdowns sent them to Binford, a long and mostly unpopulated little-traveled county road that stretches from Novato’s Atherton Avenue to the Gnoss Field airport. The numbers grew quickly during the pandemic, when a federal court ruling restricted municipalities from using parking limits and camping restrictions from forcing homeless camps from public lands when other housing was not readily available.

Across Marin, the lack of affordable housing is a longstanding problem.

Some of Binford’s campers said they have been forced to move into their RVs because of the layoffs and lost job opportunities caused by the pandemic.

The county has provided garbage service, portable toilets and water stations along Binford. It has also provided security, all at taxpayers’ expense.

The county’s actions have reflected patience and compassion, an understanding of the difficulties campers have faced.

But the string of RVs, besides being an eyesore, has been a safety hazard and its bordering of a wildlife refuge is not environmentally optimal.

In addition, its offer to purchase campers’ RVs has been a practical and compassionate solution to a dilemma, both campers’ and the county’s.

Still, the deadline is approaching.

And reports of some of the campers renting out their RVs to others tends to undermine the county’s efforts to methodically eliminate the encampment.

But the challenge is that many of the remaining campers may be the most difficult cases to solve.

The latest example is a camper who has lived in his RV since 2022 and suffers from medical issues. His RV, which no longer runs, holds “all of my worldly belongings,” he says in his legal statement seeking to resist the county’s order that he move. He is unemployed and says he can’t afford to have it towed.

The county cites that it has already spent almost $100,000 “cleaning up and storing” the camper’s property out of the county’s right-of-way.

The man has presented to the court testimony from a nurse and a housing case manager that the man faces physical and mental health problems that could worsen if he is forced to move.

The county initially gave the man a Dec. 3 deadline to move, but delayed action after he filed a request in federal court or a temporary restraining order to stop the county from moving him and his RV.  That request was denied, but a local housing activist working on the man’s case said a request has been filed asking the court to reconsider its order.

This situation is likely to be played out over and over as the county approaches its deadline with the remaining campers.

It’s going to be costly and time-consuming.

There are some tough decisions ahead, for both campers and county officials.

There are public health, traffic and environmental safety issues that need to be given a priority. The human side of this dilemma also is a top priority, one that is likely going to provide complicated situations standing in the way of enactment of the deadline to clear the RV camp from Binford.