Vallejo tows RV, trailer leaving family on street, arrests activist

VALLEJO – City of Vallejo officials towed an RV and a trailer from a street in central Vallejo on Monday, leaving a mother, grandmother and four young children on the street without shelter and only a few scattered belongings, and arrested an activist who got in the way.

The activist – Housing and Community Development Commission member Joey Carrizales – was taken to a hospital after his arrest, where he said doctors told him he may have suffered a mild heart attack.

The city had placed eviction notices on RVs and campers parked near the Smart and Final grocery store at 3901 Sonoma Blvd. Tow trucks began to maneuver into position at about 2:45 p.m. Monday to tow an RV and a fifth wheel trailer that were parked along Sereno Drive beside the store.

Before the tow truck drivers began hooking up their two caravans, Vanessa Gomez and her mother Gloria Vialau frantically pulled out clothing and other items for Gomez’s four young children.

Vialau held one of the family's youngest children in her arms while the little girl pointed at her grandmother’s trailer as the tow truck pulled away. There were dried tears on the girl’s face and a confused look as her mother, Gomez, came over and scooped the little girl from her grandmother’s arms.

“You don’t have to worry… God is going to find us a better home,” Gomez said with a mother’s reassuring confidence.

But moments later when the child was out of earshot, Gomez said that she didn’t know where she was going to take her children for the night. “We don’t even have a tent to set up,” she said.

About seven Vallejo police officers were present, along with five patrol cars and three tow trucks.

Carrizales said he went to the Sereno Drive encampment at around 8:30 a.m. on Monday because he was concerned that the police would show up early to tow vehicles that people were using as shelter. He left after no police or city workers showed up, but then rushed back in the afternoon when another housing rights activist called to tell him that the police were at the encampment.

When the first tow truck backed up to tow an SUV that Christine Hoffman lives in, Carrizales stood between the SUV and the tow truck, blocking the way. Hoffman is 65 years old and needs a walker to get around. She said she has been able to manage at the small encampment because she has support form the small community there.

When Carrizales refused to move, police handcuffed him and put him in the back of a patrol car to take him to jail. On the way to the jail in Fairfield, Carrizales said he began to feel sick. He said he asked the officers for water but they did not give him any. He told the officers that he needed medical attention and they brought him to see the nurse at the jail when they arrived in Fairfield. He said he was having chest pains and an officer immediately drove him to NorthBay Hospital, where the doctors said they suspected that he had suffered a mild heart attack.

Carrizales was cited for delaying or obstructing an officer and he was released from police custody at 8:30 p.m., but doctors kept him in the hospital overnight for observation. He had not yet been released from the hospital as of Tuesday afternoon.

After Carrizales was arrested for blocking Hoffman’s SUV, the tow truck driver began to hook up cables to the SUV while Hoffmann was still inside, bewildered and unsure what to do. Her camp partner Rick rushed around trying to remove items from the vehicle and make last minute repairs to see if he could get the semi-operable vehicle running.

Then, without explanation, the tow truck driver unhooked the SUV and police told Hoffman that they may still come to remove her vehicle in the next two weeks.

Two weeks ago, police towed vehicles from the same encampment after issuing a debris removal notice.

City Councilmember Cristina Arriola had heard that the police were at the encampment on July 14 and she showed up to see what the police were doing.  She said that Sgt. Rashad Hollis appeared surprised to see her. She asked where the order to remove the vehicles had come from but he did not offer a clear answer.

In an interview with the Vallejo Sun, Arriola questioned why the department was able to muster up resources to put a family on the street days after telling the council that they are going to have to stop answering some alarm calls and dramatically reduce other services because of low staffing.  

Hollis did not respond to emailed questions.

The notice that city officials posted on Friday only states that the police will remove vehicles for registration or other safety and parking violations. But for a family like Gomez’s or for Hoffmann who both rely on their vehicles, losing their vehicles leaves them without shelter.

Arriola said that she is frustrated with the way the city has used vehicle registration to apparently get around legal protections for the homeless. “Putting this family out on the street is a huge black eye for the city of Vallejo,” she said.

Arriola referred to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Martin v. Boise, which blocks cities from removing campers from public property unless there are enough shelter beds available for those who are displaced.

Hoffman also brought up this issue. “I thought that they could not move us unless they have some place for us to go,” she said.

Gomez said that city officials asked her to move the RV and the trailer to parking spaces on the side of the road so the city could access a drainage ditch at the end of Sereno Drive. Gomez said she moved the trailer and the RV and parked them neatly alongside the curb.

“I guess [city officials] decided to tow us anyway,” Gomez said.

Other members of the small encampment said that they received notices to leave the location three months ago but sometimes no one showed up, so it has felt like the city is playing a bluffing game with the campers’ only form of shelter.

“You can’t tell if the notice is for real or if it’s another fake” said Sharde Hatchett, a family member who sometimes stays with Gomez and her family.

The Sereno Drive encampment is located on a public street between Carl’s Jr. and Smart and Final. The street provides access to the two businesses and then goes another 60 feet before it dead ends at a marsh area surrounding White Slough. The dead end portion of the street has provided a little bit of seclusion for the camp and the limited space has kept numbers relatively small.

Gomez has been living at the location with her mother and her children for over a year. She said that the tight knit group has been able to share resources and look out for each other to keep the place safe for her family and other campers.

During that time she has been applying to a number of housing programs, including the Blue Oak Landing supportive housing, but it has been difficult to find family housing that can accommodate the kids and their grandmother.

After the tow trucks pulled away, a friend of the encampment showed up and offered to put Gomez and her family up in his one bedroom apartment for the night. He said he had lived out on the streets for 30 years but then he got involved in Narcotics Anonymous and took an apprenticeship to be an electrician. Now he has been drug free for three and a half years and wants to do what he can to give back.  

However, he said that because he shares the apartment with his child, the Gomez family will only be able to stay for a short period of time.

Gomez was relieved to have a place, even if only for a few nights.