SEDONA, Ariz. — UPDATE: Sedona city council members voted 4-3 Tuesday to suspend the Safe Place to Park program at Cultural Park pending the outcome of the November ballot referendum.
Babies have been born in tents. There’s a secret food bank that school teachers – and others – visit. Families are sleeping in the woods.
The lure of Sedona’s red rocks and crystal shops tends to eclipse an unfortunate truth— a growing number of people who work in Sedona can no longer afford to live here.
It is why city council members passed a zoning ordinance this March to let up to 40 full-time workers sleep in their cars at Cultural Park on the western edge of town.
Now, the city’s Safe Place to Park program could end before it officially begins. The leader of a citizen-led effort says the campaign has gathered more than enough signatures to pump the brakes on the car camp and let voters decide its fate come November.
Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow said he is at his wits’ end and running out of options. He said the car camp is not ideal, nor is it the answer to Sedona’s homeless problem — it is one of many.
“I am not proud of it,” Jablow said.
The average home price in Sedona is $944,879 — nearly double what it was 4 years ago, according to Zillow. But many middle-class workers are not looking for a home to buy, they just want four walls and a roof to rent.
Even a one-bedroom apartment can be a lot to wish for these days.
“So what people used to pay, $1,200-$1,500 a month in rent are now paying $2,500 to $3,000 a month,” Jablow said.
A quick Zillow search shows the cheapest rental in Sedona is a 582-square-foot studio for $1,200 a month. Sedona’s median rent price is $3,500 — or $1,400 higher than the national average, according to Zillow.
The mayor refuses to blame Sedona’s bustling tourism industry for the rise in prices. Instead, he points the finger at short-term rentals many out-of-towners stay in. According to the mayor, these properties make up almost 17% of Sedona’s housing inventory. Jablow said many property owners realized, (especially during COVID) they could charge and earn more by renting to tourists instead of locals. More tourist housing meant less housing for Sedona’s workforce.
“Of course, we have some people who are very generous and realize that they could make $5,000 a month as a short-term rental,” Jablow said. “[But] they realize the problem, and they are keeping it as workforce housing. Not everybody is looking to make a buck, as opposed to corporations coming in and buying a group of houses.”
Some of those corporations, Jablow said, have made offers $100,000 over asking price.
Housing affordability troubles stretch far beyond Sedona and its mystical vortexes. Rent prices in the surrounding communities of Clarkdale, Camp Verde and Cottonwood are rising as well. These towns and cities have more workforce housing, but some workers are being priced out of them as well or competing against low-income seniors to find an affordable place to live.
Ruth Ramsey remembers paying $700 for a two-bedroom apartment in Cottonwood 6 years ago. Now she lives in a one-bedroom apartment and pays $1,240 per month. Rent gobbles up most of her $1,300 social security check. The money she is left with is not enough to keep the heat on or her fridge stocked.
“It’s pretty sad in Cottonwood,” Ramsey said. “I just do the food bank on the days they are here. I just don’t go anywhere. I don’t do a lot because I can’t afford it.”
Ramsey is on a waiting list to get into affordable senior housing in Cottonwood, which she expects to pay $600 to $700 a month for. Nearly a year later, Ramsey is still number 75 in line.
Just about 30 miles away in Sedona, Laurie Moore has a secret food bank. Secret, at the request of the building owner who does not want other tenants knowing the less fortunate are coming here to stock up on food and toiletries. The space is small but organized. Canned fruit and cereal on one shelf — mac and cheese, canned meats and vegetables on another.
Moore, the executive director of the Sedona Homeless Alliance, said there are approximately 200 men, women and children living on the streets, in their cars or in the woods around Sedona. She said that number grew slightly during the pandemic.
“We serve approximately 150 of those people each day,” Moore said. “We discover more people that are in the homeless community, because people in the homeless community are really good at staying hidden.”
Moore said there is a common misconception. A person holding a cardboard sign wearing tattered clothes is not the face of homelessness in Sedona. She said teachers, office workers and “possibly even the person next to you in church” are coming to the food bank.
Not everyone wants the unhoused in their backyards or in line at a food bank, Moore observes.
“It is interesting to hear a lot of people say ‘Not in my backyard,’” she said. “We always say to people, ‘There is likely somebody sleeping in your backyard, and they get up before you do.’”
William Noonan left Portland a few years ago to escape the homelessness crisis, crime and open-air drug use. His new home in Sedona is minutes away from Cultural Park, where the city council wants to let people sleep in their cars.
Noonan spoke during the March 12 meeting where council members approved the car camp by a 6-1 vote. Noonan told them he would start collecting signatures the next day for a referendum petition to stop the car camp. He kept his word.
Noonan turned in over 1,000 signatures on April 8 — well over the 597 signatures (or 10% of Sedona voters) required for the referendum to appear on the November ballot. Those signatures are now being verified.
“It simply puts to the people of Sedona the question of whether this city council’s decision to put the homeless car park in the Cultural Park should stand,” Noonan said. “It is pure, simple democracy.”
Noonan is confident the signatures he collected will force Sedona officials to pause the Safe Place to Park program before it is set to begin later this spring.
Sedona city council members will convene for an executive session Tuesday to discuss “legal advice with the City Attorney, to consider the City’s position, and instruct its attorneys regarding contemplated litigation regarding a referendum petition filed on Ordinance 2024-01, rezoning part of the Cultural Park to allow the Safe Place to Park.”
Mayor Jablow was not able to say what the city intends to do until after he meets with council members and city attorney Kurt Christianson, who 12News was unable to reach for comment. During a March interview, Jablow did say he supports letting voters have a say.
“If it goes on the ballot and people vote for it, that’s a democracy,” Jablow said.
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