San Rafael interim housing project receives council’s OK despite neighborhood backlash

by Ruth Dusseault, Bay City News November 19, 2025November 18, 2025

People pack the San Rafael City Council chambers before the start of a public hearing Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, on a proposed tiny home interim housing development at 350 Merrydale Road. The council approved a series of resolutions clearing the way for the project that some community members say was ill-conceived behind closed doors. (Framegrab from video via City of San Rafael)

In the last hour of Monday night, following nearly three hours of passionate public comments, the San Rafael City Council approved a series of resolutions that will pave the way to buy land for an interim housing project. On Tuesday, Marin County approved a grant to the city that will complete the deal.

The planned tiny homes project at 350 Merrydale Road will provide shelter, security and social services to an unhoused community living in a secured encampment along the Mahon Creek Path downtown.

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Ruth Dusseault, Bay City News

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.

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