An initiative that helped move people who had been living aboard vessels in Sausalito’s Richardson Bay into homes on land has ended with the final eligible participant placed in permanent housing.
The program was run by the Richardson Bay Regional Agency, a joint powers authority that includes Belvedere, Mill Valley, Tiburon and unincorporated southern Marin County.
The milestone was celebrated Thursday with an event at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model site in Sausalito. Attendees included Marin County Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters, Supervisor Dennis Rodoni, County Executive Derek Johnson and Tonia Lejidu, executive director of the Marin Housing Authority.
About 60 people were living aboard vessels in the bay when the program began in 2023, according to Brad Gross, executive director of the RBRA. Since then, 27 people have found housing through the program, with the final participant securing housing in July, and another 24 people have been housed through other programs, according to the RBRA.
Vouchers for liveaboards
RBRA’s Temporary Housing Support Program was launched in 2023 with $3 million in state funding secured by state Sen. Mike McGuire. It provided housing vouchers to eligible people living on boats and houseboats in Richardson Bay. The housing program was administered by the RBRA in partnership with the Marin Housing Authority, Marin Health and Human Services, and Episcopal Community Services.
Lisa Warhuus, director of Marin Health and Human Services, said her agency has delivered intensive outreach services and assistance with immediate needs such as necessities, insurance, employment, and benefits, as well as support in pursuing pathways that lead to permanent housing.
The housing effort operated alongside the agency’s vessel buyback program, which offered eligible participants $150 per linear foot for their boats if they turned the vessels over to the RBRA for disposal. The vessels are crushed and materials are recycled on the site behind the Bay Model.
RBRA also received annual grants starting in 2020, ranging from $100,000 to 275,000, from the California State Parks Division of Boating and Waterways’ Surrendered and Abandoned Vessel Exchange program. That program supports local public agencies to remove abandoned boats from waterways and allows boat owners to surrender unwanted recreational vessels for free disposal instead of abandoning them.
Removing derelict boats, restoring ecosystem
On Monday, RBRA’s boat recycling site was also visited by the California Boating and Waterways Commission, a seven-member advisory body appointed by the governor that advises the division.
“Ten years ago, there was actually about 250 boats out there,” said Gross in his remarks to the commission Monday. “They were illegal liveaboard vessels, there were derelict vessels, there were abandoned vessels, there were sunken vessels.”
Gross said removing vessels from the anchorage has also helped restore eelgrass habitat, which is important to the bay’s ecosystem.
“We are an eelgrass restoration group,” Gross said. “We are an environmentally conscious, boat disposal group. We enforce the laws and regulations on Richardson Bay, and we’ve turned what was once a very difficult place to maneuver through on a small boat into the recreational bay that you see out there today.”
The agency said it has arranged with the owner of one vessel to remain on the bay at the anchorage through Oct. 26.
