Jones’ death already has led to some calls for Santa Rosa and Sonoma County to find a way to offer a safe, sanctioned encampment for people living on Roberts Avenue and elsewhere.
Jones had struggled with homelessness for years. She surfaced in 2016 among a group of people camped under a downtown Highway 101 overpass in Santa Rosa and in 2020 along the Joe Rodota Trail. When the county broke up that sprawling encampment of about 250 people, Jones was one of the first people to take a place in the Los Guilicos Village complex. She left six days later for nondisciplinary reasons, with staff making three subsequent outreach attempts to no avail, according to Santa Rosa Councilman Jack Tibbetts, the executive director of St. Vincent de Paul of Sonoma County, which runs Los Guilicos.
Kathleen Finigan, an advocate associated with the Homeless Action group, said she didn’t…
