A Petition to the Board of Supervisors of Mendocino County
As a community, we ask the Board of Supervisors to acknowledge: 1) Our County has a severe housing crisis, 2) the County is currently unable to provide adequate affordable housing for the majority of our citizens, 3) we cannot attract and keep needed workforce due to our lack of affordable or suitable housing.

We request an immediate expanded amnesty program to halt code enforcement that:  1)  shuts down and/or dismantles unpermitted buildings that currently provide a large portion of our County’s housing, and 2) creates severe financial hardship and/or unnecessary homelessness for our single parents, elders, disabled, and low-income working families.

Income inequality and the heavy burden of existing building permit policies force many law-abiding citizens to build without permits.

The majority of our County’s hard-working citizens, including the tourism sector, earn $20,000 to $30,000 per year without benefits, according to a recent survey of employers and employees, and many of our seniors and disabled struggle on less than $11,000 per year.

We ask the County for a moral compass to not continue current code enforcement and compliance policies, liens on properties, and reassessed tax burdens that cause our most vulnerable citizens to become unhoused or financially devastated.  

To continue issuing permits for AirBnB’s while dismantling unpermitted housing for our working community is also unacceptable policy.

We petition the Board of Supervisors to immediately implement an expanded amnesty program on unpermitted buildings, and make code compliance a non-priority for the Planning and Building Services Department’s Code Enforcement for Permit Compliance – unless there is a genuine threat to neighbors or habitat.

The Collaborative Community Action Project
Affordable Climate Resilient Housing & Communities
Signatures and Examples of Harmful Code Enforcement Attached