The present community housing shortage in West Marin is acute and immediate. A major irony is that working people cannot find housing in an area in which a large percentage of houses are vacant most of the time. One street in Stinson Beach has 15 houses on it, only one of which is occupied fulltime. The Bolinas School District, which 15 years ago had 240 students, now has 86 -- young families with school age children can’t find affordable housing in West Marin.

The volunteer Fire Departments of both Stinson Beach and Bolinas are short of volunteers because people young enough to put on heavy gear and leap onto a fire engine at 2am can’t afford to live in either town. This lack of volunteers means that to provide 24-hour coverage the Fire Departments must hire paid duty personnel, resulting in budget shortfalls. Central to this issue is that many properties that were once long-term rentals occupied by local families, tradespeople, small business owners, service providers and emergency responders have been turned into short-term rental properties.

This lack of rental housing has displaced locals, eroded school attendance and civic and social activities and has lessened the strong sense of community that once characterized the coastal towns of West Marin. An often-heard statement is that our coastal communities are being “hollowed out.”