The ARK

Updated: Aug 1, 2024

Francisco Martinez:  Jul 31, 2024

The Richardson Bay Regional Agency has been granted an extra year, until October 2025, to relocate more than a dozen boat dwellers from the anchorage to subsidized housing. However, many of those same boaters still face an Oct. 15 deadline to get out of a newly established eelgrass protection zone.

The agency’s housing-extension request was granted by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission on July 11, agency Executive Director Brad Gross said, and applies to about 25-29 people on 25 vessels as of June who qualify for one-year vouchers aimed at helping them find subsidized rentals onshore.

As of June, seven people on six of those boats were in the process of renting onshore housing or enrolling in the program, according to an agency report. But, Gross said, with a delayed start due to program money coming in late and just once caseworker processing one to two applications per month, the agency wasn’t going to meet the Oct. 15 deadline established under a transition plan created in 2022.