November 2025

The City of Novato & Novato Fire Protection District are partnering to take proactive steps to reduce fire risks near the Hamilton marsh and skate park areas. This coordinated effort began on Tuesday, November 18, 2025 with City contractors conducting debris removal. Weather permitting, this work is expected to take about a week to complete. 

Once debris removal is complete, Novato Fire's vegetation contractors will work in sections, moving from one area to the next to reduce flammable vegetation and help limit potential wildfires. 

This collaboration reflects our shared commitment to keeping our community spaces safe, clean and enjoyable for everyone.

Update: December 2024

In a continued effort to address homelessness and enhance public safety, the Novato City Council amended its ordinance relating to unlawful camping on December 9, 2024. Novato’s Municipal Code already prohibited unlawful camping with limited exceptions.

The City’s approach for implementation remains similar to prior practice: 

• Offering services and issuing warnings before enforcement is considered;
• Prioritizing contact with individuals at risk of harming themselves, others or the environment; and
• Ensuring compliance with existing court orders allowing current campers remain in place at Lee Gerner Park.

On December 10, 2024, an interested person filed a lawsuit challenging the City Council’s action and alleging the City did not comply with open meeting laws or demonstrate an urgent need for the amendment. On December 18, 2024, the Marin Superior Court considered a Temporary Restraining Order to prevent the ordinance from taking effect. 

The Court denied the request, meaning the ordinance remains in effect as adopted by the City Council. The Court found it was unlikely the case would succeed on the merits at trial and the requirement of immediate danger or irreparable harm was not met.

The City of Novato remains committed to partnering with local organizations to provide those experiencing homelessness access to support services and resources while ensuring our shared public spaces remain accessible and safe for everyone who calls Novato home.

Request for Dismissal (12/26/2024)

Many of our community members have asked how they can help the homeless in Novato.

You can donate to local non-profits in Marin County that are on the frontlines helping the homeless in our community. We do not recommend that our community members donate directly to encampments or hand cash to panhandlers. There are organizations who accept donations and distribute resources to those in need.

Homeward Bound of Marin
St. Vincent De Paul
Gilead House
Ambassadors of Hope and Opportunity
North Marin Community Services

According to the Marin County 2024 Homelessness Point-in-Time Count & Report, 62% of people currently experiencing homelessness in Marin report living in Marin prior to losing their housing. Across the nine Bay Area counties, 70-85% of people experiencing homelessness in a given county also lost their housing in that county. Homelessness is a local issue. 

Novato uses the Housing First model and works with the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services, the CARE Team, the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT), the Downtown Streets Team and other local resources such as the City of Novato Public Works Department to provide services to those experiencing homelessness.

People become homeless for a wide variety of reasons, yet every person experiencing homelessness has one thing in common: they lack housing. Despite this somewhat obvious fact, providing housing is sometimes the last issue communities prioritize.  Instead, people experiencing homelessness often hear, “We can provide housing for you, but …

• You need to get sober first.”
• You need to get a job first.”
• You need to take medication first.”
• You need to progress through x, y and z programs first.”

Housing First turns this strategy on its head. People are placed directly into housing as the first intervention, and then social workers help people address all the other issues that might have led to that person’s homelessness in the first place.

Between the 2022 and 2024 PIT Counts, Marin housed 280 of the most vulnerable chronically homeless residents of Marin in supportive housing, with more than 700 housed since 2017. The number of families experiencing homelessness decreased 12% from 2022, with the percentage of unsheltered families decreasing from 41% in 2022 to 34% in 2024. 

For the vast majority of people who become homeless, it is a brief, one-time experience that usually resolves itself in a matter of weeks or month.

Chronic homelessness is long-term homelessness that is accompanied by a disability (e.g. mental illness, physical disability, traumatic brain injury, substance abuse disorder).

Most people experiencing homelessness in Marin cite an economic reason for their homelessness. However, 20% report experiencing mental health challenges. Sadly, the mental health system in this country has been severely eroded over the last few decades and new laws make it harder to provide services for people who are extremely sick and refuse help.

The Novato Police Department works in partnership with the Marin Mobile Crisis Response Team when responding to mental health emergencies.

This allows the person in crisis to be assessed in the field and directed to the most appropriate resources thus reducing law enforcement's involvement in mental health calls and keeping these individuals out of the criminal justice system.

Unsheltered homelessness, in the form of encampments, has emerged as a top community concern. According to the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, encampments have connotations of both impermanence and continuity. They:

• May be a core group of people who are known to one another and who move together to different locations when necessary.
• May be a changing group of people who cycle in and out of a single location.
• May be comprised of tents or lean-to shacks built with scavenged materials.
• May be people living in groups of cars, RVs, or other vehicles.

During Marin's most recent point-in-time count of the homeless community (January 2019), community volunteers identified 708 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, but this does not mean that all 708 people were in encampments.

Encampments, like chronic homelessness to homelessness overall, make up a small minority of the overall unsheltered community, yet they have a highly disproportionate impact.

Location breakdown of Marin's homeless community during January 2019 point-in-time counts