When Tristan Collins, 18, found a room in Polly Hall at Santa Rosa Junior College, he got a second chance at the life he always wanted.
He had left his mother and his home in San Rafael, California where drugs, abuse, and neglect were present much of the time.
“Being able to get a room here is life-changing to me,” said Collins, who wants to become a nurse and then perhaps go to medical school. “I have the ability to come here at the end of the day, away from everything else, and that’s amazing. If I didn’t have this room to live in, I don’t know where I’d be today.”
Polly Hall opened in 2023 with 258 units and 352 beds at a cost of $75 million. It was built to help the school’s most vulnerable students who faced a housing shortage and skyrocketing rents after 4 fires between 2017 and 2020 destroyed more than 3,000 homes in the city of Santa Rosa.
Kaiser Permanente committed $1 million to the construction of Polly Hall — a small slice of $24 million it invested to help 65 organizations rebuild the community after the fires.
Investments include homelessness support, help to rebuild low-income, senior, and market-rate housing, money for community infrastructure, such as parks that were destroyed, and support for the physical, mental and economic health of area residents.
National and local Kaiser Permanente executives recently toured some of the projects that received support and heard from residents and area officials how their lives have changed.
“For me, this work goes back to our mission of improving the health and well-being of our communities,” said Bechara Choucair, Kaiser Permanente executive vice president and chief health officer. “Seeing these projects to support this community is an incredible moment.”
The night of the Tubbs fire in 2017, 22 people lost their lives, and Kaiser Permanente evacuated 130 patients from the Santa Rosa Medical Center, which came perilously close to destruction. Two hundred employees and physicians lost their homes, said Alena Wall, communication and public affairs director for the Santa Rosa area.
“After that, we saw a huge jump in unemployment, a surge in mental health needs, a 17% rise in fair market rents, and skyrocketing home rebuild costs,” added Wall. “As an organization, we took this personally.”
Sonoma County Legal Aid received $675,000 in grants to assist low- and moderate-income residents with eviction assistance, disaster aid, reconstruction fraud, and miscellaneous legal matters related to the disasters.
“We reached 8,800 fire survivors through clinics and outreach. We completed 133 contracts for survivors and resolved 13 consumer fraud cases,” said Legal Aid Executive Director Sunny Noh. “With that money, we built our housing program for tenants. And we got a local disaster-triggered eviction moratorium law passed, which will be very important when the next one hits.”
Eleven city parks were destroyed in the Tubbs fire, including Coffey Park. Kaiser Permanente helped rebuild it with a $500,000 grant to a local organization leading the charge.
“All I’ve seen during my time at Kaiser Permanente is a commitment to empathy and doing right by the community,” said Abhishek Dosi, Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa senior vice president and area manager during a visit to the 6-acre park. “It’s days like this where you see the community coming together that really humble you and make you proud.”
