By Christina Gray
Serving outcast populations could become a through line in the ongoing history of Sacred Heart Parish in Olema.
In 1911, Belgian Priests of the Sacred Heart built a three-story rectory in the rural West Marin town. Resident priests traveled on horseback, bicycle or buggy to serve far-flung farming communities, according to parish historian Lillian Phelps. For a time, the 13-room rectory fringed by the rugged coastline north of San Francisco was a recuperative stop for missionaries returning to the mainland after ministering to lepers on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.
Today, the largely unused structure located on State Route 1 is at the center of a fast-moving collaboration between the parish and the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Catholic Charities and several local nonprofits. With no time to spare, they are working together in crisis mode as more than 150 agricultural and other low-wage workers and their families lose their housing on local ranches.
Twelve cattle and/or dairy ranches must close and be vacated by March 1, 2026, as a result of a federal land use settlement. These families, as well as dozens of others living in deplorable conditions on private ranches outside park boundaries, are scrambling to find a safe place to live in a region bereft of affordable housing.
Some are leaving the area or have already left.
With the full support of Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, plans are afoot to lease the old rectory for conversion into a multifamily cohousing dwelling. The smaller current rectory was built in the mid-1990s.
The paint is peeling, and the garden grows untended. Swallow nests cling like barnacles to the eaves, and floorboards squeak under foot. The big house has aged well, but it is not move-in ready. It will require repairs and renovation, permits and paint, and, most critically, grant money and private donations to make it a home. Still, there is no shortage of optimism for the possibilities.
“We don’t want to just offer these families a shell,” said John Christian, executive director of the Archdiocese’s Real Property Support Corporation. “We’re investing the property in a project that will benefit families, many of whom I think either are, or will be, members of Sacred Heart Parish.”
“Absolutely a time of crisis”
Tensions over land use in West Marin go back a long way, according to Sarah Hobson, executive director of the West Marin Fund, a key partner in the rectory project. The Coast Miwok were displaced when dairy ranching took over in early California. Then, in the 1960s, West Marin ranchers sold their land to the government for the creation of the Point Reyes National Seashore. The agreement was that they would be able to continue ranching on the land in 20-year renewable leases.
Over the past decade, however, the National Park Service, environmental conservation groups and ranchers became embroiled in lawsuits over land use rights and management plans. In January of this year, a settlement was reached that will shutter 12 of 14 working ranches on park lands. These 12 ranchers agreed to retire their operations in exchange for financial compensation. Ranch workers and tenants were not included in the mediation process and had no say in the terms of the settlement, according to Hobson.
At the same time, dozens of other families working and/or living on private West Marin ranches outside park lands are facing eviction or displacement due to substandard living conditions, health and safety hazards, and landlord exploitation and intimidation.
“It’s absolutely a time of crisis here,” said Hobson.
A 2024 local housing study cosponsored by the West Marin Fund (wmhousingsolutions.org) revealed in shocking detail how the lack of affordable housing is affecting low-income workers, with effects rippling deep into the community.
West Marin needs at least 1,000 new units of housing affordable for households earning less than $65,000 a year. The current shortage means local workers must choose between paying rents far beyond their means, living in unsafe housing, long commutes from outside the area or leaving jobs and the area entirely. The report stated that local business, much of it hospitality-oriented, struggles to recruit or retain employees. Some have closed, posing a threat to the vital tourism sector. Essential services, such as schools, are also being impacted.
Parish impact
Loretta Murphy, a longtime parishioner of Sacred Heart Parish and operations manager for West Marin Fund, is on the rectory renovation team. She said the displacements have had a noticeable impact on the parish.
“Many of the ranchers and ranch workers being displaced were, or are, parishioners of this parish,” she said. “The parish population has changed here in a very short period of time.”
Sacred Heart serves a large swath of West Marin under the pastoral care of Father Erick Arauz. Its large Latino parishioner base is evidenced by an exquisite stone shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe tucked into the redwoods behind the church.
Parishioner and former catechism teacher Lourdes Romo grew up in West Marin on a ranch where her immigrant father and two brothers worked. She now runs Papermill Creek Children’s Corner in Point Reyes Station, a licensed preschool.
“Many families here are experiencing deep anxiety and distress as they face the reality of losing their homes,” she said. “The emotional toll is not just very bad for them, but for all of us here.”
Hobson and Murphy approached Father Arauz this spring about the possibility of using the old rectory to develop affordable housing. In March, Marin County supervisors declared a “shelter crisis” in West Marin, a response to ranch closures and evictions that invited a wider range of solutions for creating emergency shelters.
Father Arauz was “all for it,” said Hobson. Christian, of the Archdiocese’s Real Property Support Corporation, was soon invited to Olema to meet with the pastor, Hobson and Murphy. He was quickly convinced of its “win-win” appeal. So were others back at the chancery.
“It didn’t take much more than 48 hours to get the support of the Archbishop,” said Christian. “Everybody has been yes, yes, yes, let’s do this.”
Catholic Charities CEO Ellen Hammerle was also supportive when Christian suggested its expertise in housing and case management could be an asset to the project, along with the proximity of its headquarters in Marin County. Its full role will evolve as the project does.
“For now, we are just really trying to support the church in getting the housing done,” she said.
The project team has grown in size and momentum. It now includes not just the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Sacred Heart Parish, Catholic Charities, West Marin Fund, Community Land Trust Association of West Marin and West Marin Community Services, but also consultants, parish council members, local contractors, architects, engineers and some of the families most affected.
“The more people that get behind this, the faster this is going to go,” said Christian. Turning unused rectories into housing “isn’t a solution for affordable housing across the three counties of the Archdiocese,” he said. “But this is one project where the Church and others can work together on this crisis.”
Christina Gray is the lead writer for Catholic San Francisco.
