Frank Mason was sitting in his San Rafael backyard last October when he spotted a news helicopter circling overhead. It was a jarring sight in the quiet, unassuming neighborhood he had called home for more than a decade.
That day, Mason and dozens of his other neighbors learned city officials had planned a press conference just behind their houses on the 2.5 acre lot at 350 Merrydale Rd., where they would announce the creation of an interim tiny cabin community for 70 homeless people living in encampments in downtown San Rafael.
“That was how they introduced it to the neighborhood,” Mason said. “We were blindsided, truly.”…