The last "eligible" person living aboard a boat on Sausalito's Richardson Bay moved into permanent housing in July, quietly closing a program that local officials are celebrating as a success — and that also marks the end of one of the Bay Area's most stubborn off-grid maritime communities.

The Richardson Bay Regional Agency framed the milestone as a feel-good capstone, gathering supervisors and housing officials at Sausalito's Bay Model on Thursday to mark the final voucher placement. But the housing push was never a stand-alone act of generosity: it ran alongside a state-mandated, court-tested campaign to empty the anchorage of illegal liveaboard vessels and restore eelgrass — an effort that shrank the anchor-out fleet from roughly 250 boats a decade ago to near zero. The housing was, in part, the humane exit ramp for a removal the agency was already legally obligated to carry out.

For decades, Richardson Bay was home to the "anchor-outs" — people who lived, rent-free and largely off the grid, aboard vessels moored in the open water off Sausalito. Some boats were beloved floating homes; many, in the agency's telling, were derelict, abandoned, or sunk. That era is now effectively over.

The Richardson Bay Regional Agency (RBRA) — a joint powers authority spanning Belvedere, Mill Valley, Tiburon and unincorporated southern Marin — announced that the final eligible participant in its Temporary Housing Support Program secured permanent housing in July. Officials celebrated Thursday at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model, with Marin County Supervisors Stephanie Moulton-Peters and Dennis Rodoni, County Executive Derek Johnson, and Marin Housing Authority Executive Director Tonia Lejidu in attendance, according to SFGATE.

The numbers tell a story of steady attrition. About 60 people were living aboard vessels when the program launched in 2023, RBRA Executive Director Brad Gross told SFGATE. Twenty-seven of them found housing through the voucher program; another 24 were housed through other channels. "Ten years ago, there was actually about 250 boats out there," Gross said. "They were illegal liveaboard vessels, there were derelict vessels, there were abandoned vessels, there were sunken vessels."

For decades, Richardson Bay was home to the "anchor-outs" — people who lived, rent-free and largely off the grid, aboard vessels moored in the open water off Sausalito.

The Temporary Housing Support Program was built with $3 million in state funding secured by then-state Sen. Mike McGuire, and administered by RBRA alongside the Marin Housing Authority, Marin Health and Human Services, and Episcopal Community Services. Lisa Warhuus, who directs Marin HHS, said the county provided intensive outreach and help with immediate needs — insurance, employment, benefits — while steering people toward permanent housing.

What the celebration downplays is why the boats had to go in the first place. The clearance was not optional. Under a long-running enforcement agreement with the state Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), RBRA committed to removing anchor-out vessels and protecting a restored eelgrass zone on the bay floor — a mandate the agency's own public record shows it pursued through vessel buyback and turn-in programs, a "Transition Plan 2.0," repeated deadlines, and at least one lawsuit over the removals that the agency defeated in court. RBRA has more than once petitioned the state for extensions to hit its relocation targets.

In other words, the housing vouchers and the eviction of a floating community were two halves of the same operation. That is not a reason to dismiss the achievement: moving dozens of low-income people from unsafe, deteriorating boats into stable homes is a real outcome, and a more humane one than the raids and tow-aways that have cleared other Bay Area anchorages and RV encampments.

But the word doing quiet work in every official statement is "eligible." The program counted those who qualified for vouchers and chose to participate. It is less clear from the public record what became of anchor-outs who were ineligible, who declined services, or who simply left the bay ahead of the deadline — the people who do not appear in a tally of 27 success stories. For a community that once numbered in the hundreds of boats, the gap between "final eligible participant housed" and "everyone accounted for" is worth pressing on.

For now, the anchorage is nearly empty, the eelgrass is returning, and Marin's officials have their milestone. The bay is cleaner and quieter. Whether quieter is the same as solved depends on who you count.