With 1,200 people living outside in Sacramento and with extremely limited state, county and city budgets, we urgently need a sensible, low-cost solution that can shelter and stabilize homeless Sacramentans. "Safe ground" is that solution.
"Safe Ground Sacramento" is homeless people creating safety and opportunities for homeless people. Safe ground would be a self-governed community of homeless men and women with proper sanitation and support, a place where people can regroup and move on to permanent housing.
It would be a village of very small sleeping cottages of about 100 or 150 square feet clustered around shared central facilities: a kitchen and covered dining pavilion, bathrooms, showers, laundry facilities and an outdoor space for meetings and classes. Instead of tents, Tuff Sheds would provide sturdier, better insulated and water-tight shelter. There would be private spaces for outreach workers and counselors.
Sacramento's infamous tent city had Sacramentans living under third-world conditions; safe ground would provide a safe and sane alternative that could be implemented before the coldest months of winter.
Some advantages:
• A mailing address.
• A way to keep yourself and your clothes clean.
• Safety.
• A front door that locks.
• A base of operations to get your life in order and move on.
• Job training and small-business development.
• A place to evaluate people's needs and find out what will help them most.
• Referrals to medical help, psychiatric help, and drug and alcohol recovery programs.
And, it would alleviate the fear of being cited or arrested for camping.
Once people are no longer in survival mode, worrying about where they'll eat today and where they'll be able to sleep tonight, they can focus on identifying and solving the issues that brought them into homelessness in the first place. We would have a support person at safe ground to help us meet our goals, whether finding employment or applying for disability benefits.
Each of us would sign an agreement that there will be no drugs, no alcohol and no violence at safe ground. We would elect leaders called "elders," to guide the affairs of the community. This model encourages both self-reliance and community, key building blocks that will help each resident graduate into more traditional housing.
Our vision is "Safe Ground, Homeward Bound." We want safe ground to be the gateway to the path out of homelessness.
John Kraintz, who is homeless, is a leader in the safe ground movement, which seeks a safe, decent, legal place for homeless persons to camp in Sacramento. www.safegroundsac.org.
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