Sacramento mayor says city will soon open 100 cabins to shelter homeless. But where?
Sacramento officials are planning to open cabin-style shelters with services for 100 homeless people somewhere in north Sacramento by mid-March, and could also open warming centers to shelter homeless individuals this winter, officials said Tuesday.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg is proposing the cabins open in order to meet Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “100-day challenge,” which challenges municipalities across California to meet goals for new homeless initiatives within 100 days in order to receive additional state funding.
Steinberg originally said the city would meet the challenge by obtaining land for 100 cabins within 100 days, but is now shooting for a more ambitious version of the project: to have the shelters open within 100 days.
“At the beginning of winter, we’ve got to have something else up,” Steinberg told The Sacramento Bee. “We want to see if we can integrate this urgency around winter with the governor’s challenge.”
The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency is working to open the up to 100 cabins on a privately-owned site in Councilman Allen Warren’s north Sacramento district, agency executive director LaShelle Dozier told The Bee. Officials would not identify the location of the proposed site.
Warren said he is open to supporting the project, but needs to learn more details.
“Anything that can help, I want to see it, but I don’t want my district to be overburdened,” Warren said.
Warren previously proposed the city build a development for 700 homeless and low-income people in cabins, tiny homes, tents and traditional permanent housing at the corner of Edgewater Road and Lampasas Avenue, but it’s unclear if that project will move forward. That site is owned by the Twin Rivers Unified School District, which has listed it for sale for $440,000.
The city’s now-closed large Railroad Drive shelter was located in Councilman Jeff Harris’ district, but was close to Warren’s district.
The agency could buy the cabins from Seattle area-based Pallet, or from local builders, Dozier said. Both have put their cabin-style shelters on display at City Hall in recent weeks. They could also be built by another company, Dozier said.
Homeless warming centers could open this winter
As temperatures dip near freezing and rain is frequent, the city might also open warming centers this winter for the first time in three years, Steinberg said.
Steinberg would like to see new beds open, whether cabin-style shelters or traditional warming centers, by mid-January, he told The Bee.
About a dozen homeless activists held a demonstration at City Hall Tuesday asking for the city to open warming centers for the homeless this winter. They want the city and county to open the centers even if temperatures do not hit freezing for three consecutive nights – the threshold that triggers the centers to open.
Rev. Pamela Anderson, a Sacramento minister who participated in the demonstration, said that threshold is far too strict.
“Why does it have to be three nights in a row?” Anderson said. “These are human beings. Some of them have hypothermia. It doesn’t mean they’re not freezing the first two nights.”
Faye Wilson Kennedy, of the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign, agreed.
“Thursday it’s going to rain again,” Wilson Kennedy said. “We have to start looking at people who are unhoused as human beings.”
The activists said opening warming centers this winter is especially important because the long-standing winter sanctuary program has been eliminated and all shelter beds in the city are typically full on most nights.
The city has not opened warming centers the last two winters. During the winter of 2016-17, the city opened a warming center in a community center at the pool house at Southside Park.
The city has the ability to open any of its 16 community centers as warming centers, city spokesman Tim Swanson said.
Activists are also asking for the city to allow homeless people to sit or sleep outside City Hall, under the overhangs to keep them dry, during the day. Homeless are currently only allowed to sit or sleep on the ground outside City Hall at night, between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
The city plans to open 100-bed shelters in Meadowview and under the W/X freeway, but those are not set to open until April and May, respectively. Those shelters, for two years of operations and services, are set to cost between $10.6 million and $11.3 million.
The city could also open a “safe parking zone,” where homeless people could safely sleep in their cars at night and receive services, as early as next month in south Sacramento.
There are about 5,570 homeless people living in Sacramento County on any given night, a count in January found, an increase of about 19 percent from 2017. The real numbers are likely much higher, experts have said.
Last year, a record 132 homeless men and women died in the county, according to a report by the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, which is also calling for warming centers to open. That was up from 124 in 2017 and 71 in 2016.
