Sacramento police still clearing homeless — CDC coronavirus guidelines discourage it
Sacramento police last week continued to direct homeless campers downtown to relocate amid the coronavirus pandemic, despite warnings from federal health officials that moving such camps could accelerate the spread of the virus.
The disruptions in front of a mostly-shuttered City Hall and other parts of the city could prevent homeless who are showing symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 from getting tested and getting isolated shelter beds in order to prevent a spread among Sacramento’s vulnerable population, homeless activists say.
“If outreach workers or health workers find people who are symptomatic, moving them around makes it much more difficult to find them,” said Bob Erlenbusch of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness. “There’s absolutely no reason to move people around and remove the people seeking shelter from the (City Hall) overhang.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on March 22 released guidelines including the following directive: “Unless individual housing units are available, do not clear encampments during community spread of COVID-19. Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers. This increases the potential for infectious disease spread.”
The CDC guidelines do not define an “encampment,” so it’s unclear whether City Hall’s nightly campers would be included in that definition.
Still, changes might be made in the future regarding City Hall, said Tim Swanson, a spokesman for the City Manager’s office.
“The City of Sacramento last year passed an ordinance that allows for people to sleep outside of City Hall at night but keeps the building safe and accessible for employees and anyone who needs to use the facility during the day,” Swanson said in an email. “In light of the COVID-19 outbreak and the (CDC’s) recent guidance regarding unsheltered people experiencing homelessness, the City is currently examining the rules of usage for the building to determine if they need to be modified.”
‘It’s time to get up’
The city used to allow homeless to sleep outside City Hall during the day but not at night, but then voted to switch it in February 2019 after police were caught on video removing homeless from under the overhang during a nighttime rainstorm. It was also partly changed so the homeless would be gone by the time employees arrived. But only about 100 employees are physically reporting to City Hall these days, Swanson said. Most are telecommuniting under the state’s stay-at-home order.
At 6 a.m. Friday, homeless who had spent the night in front of City Hall began packing up their tents and sleeping bags, and heading on their way. Just before 7 a.m., as a handful of employees trickled in, two officers on bicycles rolled up to the roughly 20 people who were still scattered around the plaza, telling them to leave. Bagpipe music played briefly over the speakers. One male officer tapped his foot on the feet of man in the sleeping bag.
“It’s time to get up,” he said.
After police came to City Hall Friday, Robin Williams, 57, packed up her tent and sleeping bag into a rolling suitcase and headed to Cesar E. Chavez Plaza, her two chihuahuas trailing behind.
She’s been sleeping outside City Hall for more than a year, finding more safety there than more secluded options like the riverfront. After the police come, she makes her way to Cesar Chavez park and then to church for the 8 a.m. service, then sometimes to the library. But if she did not have to move in the morning, it would be easier for service providers, who are searching for permanent housing, to find her, she said.
Moving homeless poses obstacles to services
“I’ve got a navigator over here, a navigator over there,” Williams said, referring to the employees of nonprofit Sacramento Steps Forward who keep track of where their homeless “clients” are staying and connect them with permanent housing and other services.
In the wake of the pandemic, services are expanding. On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said state officials had secured nearly 7,000 hotel rooms to house homeless individuals.
The effort, known as Project Roomkey, has already housed about 870 people in a race to slow potential spread among some of the state’s more than 150,000 homeless residents — many of whom are older and more vulernable to illness.
At least one homeless individual has died from COVID-19 in California, and more than a dozen have been infected, Newsom said. There are so far no known positive cases of the virus in Sacramento County’s homeless population, county spokeswoman Janna Haynes said.
Sacramento County, the city of Sacramento and local homeless services agencies — which got about $4.3 million in state funding combined — have identified 221 hotel rooms for the homeless, but do not plan to move people in until mid-April.
Because many homeless do not have cellphones or are unable to keep them charged, navigators rely on knowing where their clients are staying in order to find them.
“Technically, we are supposed to be allowed to stay here safely self-quarantining,” said Anthony Munoz on Thursday morning as officers woke up homeless men and women sleeping near his tent. “There’s a national emergency declared by the president. CDC is giving orders out to the police forces around the country and these guys aren’t adhering to it.”
Last month, more than a dozen organizations — including SRCEH, Loaves and Fishes, Sacramento Homeless Union and Sacramento Area Congregations Together — formed a coalition called Sacramento Services Not Sweeps, modeled after a similar effort in Los Angeles. They have been trying to convince local law enforcement agencies to stop clearing encampments, at City Hall and elsewhere, during the pandemic.
“By continuing to conduct sweeps of any scale, the city is directly endangering the lives of thousands of Sacramento residents, housed and unhoused alike,” California Homeless Union attorney Anthony Prince wrote in a letter to Sacramento officials Monday.
Sweeps elsewhere in Sacramento
On Monday, police posted a big green sign at Ahern and North B streets in the River District informing homeless campers they had 24 hours to move themselves and their property off the sidewalk. Tuesday, police showed up to conduct a so-called sweep in the area, throwing away any belongings that had not yet been moved.
The department is following the CDC guidelines, said police spokeswoman Sgt. Sabrina Briggs, but officers continue to respond to complaints about encampments to determine if they pose a “significant public safety hazard.”
“In this specific situation related to Ahern Street, the Sacramento Police Department was following up on ongoing complaints of individuals blocking the sidewalks, which prevented ingress and egress to essential services in the area,” Briggs wrote in an email. “These services include the Sacramento Fire Department, an RT bus stop, and women’s housing.
“In some instances, the blocking of sidewalks forces people to have to walk in the roadway, causing a significant public safety hazard.”
Those sidewalks are usually packed with tents and are rarely used by pedestrians, Erlenbusch pointed out. He said it’s hard to imagine how a couple people wouldn’t move out of the way for a fire or RT vehicle along the relatively wide street.
“I would give homeless people the credit that if there was a fire and firefighters needed to access the street, they would move,” Erlenbusch said.
This story was originally published April 4, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
