Listening to activists, Sacramento mayor wants city to buy 500 tiny homes for homeless
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg wants the city to spend up to $5 million to purchase up to 500 tiny homes to house the homeless at small temporary “Safe Ground” encampments scattered across the city.
The move signifies a potential new partnership between homeless activists, who have been pushing for Safe Ground for years, and city officials, who in some cases have been reluctant to support those efforts.
“Safe Ground has been a rallying cry for a long time,” Steinberg said during a news conference Monday. “It is time to harness the power of community and to say ‘yes.’ Here is our opportunity.”
Attorney Mark Merin, who frequently sues the city on behalf of homeless people and has slammed the City Council during public comment at meetings, was an unusual guest for a city news conference. Steinberg introduced him as “a partner and sometimes respected adversary.”
“We’ve been working on Safe Ground for more than a decade now,” Merin said. “It has to be with the support of the city.”
Until recently, city officials, with the exception of Councilman Allen Warren, have not been hugely supportive of the Safe Ground model, where homeless live in sanctioned “tent cities” with security, bathrooms, showers and clean drinking water. They are self-governed, meaning the residents elect leaders who settle disputes and adopt rules.
Activists have touted Safe Ground as a fast, inexpensive way to make sure homeless have their basic needs met and do not have to worry about assaults and losing their belongings. Steinberg has previously said he would rather get people indoors and has been focusing on large 100-bed shelters with services, which cost about $10 million for two years.
But now, as officials are looking for an inexpensive way to house the hundreds of people who are currently staying in motels and trailers to protect them from the coronavirus, officials are jumping on board, though replacing tents with tiny homes.
The city is urging nonprofits, faith-based organizations and individuals to come forward with sites and ideas, Steinberg said. Once sites are approved and permitted, the city would provide the homes, as well as garbage pickup, clean drinking water, bathrooms and electricity.
What will happen to current site?
A group of homeless activists last month opened a Safe Ground near 12th and C streets near downtown Sacramento where about 15 homeless adults are currently living in red and gray tents. The privately-owned fenced site includes showers, bathrooms and access to clean drinking water.
When Merin announced the Safe Ground was open on June 10, City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood said he did not have a permit and threatened legal action. It seemed like it could be a repeat of a few years ago, when the city shut down a Safe Ground the same group had opened after just a few days. But since then, it appears that city officials have backed off, Merin said.
Councilman Steve Hansen said he has asked the city attorney not to shut the facility down until there is an alternative. Hansen said he has been searching for sites for tiny homes in his district, which includes midtown, downtown and Land Park, but has not yet found one. He’s calling on property owners to come forward with sites.
“We looked at about eight sites and we have found a difficult challenge,” Hansen said during the news conference. “The property owners that were the most amenable ... they were challenged to figure out how to do it because of fears of liability et cetera despite the city and community coming together to support it. So I think we do have a challenge.”
Hansen said he hopes to have a site in the coming weeks, when the 15 Pallet shelters the city ordered will arrive. Representatives from a Seattle company wowed city officials last year when they demonstrated how the shelters could be built in about 20 minutes without tools.
If Hansen finds a site for the Pallet homes, the current 15 people living at the current Safe Ground would likely move to the new site, Merin said. The group would likely then turn the Alkali Flat site into a Safe Ground-related events space, but it would not likely continue to be a place where people live, Merin said.
Where could new sites be located?
Officials did not announce definitive locations Monday, but Warren, Hansen and Councilman Eric Guerra said they have potential sites in their districts.
Warren proposed a vacant site at Edgewater Road and Lampasas Avenue, in the Noralto section of north Sacramento, as a potential site for tiny homes. It’s the same site he proposed earlier this year for Safe Ground, tiny homes, and permanent affordable housing for more than 700 homeless and low-income people. Warren also has another site in mind, but is not yet ready to announce it, he said.
Guerra said he has a potential location in his south Sacramento district for manufactured homes, which are larger than Pallet homes, and include bathrooms and washer/dryers in some models.
The council will likely vote to authorize the city manager to buy the tiny homes in early August, Steinberg said. The $5 million would come from state funds and possibly the coronavirus federal stimulus money, a news release said.
Despite the newfound partnership, it was clear the coalition of activists are going to continue to push the city to do more to help the homeless.
Bob Erlenbusch of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness said he wants a Safe Ground open in each council district. Sister Libby Fernandez of Mercy Peddlers said she wanted the city to place a staff person at each site. Merle Axelrod said she wants the city to place portable toilets around town. Earlier this year, when two women placed toilets near a homeless camp, the city allegedly removed them, prompting Merin to file a federal lawsuit against the city.
Steinbeg has been saying for two years that he wants to open hundreds of tiny homes in the city. Last year, he blasted the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency for not making progress on the request. The agency has since opened 24 cabins for homeless young people in north Sacramento, but it does not appear to be included in the new initiative.
“We have been trying to find a way, at least since I became mayor, to launch a tiny home movement in Sacramento,” Steinberg said Monday. “We have not made much progress, as of yet, on our effort to make tiny homes, of a variety of types, part of our homeless strategy.”
The tiny homes are especially needed amid the coronavirus pandemic, Steinberg said. So far, about 993 homeless people in Sacramento County have spent time in motel rooms or trailers under the state’s Project Roomkey program. As of Sunday night, 663 people were staying in the motels and trailers, a county spokeswoman said. But those units might not be available after September, creating a need to find housing for the people currently staying in them.
A January 2019 count found there are an estimated 5,570 homeless people in Sacramento County, the majority of whom are sleeping outdoors and in the city. About 30 percent of those sleeping outdoors were over age 50, making them more vulnerable to the coronavirus.
“I think we’re going to see something beautiful here,” said Joe Smith, advocacy director of Loaves and Fishes. “I think we are going to see the community as a whole rise up to an occasion and help a whole lot of people.”
This story was originally published July 13, 2020 at 10:41 AM.
