How bad is Sacramento’s homeless crisis? A key measure likely won’t happen in 2021
A federally-mandated count to determine whether the Sacramento homeless crisis has grown, and by how much, will likely not happen this year.
Due to concerns that the count cannot be conducted safely during the coronavirus pandemic, officials from the Sacramento Steps Forward homeless nonprofit are asking permission from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to allow it to skip the 2021 count.
The survey, known as the Point in Time count, occurs every other winter, and was set to take place in January 2021. At least 16 other California localities, including Los Angeles, are seeking permission to cancel their 2021 counts, according to Sacramento Steps Forward. HUD is expected to approve the request.
The cancellation will make it difficult to determine whether the Sacramento homeless crisis is really worsening, or if it’s just more visible amid the pandemic.
Skipping the count will probably not impact Sacramento’s ability to receive state funding for homelessness, said Russ Heimerich, spokesman for the California Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency. The city and county of Sacramento received state funding based on the 2019 counts, but it was one-time funding. As of now, there is no state funding that would be based on a future count, Heimerich said.
“Any new funding, and the appropriate allocation, would likely be determined by the legislature, and they would likely take into account the reasons that PIT counts will either look very different or not happen this year,” Heimerich said in an email.
In January 2019, volunteers counted 5,570 homeless people in Sacramento County, most of whom sleeping outdoors and in the city. The report estimated that a total of 10,000 to 11,000 county residents would experience homelessness at some point in 2019.
Before heading out in small groups of about six people, volunteers gathered indoors to meet their team leaders and review their route, where they would count people sleeping in tents, cars and RVs. For homeless people who agreed, a volunteer conducted a survey on an iPad that took about 20 minutes per person. All that data was compiled into a report that showed some sobering statistics about Sacramento’s homeless.
If HUD approves the request, the count would not be required again until 2023, but Sacramento Steps Forward is studying the feasibility to do a count in 2022.
In the meantime, there will be some additional homeless data available to the public. In October, Sacramento Steps Forward released a new database, which includes some basic data about people experiencing homelessness in the county, though not with as much detail as the PIT report.
According to the data, about 5,123 people were experiencing homelessness on June 30, whether sleeping outdoors or in a shelter. That’s slightly less than the 5,570 figure from the 2019 count, but there might be some homeless people who are not included in the database because they have not been helped by an organization that feeds it.
The public database has not been updated since the June 30 data was posted in October, but will be updated before the end of the year, said Hannah Beausang, Sacramento Steps Forward spokeswoman. That update will also include more detailed information, such as the number of people who found housing after staying in a specific shelter, Beausang said.
The state is also planning to launch a statewide homeless database by the spring.
Since March, the state has been focusing its homeless funding on coronavirus-related efforts. Sacramento has received state funding to turn four hotels into homeless shelters, three of which were currently open and sheltering 439 people as of last week. The state also granted the city funding to convert one south Sacramento hotel into permanent housing for the homeless, and for medical isolation trailers at Cal Expo.
