‘No remorse.’ Sacramento homeless group demands city manager be fired over storm response
A prominent homeless activist group is calling on the Sacramento City Council to fire City Manager Howard Chan following a Sacramento Bee story that revealed Chan declined to open a warming shelter for the homeless during last week’s storm, despite the requests of multiple City Council members.
“No regret. No remorse. No empathy. No way he should remain City Manager,” the nonprofit Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness wrote in an email to every City Council member on Monday. “You need to hold Howard Chan accountable for his lack of leadership. He failed our unhoused neighbors. He failed you and our community. He should have the decency to resign, and if he does not, you need to fire him immediately.”
Meanwhile, another group representing the homeless – the Sacramento Homeless Union – called Saturday for Mayor Darrell Steinberg to resign and demanded he apologize for the deaths of four homeless people last week. The cause of the death has not been determined for those who died during the storm.
At least two City Council members do not want to fire Chan.
“We work in a system that is not built to act quickly, unfortunately,” Councilman Jay Schenirer said. “I think we’re all responsible, we all bear responsibility, including myself. We should’ve acted quicker. We didn’t. I don’t know what conversations the city manager had with the other representatives of council or representatives of the county or anyone else for that matter. Overall, I trust Howard and I think we can get better at what we’re doing.”
Councilman Sean Loloee also said he did not want to fire Chan.
“I just don’t think the tragedy which took place can be blamed on one single individual,” Loloee said.
Chan told The Bee it was his call not to open an emergency warming center for the homeless as the worst storm in years battered the capital city on Tuesday. The night before the storm, as temperatures dipped into the 20s, city officials opened a warming center at the Tsakopoulos Library downtown.
Steinberg had asked if the warming center could open Tuesday, Chan said. In addition, at least three other council members — Katie Valenzuela, Mai Vang and Eric Guerra — had asked Chan if it could open. Councilwoman Angelique Ashby also asked Chan if a center anywhere in the city could open quickly, she said. Chan told them all no, citing county guidelines and public health orders, they each told The Bee.
Asked last week if he would make the decision to keep the center closed again, he said, “maybe.”
“If I had perfect vision, that way, 20/20 and knew that there was not going to be any (COVID-19) outbreaks, and that I was not going to put anybody in harm’s way, our guests or employees, the answer is, of course, I would have activated (the center),” Chan said in an interview. “But at the time, you have to work with the best information that you have.”
Chan called the death of a woman during the storm “tragic.”
The city’s decision to leave the warming center closed left homeless individuals exposed to violent winds and rain that destroyed encampments and injured many living without shelter. Homeless activist Audrey Sarber said dozens of homeless people were near the downtown library Tuesday night, and that many would have gone inside had the doors been open.
The warming center has room for about 60 people. The day after the worst of the storm hit, the city opened the warming center and a parking lot for homeless to safely sleep in their cars.
Steinberg targeted for recall
On Tuesday, as the storm rolled in and the wind started to howl loudly, the City Council members were in their homes for a virtual council meeting. As the wind howled loudly against the window of Steinberg’s home, he suddenly erupted.
“People are going to die tonight!” he exclaimed before ending the meeting around 10 p.m. “We can’t get a Goddamn warming center open more than one night because the county has rules? I’m sick of this!”
The county did not stop the city from opening a warming center, a county spokeswoman said.
The Sacramento Homeless Union — a large group of volunteers who dispatch across the city’s massive encampments to shelter and clothe the homeless on a daily basis — formally called for Steinberg’s resignation over the weekend. The group is giving the mayor until 2 p.m. Wednesday to resign. If he does not, they are threatening to launch a recall campaign.
The group is asking for Steinberg to publicly acknowledge and apologize for the deaths, said Crystal Sanchez, president of the Sacramento Homeless Union.
“He has the keys to the city,” Sanchez said. “There’s blood on his hands.”
Steinberg said in a written statement: “I’ve done more than any public official in Sacramento history to address the issue of people experiencing homelessness, but obviously we must do much more. I will continue my fight to get people indoors through whatever means necessary.”
Last year, at least 138 men, women and children died outdoors in Sacramento, not counting those who made it to the hospital first.
This story was originally published February 1, 2021 at 10:56 AM.
