‘Nuisance crimes’ by homeless anger Sacramento business owners. Why little has been done

Melinda Michael vividly remembers the scene.

As hurried drivers snaked into the parking lot of the Honey Baked Ham store on Fulton Avenue last November, she spotted a homeless camp that had formed only a few paces away next to the manicured hedges and a shady tree.

Bicycles, shopping carts, bedding and backpacks. And garbage — lots of garbage.

For several weeks, the spot near the busy intersection at Marconi Avenue seemed to be the only place most comfortable for them. But it was the worst spot for two nearby restaurants during a tough year for small businesses. And there was little they could do about it.

“It was a daily challenge because these folks would wake up and put all their stuff out in the parking lot. It was like a flea market,” said Michael, who is the executive director of the Fulton Avenue Improvement Association. “Our security patrol could only get them to move their stuff off private property onto the sidewalk or public property.”

Until recently, managers of property business improvement districts, or PBIDs, regularly turned to a Sacramento County program that targets people who repeatedly commit nuisance crimes like urinating in public or illegal camping. The low-level offenses normally do not carry any jail time and most people, when arrested, are swiftly released.

Before the pandemic, a county prosecutor could use the chronic nuisance offender program to nudge some of the most frequent violators into treatment. The diversion program is open to people with at least ten arrests, citations or warrants and requires a 90-day residency before completion.

A pretrial hearing is a linchpin holding the program together. But cash bail for many misdemeanors was suspended last year in an effort to limit overcrowding and the spread of COVID-19 in county jails.

“What’s been happening is any individual who is cited for a misdemeanor is cited and released. They don’t even go through booking, there’s no hearing or discussion about whether or not you can increase bail,” said Kim Pedersen, a spokeswoman for the Sacramento County Superior Court. “That program goes hand in hand with the discussion.”

Fed up with petty nuisance crimes, a half-dozen business districts sent a letter to presiding Judge Russell L. Hom on March 15 detailing the mounting crimes in their respective communities. Their appeal to him emphasized the need to bring back the program.

Even then, there was little he could do. Days later, the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of a San Francisco man and concluded that requiring bail without considering alternatives was unconstitutional.

The decision throws the Sacramento County program deeper into uncertainty. Pedersen said the court’s judges, prosecutors, and public defenders are evaluating the impact of the ruling on its practices.

‘There is nowhere for anybody to go’

Homeless advocates say the recent interest in creating safe spaces for the homeless to camp is a positive step but trying to police the issue doesn’t work. For example, the city of Sacramento recently created two “safe ground” communities where the homeless could camp without disruption at Miller Regional Park and under the W-X portion of the Capital City Freeway.

“If people had safe places to be and homes to live in there wouldn’t be homeless encampments. The reason there are massive encampments in Sacramento is that there is nowhere for anybody to go,” said Joe Smith, advocacy director for Loaves and Fishes, which runs a legal clinic to help clear the numerous citations homeless people often receive.

“I don’t think policing or the courts are the way to go. We certainly don’t need to keep homeless people in jail.”

Without any repercussions, business districts say the decision has left them defenseless against the various crimes of homelessness unfolding in retail centers and on the streets.

“It’s not that crime is out of control and things are ridiculous; it’s that we have an element we can’t do anything with and we have no options,” said Chris Evans, executive director of the Antelope Business Community District.

“The only option we have is to continue referring them to police hoping that eventually in Sacramento we will get back the chronic nuisance offender program.”

Hundreds of calls since last year

The commercial strip along Fulton Avenue, between Arden Way and Auburn Boulevard to the north, is covered by Michael’s association. Last January, a security company began tracking the location and number of calls for various incidents often involving the homeless.

There were 941 by the end of March 2021, according to data reviewed by The Sacramento Bee. Most of the incidents were for loitering or illegal camping spread out across the commercial district. But most of the activity was clustered around the Marconi and Fulton intersection.

Along the strip, many businesses have reported at least one incident, according to the data.

Some like the Les Schwab Tire Center have reported dozens.

The auto shop sits on top of an underground slough that catches water when it rains. Most days it’s empty except for the homeless people who for at least the last two years claimed the territory as their temporary shelter.

Then it started to fill recently with too many people and too much stuff, said Ryan Foster, who manages the Les Schwab location. So they called the county which sent a backhoe to pile all of it in a mound.

“The next morning when they came back to pick up the rest of the trash the homeless set it on fire,” Foster said, pointing toward a clandestine alley alongside one of the shop’s buildings. “There were flames all over these bushes.”

Michael said the episode is one of many wild and unpredictable events that take place. Further south, just a few yards outside the district’s boundaries, another messy tent encampment had formed on Cooper Way behind the Speedway gas station.

If they were in the district, Michael could get security guards to cite them as trespassers or the county’s homeless outreach team could shoo them away. But what happens then?

“Their things are taken and they’re left to their own devices. Many of them need help, services and they don’t get it,” Michael said. “The mess gets cleaned up, and the people spread out and they start anew. Then it’s just a new location, same problem.”

This story was originally published April 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.