Sacramento has spent millions on homelessness. More families than ever are on the street
Like most families, Kristi Phillips and Anthony Slain have developed a routine. They are an engaged couple, have three kids and are raising them as best they can.
They have been homeless for more than five years, so they know the drill, as do many of the growing number of families without homes in Sacramento. They sometimes are able to afford a motel, and sometimes must sleep in their camper in a parking lot.
On a recent Sunday, Slain pulled their gold Toyota Sienna van — stuffed full of clothes, blankets and other necessities — into a parking space at South Natomas Community Park. Their three kids — Tyree, 11, Aryanna, 8, and Shyann, 7 — hopped out. They unlocked their bikes from a tree and pedaled around.
While they played, Slain made a home. For the next hour, he set up a camper in an adjacent space.
Phillips sat in the front seat of the van, keeping an eye on the kids and filling in a coloring book — an activity she says helps her de-stress. She works three jobs, stocking shelves at various stores and working as a cashier at Rite Aid. They live off her income and the unemployment checks Slain receives.
Scattered across the parking lot were families that had come to play on the jungle gym, as well as a handful of other unhoused men and women who planned to sleep there that night. Slain and Phillips knew nearly all by name.
“A lot of people look down on us,” Phillips, 47, said. “I’m trying to keep it together for my kids, but I’ve been depressed wondering what I’m gonna do.”
Sacramento’s homeless picture is drawn in so many ways, and families now make up a growing part of it. A U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report released this year said 1,148 homeless people in families with children live in Sacramento. The number ticked up from 1,132 a year earlier, reflecting the difficulties of housing established families here.
Some of the families had temporary shelter at the time of the survey. But 49% were sleeping outdoors or in vehicles. Only one other major city in the country, Long Beach, had a higher percentage of its homeless families sleeping outside.
Last year, Sacramento had the highest percentage of its homeless families sleeping outdoors. Since then, the city and county have expanded several programs for homeless families. Whether those programs will decrease the number of homeless families or keep up with the rate of families becoming newly homeless is unknown.
In increasing numbers, they are coming face-to-face with the cost of living here and across California. “I think it goes back to one of Sacramento’s greatest and growing problems, “ said Joe Smith, advocacy director at homeless services organization Loaves and Fishes, “which is that no one can afford to live here.”
Sacramento affordable housing shortage
Shannon Dominguez-Stevens is the director of Maryhouse, a daytime hospitality center for women and children at Loaves and Fishes. She oversees all aspects of the program — service delivery, inventory, volunteer management and guest issues.
During the last two or three years, she’s seen an increase in the number of families who come to Maryhouse, she said. They often want help obtaining shelter or a motel voucher from the city or county. Oftentimes, Maryhouse staff is unsuccessful in finding a way to get them indoors.
“We see families with small children who will look at an intake worker and say, ‘Will you find me somewhere to sleep tonight?’” Dominguez-Stevens said. “We have gotten really good at delivering the hard-to-hear news.”
Phillips’ family has been on the waiting list for a Housing Choice Voucher, formerly called Section 8, for 11 years.
Ashley Patterson, 30, has a Housing Choice Voucher, but she’s still homeless. She and her four children have been staying in motels since August — much longer than she planned.
“I didn’t really think it was like this for housing,” Patterson said. “Everywhere I call, they tell me there’s nothing available.”
Recently, she sat on the bed of her north Sacramento hotel nursing her infant, Angel, while her other three children ran in and out of the room. Cartoons played on TV. During the day, Ashley takes her children to a park near the hotel, or to Raging Waters water park. At night, the family shares one queen bed and one pull-out bed.
“I don’t want to stay in a hotel room forever,” Patterson said. “It can be frustrating and overwhelming because we’re all in one room.”
The family has the hotel room through the end of June, paid for with a voucher. Patterson does not know where they will go after that. She’s on the waiting list for a county family emergency shelter, but so are hundreds of other families.
Housing waiting lists are a common experience for Sacramento’s homeless families. Loaves and Fishes guests were on waiting lists for housing for an average of 16 and a half months; one person has been waiting for 14 years, according to a survey the nonprofit published in March.
Average apartment rents in the Sacramento region jumped 14% in May compared to last year. The average rent of $1,760 is higher than in Washington, D.C., New York and Seattle.
Casey Knittel, director of the Loaves and Fishes Mustard Seed School for homeless children, said that during the last school year, dozens of Mustard Seed families found permanent housing. This school year, only one or two did.
“Nobody is finding housing this school year,” Knittel said. “A lot of families just gave up and bought camping trailers.”
Homeless living in vehicles
Slain and Phillips try to get vouchers from the county and Natomas Unified School District to stay in motels for free. When they can’t get one, they pay out of their own pocket, often $80 a night. When they can no longer afford that, they sleep in the camper in the park.
After staying in a motel for several weeks, Slain and Phillips’ children started calling the motel “home.” For their parents, it’s a frequent and devastating reminder that they don’t have a house.
“When she says ‘home,’ it just breaks me every time,” Slain said of his daughter, Shyann.
Phillips added: “Every time we have to leave (a motel), it hurts a lot.”
In the camper, restful nights are hard to come by for the couple. They often sleep in shifts, with one keeping watch. They worry the police will tell them to pack up and leave the parking lot.
Many families in Sacramento know this feeling well. More than 100 families with children sleep in motor homes along one north Sacramento road, said Crystal Sanchez, president of the Sacramento Homeless Union. She recalled meeting a family with six children and two parents packed into an RV, struggling to participate in remote schooling with nowhere to charge their devices.
“Often during outreach, the saddest thing that we come across is multiple families living in vehicles that barely run,” Sanchez said. “There is nowhere to stay cool, nowhere to call home and nowhere to do homework.”
The number of Loaves and Fishes guests who sleep in cars has increased from five years ago, according to the organization’s survey. In 2015, 3% of those surveyed said they slept in vehicles. In 2020, 9.4% slept in vehicles.
The city of Sacramento recently opened two Safe Ground lots, giving people and families who sleep in their cars and RVs a safe place to stay. The 130 to 160 spots, under the W-X freeway and at Miller Park in City Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela’s district, are usually all taken. There are also spaces for tent campers. Other City Council members have suggested opening similar lots in their districts as part of Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s homeless “master plan,” but none has come to fruition yet.
“These new Safe Ground sites will be a key part of our new master plan for homelessness, which will offer a variety of housing solutions and services across the city to get at least 3,500 people off the street at a time,” Steinberg said in a blog post.
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What has been done?
In December, the city created vouchers for men, women and children to stay for free in 350 motel rooms. When the pandemic hit, the county also opened three hotels to shelter the homeless, and the city opened trailers at Cal Expo, both under the state’s Project Roomkey program.
So far, 1,338 people have spent time in the Roomkey motels, which do not allow children, said county spokeswoman Janna Haynes. In addition, 469 people, mostly families with children, spent time in the trailers. The trailers are now closed, and guests have been moved to other housing options, city spokesman Tim Swanson said.
On the housing side, under the state’s Project Homekey program, the city and Sacramento Housing Redevelopment Agency are redeveloping a hotel in south Sacramento’s Parkway neighborhood into housing for 100 homeless people, including families.
Using revenue from the Measure U sales tax increase, the city has set up a housing trust fund to spark construction of hundreds of new units of affordable housing. The first investment will be a $10 million loan to Mercy Housing to create 225 units on Stockton Boulevard near 21st Avenue.
The county’s CalWORKS Flexible Housing Program provides housing services, rental subsidies and case management for homeless men, women and families. The $9.8 million program has capacity for 850 households, including 250 to house the Project Roomkey guests.
On Tuesday, the City Council approved more than $2 million to nonprofits City of Refuge and Saint John’s Program for Real Change, to provide shelter, housing, and services to women and children.
The cycle and search for answers continue
Activists fear the number of families who do find housing will be outpaced by more families becoming newly homeless. About 600 households have been evicted since the start of the pandemic in Sacramento, despite a state law intended to keep people housed.
When the state eviction moratorium expires at the end of September, even more people could become homeless, said Bob Erlenbusch, of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness. He worries that could again make Sacramento number one in the country when it comes to the percentage of its homeless families sleeping outdoors.
“For people who have been hanging on, when the eviction moratorium goes away, it’s going to be terrible,” Erlenbusch said. “That will make us sadly go to number one, and we don’t want that distinction.”
Slain and Phillips have been house hunting. But their credit scores are in the 500s — too low for most property managers, Phillips said.
They’re going to keep looking, though.
“I try to keep improving,” Slain said. “Keep moving forward to a better place, and eventually we’ll get there.”
Visual journalist Renée C. Byer contributed to this story.
This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
