Project Roomkey, state effort to house homeless in hotels, extended in Sacramento County

As the pandemic wears on, a statewide effort to house vulnerable people living on the streets in hotels has been extended in Sacramento County, bringing relief to the homeless and weariness to a business district where most of the buildings are located.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously agreed to direct $5.3 million to extend the program known as Project Roomkey until the end of November, relieving concerns that hundreds of people would be abruptly released onto the streets at the end of the month.

The program was created with state funding in response to COVID-19 as many feared the disease could disproportionately harm people living outside in crowded tent encampments. Since March 2020, more than 1,300 people have been sheltered at three hotels through Project Roomkey and COVID-19 transmission among the unhoused population has remained low, according to county data.

Designed to last only a few months, the hotel shelters were slated to close multiple times. But the idea faced pushback from homeless advocates this summer and as the number of positive cases surged again. The funding that kept them open was expected to run out if not for $142 million in state funding that was allocated to keep them open.

Business district complaints

Although the Roomkey program has sheltered hundreds of people during the pandemic, local business districts have complained that they are feeling the impacts of so-called crimes of homelessness like public urination and loitering.

Cash bail for many misdemeanors was suspended last year in an effort to limit overcrowding and the spread of COVID-19 in county jails. So infractions that might normally get a person briefly jailed or detained only result in a citation.

One of the Roomkey hotels was placed at a La Quinta Inn in the River District, an area known for having homeless services. The addition of the 168-bed motel increased the number of shelter beds to nearly 850 in the 1.25-square-mile business improvement district, said Jenna Abbott, the river district’s executive director.

“The river district has been a very good partner for the county during the last 16 months during Project Roomkey. We have weathered several extensions,” Abbott said Tuesday.

“(We) agree that sheltering our unsheltered neighbors is a very important piece but we’re really feeling the pinch. I hope you will take this opportunity to look at where these folks are being housed.”

Effort to find places for COVID-19 patients

Abbot estimated that the district, which sits at the northernmost point of downtown, has about 1,500 unsheltered people combined if you count those living on sidewalks and the American River Parkway. In a letter sent to the supervisors before the meeting, Abbott suggested using some of the hotel beds to house people already living in the district.

She also wanted to know the county’s exit strategy once the Roomkey program expires.

“That has meant that our unsheltered population remains outside while the rooms are filled with those from other areas who are easier to serve,” Abbott wrote in a letter.

“A troubling byproduct of this outcome is that our population of unsheltered has grown as the friends and family of those residing in La Quinta traveled to the River District and set up camps adjacent to and on the American River Parkway, along Bercut Drive and on CalTrans land close by the hotel.”

Ethan Dye, the interim director of the department of human assistance, said the drawdown plans are still a work in progress. He said it has been further complicated by the recent uptick in positive cases because the county has been using the hotel to place people released from hospitals.

“We’re seeing between 10 and 25 COVID-19-positive individuals in our emergency rooms and (we’re) trying to find places for them to go so we can move folks out of the emergency rooms,” Dye said. “We had been using all of our motel space to be able to do that so that’s a little bit of a pinch on our ramp down.”