Sacramento set to triple the size of its homeless outreach team as city revenue climbs
The size of a new city team tasked with responding to homeless encampments to offer services will likely soon triple.
In their proposals for midyear budget adjustments, both City Manager Howard Chan and Mayor Darrell Steinberg recommend using federal coronavirus relief funding from the American Rescue Plan Act funding to hire 17 new homeless outreach workers in the city’s Department of Community Response.
The proposals follow the $1.3 billion city budget the council adopted last summer for the fiscal year that ends June 30. That budget included money for midyear budget adjustment. Property tax, sales tax and hotel tax revenue also are coming in well above expectations, giving the city more resources for new spending, according to budget documents.
The council created the community response department after the George Floyd police shooting in Minneapolis in order to address some non-criminal calls for help without law enforcement officers. It started responding to 911 and 211 calls regarding homelessness in summer 2021. It also coordinates getting unhoused folks into the city hotels and Safe Grounds and shelters. The department currently has 10 employees.
“DCR is doing vital work, and we need to expand its capacity to reach unhoused people and connect them with services much faster than can be accomplished with its current, limited staff,” Steinberg wrote in a letter to the City Council Thursday.
Chan also proposes hiring two code enforcement employees under the department — an idea Steinberg does not include in his letter.
Homeless activists fear that would create more sweeps — not the type of compassionate outreach the department was created for, which could break trust.
“Code enforcement is another type of an enforcement agency,” said Crystal Sanchez, president of the Sacramento Homeless Union. “Code enforcement do not aid the unhoused. They do not resource them. DCR was created to take out law enforcement from the city of Sacramento. DCR was created to be this alternative yet we’re bringing enforcement into it. If they do enforcement, which includes taking of their possessions and property, people will not trust DCR to be a resourcing agency.”
In addition, Steinberg wants to allocate an extra $2.8 million to hire community-based organizations to do homeless outreach in every council district, starting with the most underserved areas, he wrote.
“Community-based organizations also play an important role in this mission because they are most familiar with the specific, differing needs of people experiencing homelessness in different parts of the city,” he wrote.
Aside from the community response department, Chan also proposed $250,000 for a citywide equity study; $200,000 for a program to stop charging towing fees for certain low-income people; $100,000 for the Sacramento Native American Health Center, and future funding for 15 new grant-funded police officers. Councilwomen Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang opposed the new officers at a previous council meeting.
Surplus disagreement
While Chan and Steinberg agree on adding staff for the community response department, they disagree about how much money to put in a surplus fund.
Chan proposed putting roughly $50 million in the fund. A city projection shows the budget could be in a deficit for the next five years, starting in the fiscal year that starts July 1, according to a city staff report. That’s partly due to projected revenue losses from the coronavirus pandemic, and also rising pension and labor agreement costs.
Steinberg proposes putting about $23 million in reserves, which would create a balanced budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, but not the out years.
If the council agrees, here’s what Steinberg proposes using the remaining $27 million for:
▪ $10 million for the affordable housing trust fund. The city launched the trust fund in January with the plan to sell $100 million in bonds backed by future Measure U sales tax revenue to spark the construction of thousands of affordable units. But then the pandemic hit and the city could no longer issue bonds. The fund has sparked construction of new units, but not nearly as many as originally announced. The city last year put $30 million into the fund, some of which has been spent on non-housing items. So far, money has been allocated to two affordable housing projects — $10 million for 200 units on Stockton Boulevard and $3.5 million for the 150-unit Wong Senior Center Apartments in the downtown Railyards.
▪ $1 million for new coordinated outreach system. When outreach workers meet an unhoused person on the street, there is no way to quickly check for available beds at all shelters, hotels, Safe Grounds and other programs across Sacramento. Sacramento Steps Forward, a nonprofit focused on homelessness, estimates it would cost about $3 million to create such a program, as well as to collect data, the letter said. Steinberg is asking the nonprofit and the county to provide the remaining $3 million.
▪ $2 million for the La Familia Counseling Center’s Opportunity Center. The funding would help the nonprofit open a new center in South Sacramento, where it would offer job training, small business resources and services.
▪ $1 million for the California Mobility Center. The funding would go toward the center to continue and expand its workforce development training for clean mobility and advanced manufacturing, the letter said.
▪ $200,000 for Winn Park/Latino Center of Art & Culture in midtown, set to open later this year.
▪ $5.5 million for increased youth services and programming.
▪ $2.5 million for Alder Grove/Marina Vista public housing improvements. The funding would go toward enhanced youth services and parks programming, as well as expanded broadband access. Last year, a 7-year-old unhoused girl was fatally shot at the complex, in addition to an adult resident.
▪ $500,000 for racial equity initiatives.
▪ $500,000 for a program to help immigrant families with legal assistance.
The council’s Budget and Audit Committee will discuss the proposals at its meeting at 3 p.m. Tuesday. It will be live streamed on the city’s website. The final midyear budget will need full council approval.
