Sacramento to clear highly-visible homeless encampment Monday as part of property’s sale
Under the potential threat of legal action by Sacramento County, the city of Sacramento plans to sell a property where a highly-visible homeless encampment has been for over a year.
The decision will mean the camp, at the corner of Fair Oaks Boulevard and Howe Avenue, will need to be vacated starting Monday, the city announced Thursday on its website. It’s unclear if the new owner will allow the roughly 30 tight-knit unhoused folks who live at the property, known as “the hill,” to go back.
City spokesman Tim Swanson did not immediately return an email seeking the name of the group buying the property and what they plan to use it for. The lease agreement did not go to City Council for approval.
The encampment popped up in 2021 when a handful of unhoused people came off the American River’s banks to the lot amid strip malls and apartment complexes, nestled between busy roadways, seeking visibility and safety. Complaints started to pour in to the city and the county. While the property is near the border, it is within the city limits, meaning it’s the city’s decision whether to clear it.
City officials decided against that, viewing a 2018 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, known as Martin vs. Boise, as limiting their ability to clear homeless camps. The ruling prohibits cities and counties from citing people for camping on public property unless a shelter bed is available. All shelters in Sacramento are full on any given night.
Then in January, Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies handed out surveys to businesses and apartment complexes in the area, asking respondents to write down any activity they have seen that is “illegal or a nuisance.” One question on the survey, obtained by The Sacramento Bee, read: “Are you willing to sign a written declaration prepared by the District Attorney’s Office to be filed with the Superior Court?”
As of Thursday, no lawsuit has been filed.
The city announced in a blog post to a city website Thursday that it has entered into a lease agreement with a “local group that expressed interest in this property.” The city plans to transfer the property to the group by mid-April, the post said.
“The lease agreement is conditioned on repairing damage to the city’s water, irrigation and sewer systems and fencing the property,” Assistant City Manager Chris Conlin said in the blog post. “Because this work will involve heavy equipment, our Public Works Department will need to designate the property as a work zone and require the property to be vacated for safety reasons. This repair work is set to begin on April 11.”
Many remain without housing
Employees from the city’s Department of Community Response visited the camp more than 60 times to offer services, the blog post said.
On Thursday evening, there still appeared to be roughly 50 tents on the property. Three people living on the small parcel told The Sacramento Bee they have not yet been given shelter or housing.
“They said they’d connect me with someone who’d be able to give us housing, but he never called” said Robert Daul, 60, who lost his job at a Roseville water park when the coronavirus pandemic struck.
Outreach workers told Gwen Mayse, 61, they were working to get her into a house in south Sacramento. Although nervous about roommates, she said she would go.
Mayse said the encampment is safer for women than being on the street alone.
“They look out for me,” Mayse said.
Echo Osgood, 39, who was raped before she got to the camp, agreed the camp is safer than being alone. She has not yet been offered shelter or housing, she said. She had not yet heard they’d have to leave.
“They didn’t tell us that,” Osgood said. “They said they’d be installing a fence, but not that we’d have to leave. I knew selling it would be a loophole. It’s just to get outta the lawsuit.”
She dreads going back to the sidewalk, where she often has to move.
“I will not be able to have the comfort of sleeping in one spot and be located for housing,” she said.
Some at the camp did get housed. City and county employees on March 29 placed Joy Gonzalez, the unofficial spokeswoman of the camp, and her dog into housing, she told The Bee. It’s a shared house with roommates in Fair Oaks, run by the nonprofit organization Sacramento Self Help Housing.
So far it’s been a good experience, she said, but she worries about what will happen to her friends.
“That was one way to pass the buck wasn’t it?” she said of the city’s decision to sell the parcel.
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
