Plan to build tiny homes for homeless in Sacramento County stalls after neighbors complain

One of Sacramento County’s largest efforts yet to tackle a growing homelessness crisis has stalled amid swift neighborhood pushback and concerns over a lack of communication.

County supervisors on Tuesday put off a vote on a proposed 100-unit tiny home community for homeless people at the corner of Florin and Power Inn roads, east of Highway 99.

The postponement could mean that a site for homeless services that was expected to open by late summer or early fall now – if approved in June – may not be ready until late November, according to county staff.

The project — announced by county officials earlier this month — would include both single and double-occupancy cabins, bathrooms and communal gathering spaces. Known as a “Safe Stay Community,” it would mark the first of its kind at this scale in the county, officials have said. County officials invited news media to check out the site, and some residents learned about it from those reports.

During a lengthy meeting Tuesday, supervisors were asked to sign off on plans for the project, which would sit on the site of a former grocery store at 8144 Florin Rd., and approve about $7.7 million in funding to build and then run the community for two years.

Instead, following nearly four hours of discussion, including two hours of public comment, supervisors voted 4-1 to revisit the project at their June 8 meeting, offering a chance for more community outreach.

Supervisor Patrick Kennedy, whose district encompasses the site, cast the lone dissenting vote. His motion to move forward with the project didn’t garner enough support.

“This is the greatest humanitarian crisis facing our community,” Kennedy said before the vote. “We hear all the time: How come the county’s not doing anything? And we know we are. We know we have programs and this is another step toward doing something that I think is vitally important.”

Supervisor Phil Serna, whose district would border the site, made a successful motion to postpone a vote. He blasted the county’s public outreach process and said he wasn’t briefed about the project until a day before the meeting. He, like many neighbors, found out about it through media reports, Serna said.

“I do think the project has some merit, but it’s obvious to me, glaringly obvious to me, that we did a piss-poor job getting the message to the community early,” he said.

Florin neighbors felt ‘ambushed’ by tiny homes

Serna also lamented a lack of socio-economic and demographic information in county staff’s presentation about the project. Because it was the first of its kind, with the hope of others like it to follow, Serna said it was important to have a thoughtful process.

“This is so important because it’s the first one we’re rolling out,” he said. “And if we do a shoddy job – with regards to not just communication with the community, but communication between staff and the board, between board members themselves – I don’t have a lot of optimism about it going forward.”

Kennedy pointed out that the county mailed information to neighbors within a 1,000-feet radius of the proposed site, covering twice the ground officials typically do. “As a result we did have a community meeting,” he added.

Nonetheless, many of the roughly 30 residents who attended the meeting said they felt “ambushed” and “strong-armed.” They said they liked the idea, but not the location.

“I am not against housing the homeless, I just feel that the efforts at the expense of Old Florin Town and trying to improve our area will be greatly diminished by this effort,” Cindy Russell, president of the Florin Historical Society, wrote in an email to Kennedy, Serna and Board Chairman Don Nottoli. “I am confident that there are other areas more viable to accommodate your need to resolve this issue.”

Sacramento County wants to move faster on homeless

A few, however, voiced support for the proposal. They said it was needed and called it “groundbreaking.”

“We have passed the point of it being acceptable for people to continue to live on the streets and must do something to provide housing even if it is a simple structure to bring some dignity to those struggling to survive unhoused,” Shawna Huson wrote in an email to Serna, urging approval of the project.

While acknowledging a “misstep” in communication, County CEO Ann Edwards also pointed to the pressure county officials have been feeling to move quicker when it comes to tackling the homelessness crisis.

“We’ve been told that many, many times: go faster,” she said, adding that it’s “very, very difficult” to find a site that’s acceptable to all stakeholders.

Supervisor Rich Desmond said the board was getting a sense of what their colleagues in the city of Sacramento have been going through “for a long time.” The status quo, he said, is “unsustainable for everybody” and, with a nod to Kennedy, he noted that it’s difficult to be first on an effort like this.

“It’s remarkable to me the comments from so many speakers that, ‘hey, we support this, we know we need to do more for the homeless, but not here.’ And then my question is: Where?” Desmond said. “I mean we are scouring the county for county-owned sites, viable privately-owned sites. It’s not as if they’re just falling from the heavens.”

This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 9:50 AM.