Sacramento County to open tiny home village for homeless. Could more sites be coming?
By a narrow vote, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday approved a 100-unit tiny home village on Florin Road in south Sacramento, marking a milestone for one of its largest-yet homeless shelters.
The 3-2 vote advanced a project the board delayed in April, when it postponed a decision on the site.
Supervisors Sue Frost and Don Nottoli voted against the project and raised concerns the location was too close to a church and daycare.
The county will place the 100 tiny homes for up to 125 individuals at a vacant lot for a former grocery store at the corner of Florin and Power Inn roads in south Sacramento.
Supervisor Patrick Kennedy, who represents the area, invoked his religion in urging his colleagues to approve the site.
“If we continue to put this off, we are going to pick up the newspaper this summer and we are going to see people dying on our streets, in a civilized country, from heat,” said Kennedy, who won re-election Tuesday. “We go to the winter, they’re gonna die from hypothermia. As a Catholic myself, I cannot just look at that and look the other way. We have to make sacrifices.”
An all-time-high nearly 200 homeless men, women and children died countywide last year. In the winter of 2020-2021, four homeless men died of hypothermia.
More than 30 people from Vietnamese Martyrs Church, a Catholic entity located adjacent to the site, expressed their opposition to the proposal during a five-hour public meeting. They worried the tiny home village will raise safety issues for the children who play at the playground. They argued that shelters tend to open opened in underserved neighborhoods instead of affluent ones.
“The trust has been broken,” said Thao Dinh, of the church. “There has been no community outreach. Not once have we been approached. How do we ensure that the children in this community are kept safe?”
Dozens of people gave public comments to raise concerns about the project, that it would decrease property values and raise crime in the community — a disadvantaged area with many residents of color. Many called it an “experiment.”
Following the initial meeting, Kennedy made several changes to the original proposal. Among them, nobody who is a registered sex offender or has been convicted of a violent felony will be allowed in the tiny homes, he said. The county will also pay for private security for the church on days of worship, form an advisory council, and circulate a 24/7 phone number for complaints.
The first of Sacramento County shelters?
The approval could be an indication the county will open more large homeless shelters — something city officials have been begging them to do for years.
The county currently provides funding for roughly 1,300 homeless shelter beds on any given night, said county spokeswoman Janna Haynes. That includes about 500 beds in the state’s Project Roomkey COVID-19 program, which the county plans to close in August.
“This would be our first,” said Bruce Wagstaff, deputy county executive, during the meeting. “Here we are. This is the point you’ve asked us to get to. We believe strongly we have a strong comprehensive plan for the opening of this site.”
Frost, who voted against the Florin Road project, said that she suspects there will be “many” more proposals for shelters before them in the future. County staff have flagged a handful of other properties for potential homeless sites for the board to consider.
The city started opening large shelters in 2018, and currently has roughly 1,100 beds.
Thousands homeless in Sacramento
City and county leaders are under mounting pressure to get people off the streets.
A recent estimate from Sacramento Steps Forward found 16,500 to 20,000 people likely experience homelessness throughout the course of the year in the county. The official number from the federally-mandated Point in Time count is due out in coming weeks.
“The Point in Time count is going to come out in a couple weeks and I don’t think any of us will be surprised to see very large numbers,” said Emily Halcon, the county’s director of homeless initiatives.
The lot is less than half a mile from the city. Steinberg sent a letter to the board Tuesday strongly urging supervisors to vote yes.
“Counties are the health and human services providers for the poor and the indigent,” the letter read. “Cities are not. Please say yes and serve the people that need help the most.”
The county will spend roughly $7.7 million to build and run the tiny home village for two years. It is scheduled to open in late November.
This story was originally published June 8, 2022 at 4:39 PM.
