Here are Sacramento city and county leaders’ plans for homelessness in 2023
At least 7,000 homeless people live outdoors without a shelter bed in Sacramento.City and county officials are unlikely to open nearly enough shelters and apartments to get a significant portion of them indoors in 2023.
But local leaders plan several significant changes to wrestle with the area’s most pressing issue.
The county this year plans to open two large shelters — a North Highlands warehouse to shelter 250 people in tiny homes, and two tiny home villages for 180 people in south Sacramento.
The sites will be the largest shelters the county has ever opened. The county could also open 200 new beds in the city, but only if the city provides a “shovel ready” site.
Beds and shelters
Some beds could also go away.
The county in spring plans to close its last two remaining Project Roomkey motels, which have been sheltering hundreds of homeless people through a state program since the coronavirus pandemic struck.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom in September signed a bill to open a shelter for hundreds of people at Cal Expo, potentially providing space for people living off the American River Parkway.
It’s unclear if that will happen, but the county during last week’s storms opened a homeless warming center at the fairgrounds for first time in at least a decade. The county has since closed the site, despite nighttime temperatures still dipping into the 30s, which is cold enough to cause hypothermia.
At the city level, no new large shelters are planned.
City leaders recently shifted their focus to affordable housing, funding over 800 new units, which could start to open in late 2023.
Towing and sweeps
The November election moved the council further left, which could lead to fewer sweeps and more shelters, even if it means cutting other parts of the city budget.
Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, the council’s most liberal member who now leads the council’s powerful Law and Legislation Committee, said earlier this month she wants to revisit the council’s controversial decision to keep towing vehicles used by homeless people.
At the time of the December 2021 vote, the decision was 6-3, with Valenzuela, Mai Vang and Mayor Darrell Steinberg voting to stop towing homeless vehicles.
The decision sparked outrage, with more than 200 people signing a letter in July urging the council to reverse the decision.
The city again caught heat when it towed at least five homeless vehicles on Jan. 6, the morning before a major rain and wind storm. It’s possible new council members Caity Maple, Karina Talamantes, and Lisa Kaplan could provide the extra two votes needed to halt towing.
Encampments and help
While enforcement on homeless vehicles and RVs in the capital city could get more lax, enforcement of tent encampments could get more strict.
City residents in November approved Measure O, which is now in effect. It allows the city to sweep camps of four or more unrelated people on public property even without offering a shelter bed.
City and county bans on camping along the Parkway and on tents that block the sidewalk are also in effect, but it does not appear those policies are leading to sweeps.
The ballot measure also caused city and county leaders to consider more seriously a long-awaited joint agreement on homelessness. In addition to the 200 new shelter beds, the agreement includes new multidisciplinary teams who are visiting 20 encampments per month.
The teams are able to diagnose people “on the spot” right at the camp, Steinberg said during a December press conference.
The workers are then able to drive people to facilities where psychiatrists can prescribe medications, including anti-psychotics, the same day. Even with private insurance, the wait for a first appointment with a psychiatrist in Sacramento is often three months. With MediCal, it often takes even longer.
On the state level, the California Department of Transportation has requested $5.8 million for the Office of Homelessness and Encampment, with plans to hire more employees.
This story was originally published January 20, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
