Day after councilman resigns, Sacramento announces homeless shelter in his former district
The day after an embattled Sacramento City Council member resigned his post, the city has announced it’s opening a large homeless shelter in the North Sacramento district he used to represent.
The city will open trailers and tiny homes for up to 240 people at 3900 Roseville Road — a 7.5-acre site near the Interstate 80 overpass, it announced in a news release Friday.
The new permanent site, near the city-county line, will start accepting guests next week, the release stated. The site is city property that it had been leasing to the Air National Guard and Army Corps of Engineers until the lease expired in November.
Funding constraints mean that the site’s opening trigger the ciyt’s closure of Miller Park Safe Ground, which includes 60 tents and 17 trailers, the release stated. Guests will be moved to the new site.
The new site will not include tents, but instead include 40 trailers and 60 Pallet tiny homes, the release stated. Notably, the trailers and tiny homes will eventually have air conditioning and heating. There are permanent plumbed restrooms and showers on site.
The city is moving all the remaining trailers and tiny homes that have been sitting empty in a Natomas city lot since June 2021 to the new site, city spokesman Tim Swanson said.
Other buildings on the campus will provide space for behavioral health specialists, including some coordinated through the county.
It’s the first site City Manager Howard Chan has opened since the council in August gave him authority to open sites without council approval, in the hopes of speeding up the process by cutting down on neighborhood opposition.
Staff examined more than 900 vacant city-owned parcels since then, the release stated. It’s also found other sites that can be used if the city gets more funding.
“When we were evaluating city-owned parcels as potential shelter sites, this property checked all the boxes,” Chan said in the release. “It’s safe, secure and has existing infrastructure that can be utilized immediately as well as the potential for growth with additional funding and partners.”
Mayor Darrell Steinberg said in the release: “I’m grateful that our City Manager and his team have delivered much more than a safe camping ground. This new campus uses existing City resources to combine humane, dignified shelter with the services people need to exit homelessness. This site has the potential over time to help thousands of the people suffering on our streets and reduce the impact of encampments in our neighborhoods.”
The construction cost is still being determined, and the city will pay the service provider $3.2 million annually to operate the site, Swanson said.
Separately, tiny homes from Gov. Gavin Newsom are being placed at a site on Stockton Boulevard in the coming weeks, the release stated.
Sean Loloee Thursday announced his resignation from the council, amid criminal charges regarding his grocery store business and a U.S. Department of Justice determination he lives in Granite Bay, as The Sacramento Bee reported in June 2022. Steinberg will now represent the North Sacramento district until at least March, he said.
The Friday announcement about the homeless shelter comes just days before a council decision whether to grant Chan a significant raise. The council gave Chan the raise last month but decided to redo the vote following questions from The Bee regarding Brown Act violations. Now that Loloee is off the council, who had voted yes, the raise may be in jeopardy.
There are roughly 9,300 homeless people in Sacramento County. When the new site opens, the city and county will have about 2,650 shelter beds. As of Nov. 27, there were more than 2,400 people on the city shelter wait list.
This story was originally published January 5, 2024 at 11:17 AM.
