Sacramento spent $57 million on trying to fix the homeless crisis. Here’s how it was spent
The city of Sacramento spent roughly $57 million addressing the homeless crisis last fiscal year, a new report from the city auditor’s office found.
The figure had not previously been released and was five times lower in 2015, the report found. It also included about $34 million in contracts to operate the city’s roughly 1,300 shelter beds.
Of the $57 million the Department of Community (Homeless) Response spent $32 million, the city manager’s office spent $7.8 million, the police department spent $4.5 million, the fire department spent $4 million, and the city attorney’s office spent $2.3 million.
The finding that the police department spent $4.5 million in officer time responding to homelessness could renew council interest in shifting nonviolent 911 homeless calls away from police. That was the plan when the city in 2020 created the Department of Community Response, but the department was never dispatched to 911 calls, only 311 calls. The city also pays a private security company $2.2 million a year to guard the shelters.
“Our city departments across the board are spending a lot of time addressing homelessness — time that should be spent delivering critical city services,” said Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, who represents the central city. “Standing up a real time response for calls that do not involve crimes will help us use our city resources more effectively, while also ensuring we are more responsive to community members who are concerned about folks experiencing homelessness or mental illness. It’s a best practice in so many other communities. I’m sure Sacramento can build on the lessons learned from those efforts to create something great.”
The city needs more shelter beds, the report pointed out.
“Despite efforts to supplement the shelter stock, the emergency shelters that serve adults are consistently near capacity, leaving the city without the ability to credibly offer (the homeless) immediate placement in a shelter in most cases,” the report stated.
The city has 1,300 shelter beds, but there are roughly 5,000 homeless people living in Sacramento without shelter, a 2022 count found. Over 4,000 people are on the waiting list for a city shelter bed, according to city data.
The most expensive of the shelter contracts include those with the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, the report found. The city pays SHRA $3.2 a year to operate 24 sleeping cabins for young people in North Sacramento; $4.6 million a year to operate the 100-bed shelter on X Street and $3.5 million a year to operate the 100-bed shelter in Meadowview.
Shelter beds can be operated for much less. Camp Resolution, a North Sacramento Safe Ground without a contracted operator, costs $11 a day per person.
But creating more beds, even the more inexpensive ones, will be difficult amid the looming budget deficit which is now projected at $66 million, a separate staff report released Thursday showed.
Aside from shelters, the city pays private company Forensiclean to clean trash and decontaminate former street homeless encampments about $4.7 million a year.
The council has until the end of June to approve a balanced budget, including a way to address the deficit.
The council’s Budget and Audit Committee will discuss the report at its meeting at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
This story was originally published February 24, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
CORRECTION: The city of Sacramento spent about $57 million on addressing the homeless crisis last fiscal year, with about $34 million of that total spent in contracts. This information was provided in a report from the city auditor. An earlier version of the headline and the story provided an incorrect figure for the total the city had spent, as well as an incorrect figure for the amount spent on shelter contracts. Also the earlier version incorrectly listed the type of document in which the figures were provided.
