What is Camp Resolution, the Sacramento homeless camp the city plans to shut down Monday?
The city of Sacramento plans to Monday close a tight-knit homeless camp called Camp Resolution. Here’s what to know.
What is Camp Resolution?
Camp Resolution is located at a vacant city-owned lot at the corner of Colfax Street and Arden Way. There, 48 homeless people, many of whom seniors with disabilities, live in city-issued trailers.
How did Camp Resolution open?
Dozens of homeless people in 2020 started camping on the property in tents. Many of them had been camping along the American River, where sexual assaults are common and downed trees have killed several people.
The city in 2021 included the lot in a list of sites where it planned to open shelters, cleared the camp off the lot, then spent $617,000 to pave and fence it. After doing that, in 2022, the city dropped plans for a shelter there. So a handful of homeless women broke in to the gate and started camping there again.
Instead of clearing them off the property, as the city had in the past, the city got on board. In 2022 it signed a lease with civil rights attorney Mark Merin’s nonprofit Safe Ground Sacramento, to allow the camp to stay. The city also delivered trailers, which had long sat vacant, for people to live in.
How is Camp Resolution different?
The city pays the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency $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, an audit found. That’s not counting the millions it cost to erect the semi-permanent tent-like structures.
Camp Resolution, which does not have a contracted operator, does not cost the city anything to run.
The residents rely on community members and organizations for food, clothing and supplies. The camp is self-governing with the homeless residents making their own rules and key decisions.
Although they are not in permanent housing, they are in an environment that’s safer than the streets while they wait for housing. They have doors and gates that lock, bathrooms, water, and a sense of community. The camp had a waiting list of over 800 people, and mostly admitted people with chronic physical disabilities. Although those people collect disability and Social Security checks, they have said those payments are too little to afford market rate rent in Sacramento, where a studio often costs more than $1,500 a month.
There are thousands of people on the waitlist for affordable permanent housing in Sacramento. Some report waiting years for a spot.
Why is the camp closing?
Due to vapor contamination, a state agency allowed people to live in the site in trailers, but not in tents on the ground. The type of contamination that’s present is not harmful to people in vehicles because they’re raised off the ground, the California State Water Resources Control Board has said. In an April letter, the city said there were people sleeping in tents and that the camp would close in May.
The city then backed off on that plan after residents begged the City Council for more time, and people stopped camping on the dirt.
On May 15, the homeless union sued the city, seeking a judge order barring the city from closing the camp until all residents are in permanent housing. The judge has so far ruled in the city’s favor on that case, but it is still active.
Meanwhile, in July, Merin, the lease holder, sent a notice to the city of plans for lease termination, which is effective Monday.
Merin has said that although the lease is ending, it is up to the city whether to clear the residents off the site.
The lease states, “upon the expiration or termination of this lease, lessee shall peaceably vacate the premises and deliver the premises, vacant of all guests to city.”
However since it’s a city property and city trailers, the city could have let the camp stay.
The council discussed the case behind closed doors Tuesday, but the high-profile decision to close the camp did not get a vote or discussion in an open session of a City Council meeting. Neither City Manager Howard Chan nor Mayor Darrell Steinberg were present at Tuesday’s open meeting, where several Camp Resolution residents spoke.
Where will people go?
The city’s Department of Community Response is tasked with getting homeless people across the city into shelters and on permanent housing waitlists.
The camp’s leaders, in discussions with the Sacramento Homeless Union, decided to stop allowing DCR employees through the camp’s gates.
DCR was offering people beds in the city shelters, but not real-time permanent housing, which often takes months or years to get, said Crystal Sanchez of the Sacramento Homeless Union. In June, Sanchez got credentials to start getting people on the housing waitlists herself. She has not yet been able to submit all their required documents.
In lieu of housing, with the camp closing, the city has offered shelter beds to all 48 residents at the city shelters located on Roseville Road and Auburn Boulevard. But residents are raising concerns with those options.
Both shelters only usually allow guests to have dog, meaning Camp Resolution guests would have to part with their pets. In addition, the Roseville Road trailers and tiny homes do not have electricity or generators, creating issues for Camp Resolution residents on medical devices including oxygen machines.
“They need permanent housing,” Anthony Prince, homeless union attorney, said during a news conference Wednesday. “They aren’t going to go into these homeless internment camps.”
The lease stated the city should not close the camp until all residents are permanently housed, but the lease is now terminated. Prince argued in court that certain terms of the lease still apply.
Will Sacramento ever get another Safe Ground?
The camp’s messy and public demise could mean the city won’t try to open a Safe Ground again.
But with the city facing a projected $77 million deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1, and state and federal funding not drastically increasing, it may be the only model the city can afford.
There is another Safe Ground in the city, which makes far fewer headlines, at 12th and C streets, which has been open since 2020.
Sacramento Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela said she wants the city to open more Safe Grounds.
A year ago, the council gave Chan authority to open Safe Grounds all over the city, without needing a council vote for each location. In January he announced the opening of the Roseville Road site, which can fit over 200 people. He has not yet announced additional sites. There are about 2,600 individuals and over 840 families on the wait list for one of the city’s roughly 1,300 shelter beds, according to city data.
This story was originally published August 22, 2024 at 3:29 PM.
