Nonprofit representing homeless could get involved in Sacramento DA’s case against city
A Bay Area nonprofit representing homeless people may get involved in Sacramento District Attorney Thien Ho’s lawsuit against the city of Sacramento.
The Berkeley-based Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund has asked Sacramento Superior Court Judge Jill H. Talley to allow it to participate in the case, as an intervenor, according to new court filings. Talley is set to consider the request Nov. 15.
The hearing will interrupt the six-month pause, called a “stay,” that the lawsuit was set to undergo until Feb. 1.
The organization is asking to join the case on behalf of four Sacramento homeless men and women with mental and physical disabilities. Sacramento police ordered them all to move their camps last year, causing them to lose important medical belongings, without offering shelter beds that worked for their disabilities, the filing alleged.
There are at least 2,900 homeless people with disabilities in Sacramento, according to the latest census count.
“(The District Attorney’s Office) cynically uses the Americans with Disabilities Act and Disabled Persons Act to allege (the city) must force unhoused people from sidewalks, while ignoring the fact that unhoused people are disproportionately people with disabilities who experience significant barriers to shelter and housing, and require reasonable accommodations to comply with anti-camping laws and orders,” an Oct. 22 filing from the organization stated.
The city, in a filing submitted Friday, asked the judge not to lift the stay.
“It cannot serve the interest of justice to allow the proposed intervenors to set a precedent of lifting the stay and attempting intervention when the pleadings are not even in issue as it would open the door to a possible flood of purportedly interested parties seeking intervention,” the city’s filing stated.
Ho originally filed the lawsuit in September 2023 alleging the city was causing a public nuisance by allowing homeless camps to exist on public property, and also violating a state law by allowing camps along creeks. Talley in May ruled the lawsuit could move forward, but it had to be scaled down to remove the public nuisance claim, due to the separation of powers between the government and the DA. Ho’s amended complaint again including the public nuisance claim, as well as the claim relating to creeks.
Creeks on city property, such as Morrison Creek, flow to the Sacramento and American rivers. But the county, which is in charge of large sections of the American River Parkway, where thousands of people camp on the riverbanks, is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Many homeless people who do want to go to a shelter are unable to do so. The city’s roughly 1,300 shelter beds are all typically full, with a waitlist topping 2,800.
City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood has accused Ho of suing the city because he plans to run for attorney general, possibly against Mayor Darrell Steinberg — an allegation Ho has denied.
On Dec. 10, a new mayor for the city will take office. Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, who is endorsed by Ho, has said the city should enforce the U.S. Supreme Court Grants Pass ruling, which allows cities to clear homeless people off public property even if a shelter bed isn’t available for them. His opponent, Flojaune Cofer, has called such so-called sweeps “harmful.”
The city’s protocol around encampment clearings has largely been determined by City Manager Howard Chan. If McCarty wins, he has said he would support keeping Chan in his post another year, while Cofer disagreed.
