Sacramento quietly ramped up criminal citations to homeless people. ‘I can’t afford to pay it’
On a good day, Theresa Rivera has, at most, $5 in her pocket.
The only income the homeless senior gets is from other homeless people who pay her to watch their belongings while they go to work or to doctor’s appointments.
“They know I’m not going anywhere,” Rivera, who uses a wheelchair, said with a shy laugh in mid-November.
Sometimes they don’t have cash, so they pay her with her favorite beverage — a liter of Sunkist strawberry lemonade.
Police have thrown away her belongings countless times in the decade she’s been on Sacramento’s streets, the most recent of which on Veteran’s Day. Taxpayer-funded workers took her phone, her social security card and state identification card. But before then, in March, police handed her a piece of paper she hadn’t seen before — a criminal misdemeanor citation for camping.
Without a bus pass, she was unable to make it to her court date, and now owes $333, according to court records. She fears the misdemeanor, viewable to perspective landlords, will make it even harder to find housing.
“What are the tickets helping?” Rivera, 45, said. “It’s not helping the city because I can’t afford to pay it. It’s not helping us because it’s affecting us getting housing. Instead of tickets, they should help us with housing.”
Sacramento police and sheriff’s deputies drastically increased the number of criminal citations issued for camping-related offenses starting in 2023, a Sacramento Bee analysis has found.
The uptick in these Sacramento police citations began in August 2023. Officials handed out 543 citations from August 2023 through December 2024, according to a Bee analysis of police data. By comparison, they handed out 30 citations for those same offenses during the prior 17 months
An increase in citations from the Sheriff’s Office began about five months prior to the city’s, in March 2023. Deputies issued 272 citations related to homelessness in 2022. In 2023, that number rose to 705. Through early October 2024, the sheriff’s department had issued 655 citations often related to homelessness, according to data acquired by The Bee through a California Public Records Act request.
Who decided to ramp up citations?
The City Council and county Board of Supervisors, elected by voters, make substantial policy decisions in the city and county, including relating to homelessness. However, city and county staff ramped up the citations without a vote from either body directing them to do so.
Spokespeople at both the city and county said that’s because the elected officials don’t actually have authority over law enforcement citations.
“The police chief reports to the city manager,” said Jennifer Singer, a city spokeswoman. “Mayor and council can adopt policies that impact how the city addresses homelessness but cannot direct the day-to-day operations of the department or the work of the police chief.”
When police ramped up the citations, Howard Chan was the city manager. After the council declined to extend his contract, Chan assumed an advisory role as an assistant city manager. Assistant City Manager Leyne Milstein now serves as interim city manager.
Mayor Kevin McCarty, who took the helm in December, said he wants to discuss the topic with the entire council.
“Considering that all of this happened before I became mayor, I am hopeful that over the next month I will get a better understanding of the policies in place,” McCarty said in a statement through spokesman Andrew Acosta. “I was clear during the campaign that I would be supportive of enforcement of our ordinances. I look forward to discussing this issue with the entire council.”
Acosta did not say when McCarty intends to put the item on an agenda, but said it was “high priority in the near future”
Crystal Sanchez of the Sacramento Homeless Union urged the council to pass a motion to stop police from issuing more camping-related citations, especially amid frequent rain.
“The (former) city manager went rogue when it came to implementing policy,” Sanchez said. “Citations do not end homelessness and create state-created dangers to the community as a whole.”
The Sacramento Police Department does not have data on how many people it offered housing or shelter before issuing them criminal citations.
“There would be a multitude of factors that could lead to an increase in citations for camping related violations,” a police spokesperson said in an email. “It would be difficult to narrow down specific reasons for violations this broad. Without being involved in every police/outreach encounter, I cannot say if everyone has been offered housing/shelter or not.”
Did DA’s lawsuit play a role?
The city’s uptick happened after Sacramento District Attorney Thien Ho started to publicly complain that the city wasn’t cracking down hard enough on homeless camps, ahead of suing the city. The case, filed on Sept. 19, 2023, is essentially paused after a judge deemed a significant portion of his argument unconstitutional.
The lawsuit alleged the city was creating a public nuisance by allowing homeless camps to exist on public property. The city argued that due to separation of powers between the government and the DA, that piece should be removed. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Jill Talley sided with the city.
“A governmental entity’s decision to enforce laws that are within its authority is a matter of prosecutorial discretion,” Talley wrote in a tentative ruling in May. “The principle of prosecutorial discretion is ‘rooted in the separation of powers and due process clauses of our Constitution.’”
Still, data suggests Ho’s actions could have caused the city to issue criminal misdemeanors to scores of homeless people.
Ho said since he sued the city, the city has made “great strides.”
“Our lawsuit against the City was initially dictated by the need to protect public safety and to find a compassionate path forward for those living on the streets,” Ho, who endorsed McCarty, said in a statement. “Since I sued the City, all 16 encampments identified in our lawsuit have been cleared, and the number of unhoused in Sacramento finally decreased for the first time in seven years. In the last year, the (former) City Manager (Howard Chan) and City Attorney (Susana Alcala Wood) have made great strides to enforce their ordinances in a compassionate manner while working to get our unhoused off the streets.”
The uptick occurred the same month the council voted to allow officers to be paid overtime to respond to homeless encampments.
However, during that August 2023 council meeting, there was no council direction to issue more citations. Citations nor tickets were part of the discussion. Right before calling the roll for the vote, then-Mayor Darrell Steinberg summed up Chan’s description of the item as: “This isn’t a change, except a more rapid response.”
The city’s announcement of the action also didn’t mention anything about citations.
County-issued tickets
On the county side, citation actions from deputies are up to Sheriff Jim Cooper, said county spokesperson Kim Nava.
In Rio Linda, sheriff’s deputies in March issued Carol Dutcher a criminal misdemeanor citation for violating a state trespassing law.
“The ticket has been a huge stress,” said Dutcher, 60, who missed her court date and may have a warrant out for her arrest. “I’ve never been cited for a misdemeanor in my life. It makes me fearful of law enforcement.”
Ron Green, who camps near Rivera, said he knows several homeless people who live on the American River Parkway who have received the citations. The parkway is typically the rangers’ jurisdiction.
“What are they trying to do? Fill up the prison system with all sorts of petty crimes?” said Green, 57. “I’m on the waiting list for housing and shelter. This is not the answer.”
Supervisor Patrick Kennedy said he would need to do more research to determine whether he has concerns with the increase in citations.
Meanwhile, Supervisor Rich Desmond expressed confidence in the actions.
“I don’t have any concerns and am confident the Sheriff’s enforcement efforts are accompanied by offers of services and connection to resources,” Desmond said.
Dutcher said deputies did not offer her shelter or housing at the time they cited her.
“They never talk about that,” Dutcher said. “It’s not in their purview I guess. The closest thing to offering services is once they handed out pamphlets that are designed for prisoners on release.”
Do citations jeopardize housing?
On the day police gave Rivera the ticket in March, she was in the process of packing her cart full of belongings — a several hours-long process as she moves slowly due to nerve damage and arthritis in her legs.
After getting the ticket, she has never heard again from her case worker who was trying to find her housing, she said. When she calls him, he doesn’t answer.
She’s not sure if that’s due to the ticket, but she fears it’s possible.
The California Apartment Association recommends landlords only use criminal history as part of tenant screening if they have developed a policy for doing so with an experienced fair housing attorney, said Mike Nemeth, association spokesman.
But landlords are legally allowed to factor in criminal history without taking that step.
Rivera’s citation is marked “failure to appear” but is currently active. It could be dismissed due to lack of prosecution, said Brandy Boyd, Sacramento Superior Court spokesperson.
Who’s getting cited?
About 60% of the recipients of the citations in 2024 were people of color, The Bee’s analysis found. They were as old as 73 and as young as 18.
Last winter, from Dec. 1, 2023 through Feb. 28, 2024, Sacramento Police issued about 30 citations for these offenses on days with measurable rain.
The rain and cold can also be deadly. A homeless father of four named Francisco Ramirez died of hypothermia in November 2022 — a night temperatures dipped into the 30s.
Getting swept in the rain, or right before rain, is especially dangerous, Rivera said.
When police swept her on Veteran’s Day, she lost thick blankets and her warmest best-fitting jacket, she said. Losing those things make the cold nights much worse.
“In the cold my legs it feels like Freddie Krueger is clawing at my legs,” Rivera said Nov. 18, her head poking out of her tent, just hours before a freeze warning took effect. “I get charlie horses so bad I cry like a baby.”
