Homelessness comment angers Sacramento County supervisor during heated debate
The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors had a heated debate after Supervisor Rosario Rodriguez said the county’s response to homelessness is broken during their meeting Tuesday morning.
Rodriguez’s comments came after the board reviewed the county’s semi-annual report on homelessness which found there are about 3,000 people and 600 families on a waitlist for a shelter bed, said Emily Halcon, the director of the Department of Homeless Services and Housing for Sacramento County. The report collected data from the county’s eight single and family shelters in 2024.
Rodriguez said she believes the county does not have a strategic plan to prevent homelessness. As a result she said the county will “continue to see people fall into homelessness.”
“I believe by now it should be somewhat of a better, well oiled machine to be able to tackle the issues that we’re experiencing,” Rodriguez said. “I’m also not assured that we have the best practices in place for the shelters, and nor do I know how they’re performing and the outcomes that are happening with our shelters.”
There are currently more than 6,000 people experiencing homelessness in Sacramento County, according to the 2024 Point in Time Homelessness Count. Seventy seven percent live in the city of Sacramento while 14% reside in the unincorporated parts of the county, the report stated.
Rodriguez was met with strong opposition from the rest of the county’s board members. Chair Phil Serna said he “couldn’t disagree more” with Rodriguez’s statement that the system is broken. He attributed her comment to her “newness” to the board, saying present challenges are drastically different and the overall situation has gotten better. Rodriguez joined the board in January 2025.
“If you were here five years ago and looked at this challenge, this immense challenge that we have, undoubtedly the greatest hurdle that we have as policymakers and as a local government constrained with finite resources, that it’s very different today than it was then,” Serna said.
Supervisor Patrick Kennedy agreed with Serna, saying the fact the county has a Department of Homeless Services shows progress has been made. He added that to “come out with a hashtag ‘its broken’ was “kind of infuriating” to him, because the county has made great progress.
“The public’s done with data. The public wants to see that encampment not in front of their person, place of business anymore, to not see the garbage in their neighborhoods anymore.” Kennedy said. “So let’s not hang our hat too much on we need more data. We’ve got data.”
Rodriguez stood by her statements despite the board’s resistance. She clarified her comments were not in opposition to the county’s accomplishments, but that the current system is fragmented, referencing her experience serving on Folsom City Council. She said each area works in a silo and every jurisdiction is “attempting to figure out homelessness on their own,” resulting in overlap.
“I’m not as sure today that we have the best plan in place for the problem that we are facing...It’s been sort of the similar structure for about 14 years and the problem has gotten worse year after year,” Rodriguez said.
Current homeless response in Sacramento County
During the meeting, the Board of Supervisors reviewed multiple homeless related resolutions, including an update on its street medicine program and their Good Neighbor Policy. The board unanimously approved an updated Good Neighbor policy, which will now apply to all of the county’s shelter and housing programs. Previously, this policy only applied to the Grow Florin Behavioral Health Bridge Housing project, the resolution states. All county shelters and housing programs must now follow the same policy, which includes specific regulations regarding restrooms, graffiti removal and crime prevention.
The semi-annual report shared results of outreach efforts and services run from the county. Halcon said the longer someone is homeless, the harder it is to get them “out of that situation.” What would make “more impact” in securing permanent housing would be pushing “prevention up and more affordable housing at the back end,” she explained. However, she said the county isn’t doing enough to focus on “upstream measures” to prevent it.
“But we’re in such a crisis moment of people literally dying on the streets that we’re sort of faced with this challenge of: ‘how do you balance those things?’” Halcon said.
This story was originally published March 25, 2025 at 4:42 PM.
