Bill would change Sacramento region’s homeless approach. Will county support it?

California state Sen. Angelique Ashby announced legislation Wednesday to create a new regional agency for housing and homelessness programming in Sacramento County, altering a decades-long approach to housing development and potentially setting the stage for continued conflict between county and city officials over homeless prevention.

The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, established in 1982, currently distributes federal funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the county and city of Sacramento. The SHRA also coordinates the development of affordable housing.

Ashby’s proposed Sacramento Housing and Homelessness Agency would effectively end and replace the SHRA, continuing the responsibilities of its predecessor and newly coordinating homelessness programs as a collaborative effort between the county and its cities.

“Often, the arguments happen between the cities and the county as to who will provide what and where and when,” Ashby said during a news conference. “This takes that away.”

Rather than having three governing boards like the SHRA, Ashby’s proposed agency would have a single Joint Powers Authority board with three Sacramento County Board of Supervisors members, three Sacramento City Council appointees, two Elk Grove City Council appointees and one appointee each from the city councils of Folsom, Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights. The Joint Powers Authority board may be expanded if additional cities with more than 50,000 people enter into the agreement. Each additional city would receive one appointee. Cities with fewer than 50,000 people such as Galt, Ashby explained, will be represented by the Board of Supervisors.

Despite their three allotted seats, no one from the Board of Supervisors was present at Ashby’s announcement to support the legislation. Ashby said she expects pushback from the county.

Members of the Sacramento Board of Supervisors, which is on recess, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Officials for the city of Sacramento and the county have had numerous disputes in recent years over disparate approaches to homelessness. In 2023, District Attorney Thien Ho filed a lawsuit against the city for its alleged failure to enforce homelessness laws. The next year, Sacramento City Councilmember Karina Talamantes spoke at a Board of Supervisors public hearing against how the county spent millions of state funds; the Board of Supervisors responded with a statement that called Talamantes’ comments “misleading,” according to previous reporting from The Sacramento Bee.

Increasing collaboration between the city and county is a priority for Ashby. She pointed to Talamantes’ oversight of a homeless project intended for women and children where coordination of entry was reserved for the county.

“No one up here can do anything about who gets placed. We wanted to protect women and children, but there are people who have been placed there that were counter to that,” Ashby said. “This fixes that.”

While county officials were absent, numerous representatives for the city of Sacramento were present, including former Mayor Darrell Steinberg and City Councilmember Caity Maple, both of whom spoke in support of the legislation and proposed agency.

Like Ashby, Maple stressed the importance of partnership between city and county leaders. The last time the city and county held a joint public meeting on homelessness was eight years ago, according to Maple. She said a true continuum of care requires a regional agency that aligns city and county efforts while pooling their resources.

“This is a vision of a better, more compassionate Sacramento that does not have people living and dying on our streets,” Maple said.

As of the last point-in-time count in 2024, 6,615 people in Sacramento County were estimated to be experiencing homelessness, 3,944 of whom were unsheltered. The recent count of unsheltered individuals represented a 40% decrease from two years earlier, an improvement that Steinberg said on Wednesday was due to collaboration between the city and county of Sacramento.

“It was an important start,” Steinberg said. “But it was not nearly enough.”

Steinberg advocated for all cities within the county to have a say on governing.

When asked about the city of Sacramento’s three seats on the proposed agency’s board compared to the two seats for Elk Grove and single seat each for Folsom, Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights, Ashby responded that “Sacramento doesn’t have the ultimate power in this bill.”

“These folks are here because they believe that a partnership would advance this, not because they hold the strings,” Ashby continued.

As for the Board of Supervisors, Ashby said her door is open for discussion.

“The legislative process is one where you work on the bill together. I don’t think it’ll look exactly like this at the finish line,” Ashby said.

“I won’t dilute it, but I am willing to hear their concerns.”

This story was originally published June 25, 2025 at 2:45 PM.