Sacramento County and its cities to talk homelessness in a new joint meeting
Sacramento County is organizing an all-day collaboration meeting Tuesday with the city of Sacramento and five other incorporated cities within the county to discuss the region’s approach to addressing homelessness.
Formally titled the County-City Collaboration on Homeless Services and Behavioral Health Meeting, the county and its city will be reviewing its progress in addressing homelessness, engagement with behavioral health and legal strategies. The meeting will also feature a countywide “visioning session,” which includes surveyed responses on homelessness from county and cities’ staff.
This is the first time the county and its cities will be meeting to discuss homeless, Mayor Kevin McCarty said in a news release. The meeting includes elected officials from all of Sacramento County’s incorporated cities except Isleton, which has a population of about 800.
The meeting, which was publicly announced in July, was organized after Sacramento Councilmember Eric Guerra called on Sacramento County and the city in April to meet for the first time in eight years. This meeting will mark the first time since 2017 that the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors will discuss homelessness with its individual cities.
Supervisor Rosario Rodriguez said the meeting seeks to establish a starting point between the county and its cities working together. She said homelessness is the “number one issue” in the county.
“This meeting is going to be a good start for where we want to head and how we’re going to handle some of these issues,” Rodriguez said.
The meeting will also review a 2023 agreement between Sacramento County and the city of Sacramento to mutually improve coordination to “meet the needs of the unhoused and to move individuals out of homelessness in the City,” according to the county’s copy of the agreement.
The meeting participants include the entire Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, the whole Sacramento City Council, Citrus Heights Mayor Jayna Karpinski-Costa, Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen, Folsom Mayor Sarah Aquino, Galt Mayor Shawn Farmer and Rancho Cordova Councilmember Linda Budge. Supervisor Phil Serna and McCarty will chair the discussion.
More than 6,000 people are homeless in Sacramento County, according to the 2024 Point in Time Count. Around 68% of those surveyed were homeless for more than two years with 58% saying affordable housing is the “top solution” to solving homelessness, according to a county report.
What will be discussed?
Additionally, the meeting attendees will discuss how federal and state funding affects homelessness prevention, including how money is distributed towards local prevention programs. For example, the White House’s proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget included a 44% cut toward rental assistance programs and block granting to the state Continuum of Care program.
With these budgetary slashes, programs have ended completely, including the Community Development Block Grant, a federal program which funds low-income development programs to local governments, and the local Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement programs, which requires federal and state dollars.
The meeting is also taking in account the All in Sacramento Action plan, previously created by Sacramento Steps Forward, Sacramento County, Sacramento City and County Continuum of Care, the City of Sacramento and the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency.
The stated goals of that plan include:
- Decreasing the amount of people experiencing homelessness and unsheltered homelessness in Sacramento County.
- Raising the number of residents who enter permanent housing from homelessness.
- Minimizing the time someone remains homeless.
- Reducing the amount of residents returning to homelessness after being placed in housing.
- Improving successful street outreach placement.
The meeting will be held at the Tsakopoulous Library Galleria, 828 I St., from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will also be streamed online at metro14live.saccounty.gov.
This story was originally published October 27, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
