Four Sacramento moms with kids fear they’ll live outside due to city program change
Four mothers with young children are afraid they will be sleeping outdoors starting Wednesday, due to an issue that occurred when the city of Sacramento made a change to its longstanding homeless motel shelter program.
The City Motel Program, which has sheltered over 2,000 children since 2020, is being run differently as of Monday, through what is now called the Emergency Shelter Voucher program. The new program, like the last, has 200 rooms, but some of the guests will now need to pay to stay there, said Julie Hall, a city spokesperson.
According to Hall, the plan had been for all current participants to keep a room, even if they had to move motels. But as of Tuesday at 5 p.m., the city was still figuring out where at least 20 families could stay.
Four of those families have been living in cottages at the Arden Acres motel in North Sacramento, with children ranging from four months to 15 years old. A close community, they’ve lived there between four months and three years. They all said they have been on wait lists for permanent housing, but have never gotten it, so the motel has become home.
According to a city blog post, the new version of the program will also only allow guests to stay in the motels a maximum of six months.
All four families were set to move into new hotels Sunday, the last day of the old program, but when they got to their new motels, staff did not let them move in to a room. One was told there was not a room big enough for them available. Another was told she was on the “do not rent” list for reasons she said were not explained to her.
Faced with living in their vehicles or in tents, the four families said they are staying put, invoking state tenant rights.
“We’ve all lived here more than 30 days and we get mail here,” said Patricia Miller, 40, whose sons are 4 months and 4 years old. “We aren’t leaving without somewhere to go.”
A case manager with Step up on Second, the organization the city contracts with to run the motel shelters, told Marcella Parks, 45, that she and her three children could move into the Executive Inn Suites in downtown Sacramento if she paid $100 up front for the first week plus $34 a day after that, she said.
Parks, who works for DoorDash and as a cosmetologist, said that would be hard to afford, but said she would take it. But when they showed up with her three children, there was no room for them. So they came back to the Arden Acres, where they have been living since January.
“They told us we had nothing to worry about,” said Parks, whose 7-year-old son suffers from seizures. “All of us were supposed to be placed in a hotel.”
Sierra Fitzpatrick, director of NorCal programs for Step up on Second, referred all questions to the city.
Hall said as of 5 p.m. Tuesday the city and its contractors are working with the 20 to 25 families who are still figuring out where to go. She expected that number to get smaller later in the day.
“If a family is unable to secure a room at one of the participating motels, they will be offered a placement at the City’s Outreach and Engagement Center (on Auburn Boulevard), which can provide immediate shelter for families with minor children,” Hall said. “City staff and contracted partners are continuing to work with participants who need assistance navigating the transition and available sheltering options.”
Unlike the previous motel shelter program, some of the guests in the new version of the program will have to pay a fee to stay in the motels, up to $238 up front for the first week.
Arden Acres, with its detached private cottages and outdoor space where children were playing with water balloons and video games on Tuesday, is not one of the five motels that will be in the program going forward, which means all the program participants there were supposed to leave Sunday.
Tana Saito, 47, said she has had a similar experience to Parks when she tried to move into the new motel.
“It’s scary because I have five kids and three are autistic,” said Saito, of Sacramento. “They promised me they’re gonna better our situation but they haven’t. I have a Toyota Corolla. It’s not big enough for five kids to live in.”
Amber Criswell, 46, said she has been living at the motel for over three years with her three grandchildren. A fourth is on the way. The stress of having to leave has been affecting her son, who is autistic, she said.
“He urinated on himself at school because of it,” Criswell said.
The Sacramento Homeless Union said it has received written declarations from over 100 people at multiple hotels, including other families and disabled seniors, who have also run into issues with the program changing.
“This transition should have been invisible to the people living in these shelters,” said Crystal Sanchez, president of the Sacramento Homeless Union, on Tuesday. “Instead, people were told to leave and returned to find there was no shelter available. Families spent (Monday) night in parking lots, children were left without a safe place to sleep, and some individuals lost access to electricity needed for critical medical equipment. We’ve received hundreds of calls, emails, and messages from impacted residents and even public officials trying to understand how this happened.”
The city has paid Santa Monica-based Step Up on Second over $4.2 million since September 2023, according to the staff report.
For the last few months, city officials have been figuring out how to close a $66 million deficit that was projected for the fiscal year that starts July 1. The projected deficit is now down to about $1.8 million as of May 20.
The changes to the program will save the city about $3.2 million, Hall said.
