What’s Sacramento’s plan for homeless shelter? It could be fewer beds, city funds

Sacramento’s Railroad Drive homeless shelter could have its capacity halved and use some city money to remain open, according to a proposal the City Council will consider Tuesday.

The emergency shelter currently has a capacity of 200 beds, but the city wants to drop that number to 100 to better provide services to the residents, said Emily Halcon, the city’s homeless services coordinator.

“Some people there are very sick and very disabled,” Halcon said. “Also, (the reduction) will allow for the physical relief of the building, which was intended to be used temporarily.”

Christie Holderegger, spokeswoman for Volunteers of America, which contracts with the city to run the shelter, has said the reduction is also needed because many residents cannot sleep on the top level of bunk beds because they get seizures or have other physical or mental disabilities. The shelter previously was using the stacked beds, but will stop using the upper bunks for safety — cutting the ability to house the larger number of people.

The proposal from city staff recommends the council sign contracts to keep the shelter open through April using $1.2 million from UC Davis Medical Center and $376,992 in city money.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg earlier this month announced a plan to keep the shelter open until July while council members look for locations to put shelters that would house at least 100 people in each council district — a plan meant to spread shelters throughout the city rather than overburden a single area.

City staff recommended the council vote to keep the emergency shelter open through April because that is how long the UC Davis grant will fund it, Halcon said.

The city money would be used for facility improvements like cleaning, pest control, electrical upgrades, air conditioning installation and help with anticipated winter flooding — expenses the UC Davis money can’t cover, according to the staff report.

The $376,992 would come from the city’s Measure U reserves — a $15 million fund city staff created in case voters did not approve the Measure U sales-tax increase last month.

If the council wants to keep the shelter open until July, it will have to come up with an additional $810,723 by March 1, Halcon said. The shelter costs about $400,000 a month to operate.

About $2.4 million in city money has gone to the shelter, but no city money has gone toward it since May, according to Andrew Geurkink, city program analyst. The shelter has since been funded by private money Steinberg secured — and he intends to continue to look for that outside funding.

“The mayor is still aggressively raising money to address homelessness and is confident more private resources will be coming to expand shelter capacity,” Steinberg spokeswoman Mary Lynne Vellinga said.

Additional private money the mayor raises could go to Railroad Drive or to new, longer-term shelters the city is planning to open, Vellinga said.

Why less beds for homeless?

As of Friday, 144 people were staying at the shelter, Geurkink said. The shelter had typically been full at its original 200 bed capacity, but staff stopped accepting new residents in November to prepare for a planned Dec. 31 closure, said Holderegger.

While the shelter’s capacity is being cut, the city will not kick people out of the shelter, Halcon said.

Once more space is freed up by people departing the shelter, officials plan to add more private areas where residents can get medical care, Halcon said.

“It’s an open warehouse, so it’s hard to provide intensive care management services now when people are walking right by you,” Halcon said.

The shelter is a low-barrier triage facility, meaning it is open 24/7, provides three meals a day and allows people to bring their pets, partners and belongings. It also provides medical and mental health services, helps residents get a state identification card and helps remove other barriers they encounter in the search for permanent housing.

The reduced capacity makes it even more important for council members to quickly find locations for additional shelters, said Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness. Erlenbusch said he believes alarming numbers of homeless people are dying on the streets.

“We lose one homeless person on average every six days. The longer it takes to open up shelters, the more homeless people will die,” Erlenbusch said.

In the year the Railroad Drive emergency shelter has been open, 619 people have entered the facility and 469 have exited. About 170 of those who left moved on to more permanent housing upon departure, a city staff report said. Sixty percent of the residents have a mental health illness and 47 percent have a substance abuse issue, the report said. About half were older than 50 years old and about 60 percent had been homeless for more than a year.

The council will consider the proposal during its meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday in City Hall’s Council Chambers. It requires a two-thirds vote to pass.