Proposed homeless parking site on American River nixed after East Sacramento pushback

A prospective homeless safe parking site at Sutter’s Landing Park is dead in the water after pushback from East Sacramento residents, Sacramento city councilwoman Katie Valenzuela announced via Twitter on Wednesday.

The 28th Street parking lot along the American River would have been opened to overnight parking for people living out of their vehicles, similar to a site on South Front Street. Vehicles can’t be towed from safe parking grounds, unlike non-designated parking areas around Sacramento, and the city offers showers, food and long-term resources to people who park there.

East Sacramento residents made their displeasure with the proposed site known, speaking out to local media and jeering Valenzuela at public meetings. No homeless shelter or Safe Ground site has ever opened in East Sacramento, which neighbors Sutter’s Landing, and a homeless man’s alleged attack on a mother leaving McKinley Park last week underscored that community’s concerns.

The decision to move on from the Sutter’s Landing site was made easier by a recent purchase, Valenzuela said. The city bought a 100-acre dirt lot in south Sacramento, located behind the Sacramento Job Corps Center on Meadowview Road, from the federal government for $12.3 million last month.

Part of that space will be used for safe parking, and a large affordable housing complex or homeless shelter may be built as well. City resources should be used for those more permanent solutions, Valenzuela said in dropping the Sutter’s Landing site.

“Even if we were able to work through the challenges we’ve identified with the (Sutter’s Landing) site, we wouldn’t be able to move forward before the city opens the newly acquired Job Corps site for safe parking,” Valenzuela wrote on Twitter. “It is more strategic for us to focus city staff efforts on that site, and on other new sites that might have more potential long-term than Sutter’s Landing would have provided.”

Those challenges include homeless camps springing up outside the designated safe parking site, forming an emergency evacuation plan and getting Sacramento County to invest in the site along with the city, Valenzuela said.

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors this week, meanwhile, passed a resolution declaring a shelter crisis. It’s intended to speed approvals of new shelters and safe parking sites.

This story was originally published February 16, 2022 at 1:12 PM.