California budget deal sends $25 million to address homelessness on American River Parkway

Sacramento County will get $25 million from the California budget to help homeless residents along the American River Parkway, where officials recently banned encampments.

Assemblymen Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, and Ken Cooley, D-Rancho Cordova, announced on Tuesday the state budget will include the allocation, which will go toward shelter, housing and other services for the homeless camping along the river.

“As staunch supporters and active users of the American River Parkway, we have seen first hand the myriad of challenges facing this jewel,” McCarty and Cooley said in a statement. “We know that money alone cannot fix every problem, but we fought to get $25 million in the budget for Sacramento County to tackle this problem.”

The American River Parkway Foundation estimates 2,000 to 3,000 people camp near the waterway. The 23-mile parkway has long drawn homeless residents from the county, where shelter space is scarce. Those who camp there typically have nowhere else to go.

About 9,300 county residents are homeless, according to the most recent point-in-time count.

County supervisors voted last week to ban camping along the parkway, even though there isn’t enough shelter space for all who are there. Homeless advocates estimate at least 7,000 shelter beds or housing units are needed to support the county’s homeless population most nights.

The county and the city of Sacramento operate a combined 2,500 shelter beds.

Leaders and residents who want the parkway cleared cite environmental concerns, fire danger and the frustrations of recreational parkway users.

McCarty and Cooley have supported efforts to clear parkway encampments. They authored Assembly Bill 2633 to allow supervisors to sweep encampments, although county ultimately went ahead with its own ordinance.

McCarty told The Bee in July that he and Cooley were working to secure the homelessness budget allocation for the county, saying he hoped it would go toward creating sanctioned encampments with more resources.

“Let’s have locations where people can be assigned space in places to camp,” McCarty said. “Just not on the parkway, where there are no restroom facilities, no trash facilities, no water. It’s not good for anybody. Not good for the people who are living down there, not good for the people who are trying to utilize the parkway.”

County, city struggle to find homelessness solutions

Although county and city leaders agree they need more resources to address homelessness, they are often at odds over the best way to help unhoused residents.

This impasse was on display earlier in the year, when a plan to create a 300-bed city-county shelter in downtown Sacramento fell apart after county leaders backed out of the deal.

City leaders frequently say the county needs to provide more resources to address homelessness. County leaders say they’re in the process of providing more shelters.

The state budget allocation will provide a boost for the county to tackle the issue.

“I am extremely grateful for the efforts by Assemblymembers McCarty and Cooley to help Sacramento County fund safe and sanitary alternatives with wraparound services for those living outdoors, while giving us the ability to protect an invaluable recreational and environmental amenity in the Sacramento region,” Supervisor Rich Desmond said in a statement.

The Sacramento Bee’s Theresa Clift contributed to this story.

This story was originally published August 30, 2022 at 12:51 PM.