Sacramento bigwigs want politicians to ‘step back’ on homelessness. Why don’t they step up?

The last few weeks have driven home the overwhelming reality of Sacramento’s homelessness crisis. And it wasn’t because of a fundamental change in the size or conditions of the capital city’s unhoused population. It was the realization that Sacramento’s lone-wolf experiment with safe grounds is incapable of making a difference.

That does not mean it is a lost cause. But the ambitious humanitarian mission city leaders embarked on, both to help homeless people and to restore the public spaces they occupied, is not working — and that’s starting to take a toll on our psyche. Allies are becoming adversaries, neighbors are becoming foes and business leaders have become perplexing antiheroes pleading for continued crackdowns.

If a long-delayed but shortsighted sweep last week — clearing 160 vehicles from an entrenched homeless encampment along Commerce Circle — was the breaking point, this week Sacramento fell apart. The humanity and compassion that once drove this community’s response has been overtaken by apathy and self-preservation in the absence of tangible progress. Meanwhile, all that’s really changed for the 11,000 people sleeping outside is the ratcheted-up rhetoric surrounding their existence.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg, driven by the belief that the city should not conduct a sweep without offering shelter, put forward a hurried resolution to make that the rule. Sacramento’s economic power brokers were having none of it. In a stunning rebuke at a press conference near City Hall on Tuesday, Sacramento’s business leaders and bigwigs declared their outright opposition to the mayor’s proposal. The council ultimately sided with them, retaining enforcement with some additional public scrutiny.

With no shelter available, Steinberg’s proposal would have essentially barred vehicle sweeps. Mayor Pro Tem Angelique Ashby’s compromise to boost transparency was the best option.

The fact that this was even up for debate is disheartening. Despite the political capital exhausted all year long, the search for suitable public land for sanctioned campsites throughout the city, the unanimous August approval of 20 sites and the allocation of $100 million to launch them, Sacramento has gained little meaningful ground.

We’ve reached the most frigid stretch of the season, and the unhoused in our city largely remain outdoors. After overpromising and under-delivering, the city’s government and the perhaps overzealous mayor who wanted to get serious about helping them are both getting pummeled in the public square.

But the shared angst over the lack of progress is misdirected. Maybe it’s time for some soul-searching.

Sacramento is obsessed with urban growth and its long-term trajectory. It has a Napoleon complex driving it to compete with the state’s largest cities. In their aggressive pursuit of economic development, the city’s business leaders have developed a sense of entitlement.

When I introduced myself to this city in January, I described my admiration for Sacramento’s belief in itself and its ability to solve big problems. Since then, I’ve realized that most of the city’s loudest voices are unwilling to use their power to do something unless it suits their selfish motives.

It’s baffling that Sacramento’s most influential business leaders had the gall to stand next to the seat of city government and chastise elected leaders for trying to act on homelessness while feigning empathy for unhoused people. Yes, businesses have suffered immensely during the pandemic, and homelessness hinders their recovery. But businesses have also been given heaps of relief money from every level of government. They’ve been buoyed by a public eager to support them and spend their dollars locally. They’ve also shown remarkable and rapid adaptability.

Greater Sacramento Economic Council president Barry Broome suggested that “the mayor and elected leadership need to step back on this issue.” Well, why don’t our wealthiest landowners and top business people step up? Supporting or opposing policy is not enough. Why not activate underused private parcels and help triage this emergency? Instead, they chose rhetoric, confrontation and decrying the people in this city who are bold enough to try to solve the problem.

City Manager Howard Chan said officials may be able to stand up three to five new safe grounds over the next three months. That doesn’t inspire confidence given that more than 9,800 people were supposed to be served under Steinberg’s siting plan. Relying on public properties, hampered by the bureaucracy of outside agencies, is clearly a failed approach.

Perhaps what we need is a role reversal from Sacramento’s business tycoons. Their relationship with the community needs to be flipped, and it’s time for them to give back to the city’s most vulnerable in a way that makes a difference. No, that does not mean philanthropy dollars and nonprofit donations. It means putting real skin in the game.

“The city cannot do this on its own,” Vice Mayor Jay Schenirer said. “If we bring the knowledge base of the business community and others into the discussion about how to get more sites — and sites is the operative word here — we need more places to put people. Just pushing them around the city isn’t even a Band-Aid. It just doesn’t work.”

That’s a challenge for the critics in the business community who are misusing their influence to oppose policy rather than assist in the solution. Homelessness has fractured Sacramento, but there is a path for healing. It’ll just require the detractors to accept their responsibility and do something about it.