Homeless will die on Sacramento streets this winter, but we won’t do anything about it
To the homeless people who will die this winter on Sacramento’s streets: I’m sorry we failed you.
We’ve failed not just on an institutional level, but on a human level. Because at least one — probably more — of the roughly 9,300 homeless people living in this county will die of hypothermia this winter.
Those homeless Sacramentans will spend their last day freezing inside the thin shelter of a plastic tent, and Sacramento will have spent millions of dollars on homelessness with precious little to show for it. As a community, we have not held our city or county government accountable, nor have we demanded that they provide the shelter needed to protect homeless people who will die this winter.
On the contrary, voters in the city of Sacramento have just authorized a measure that will serve to roust the homeless but do little to increase or improve the capacity of Sacramento’s shelters or care.
The almost-certain hypothermia deaths in our city and county this winter will be caused by our inaction.
Hypothermia is a cruel way to die. At first, there’s shivering, and then the mind becomes disoriented. Speech starts to slur at this point, too. Once the internal body temperature drops below 95 degrees, the shivering stops, but the confusion gets worse as the brain is slowly starved of oxygen and blood vessels widen.
Finally, there may be hallucinations or euphoria — and in some cases, people begin to paradoxically undress, believing the problem is that they’re too hot. Survivors have said it’s like falling into a coma, and that’s when the heart stops.
Last year, a record eight homeless people died of hypothermia during the winter — one of them across the street from City Hall. Four of those deaths were within a one-week span around Christmas.
Homeless people here died from hypothermia in 2021 at a rate that was 215% higher than the general county population, a report from the Sacramento Coalition to End Homelessness found.
In the winter of 2020, four homeless men ranging in age from 41 to 55 died of hypothermia during Sacramento’s winter season. Not coincidentally, those deaths were on nights when city and county warming centers didn’t open.
How many will die in 2022?
Despite severe criticism directed at the city and county after a major storm caused at least one homeless death in January 2021, neither local government has announced plans to open a 24/7 warming center during winter months. County leaders seem more invested in promoting the idea that they have a friendly relationship with city leaders despite years of turf battles between the two governments, which have stalled meaningful progress on increasing shelter capacity.
Appearances mean nothing and do nothing to keep vulnerable people from freezing on our streets in the winter.
The county has also recently delayed its plans to open two sites of tiny homes in South Sacramento on Florin Road, citing construction delays. The sites were supposed to open in early November, in time for the winter season.
Meanwhile, the city of Sacramento is left to pick up where the county is failing: Last month, the city opened a year-round, 50-bed, referral-only respite center for the unhoused, but despite budgeting $100 million for shelters and services at 20 sites last year, none of those have opened. One 50-bed shelter is not enough.
The city’s most recent punitive gambit, Measure O, will likely pass. With no new funding, no housing and no mental health or substance abuse services offered, Measure O will only further harass and punish the homeless population and will inevitably lead to costly lawsuits footed, yet again, by taxpayers.
The residents of Sacramento will pay for this vote in financial ways, but the homeless of Sacramento will pay for it with their lives.
Measure O will embolden the public and law enforcement to further harass and shuffle homeless camps from place to place, making it harder for the residents there to find help or keep appointments with social workers, lawyers and medical care.
Those of us who still have a home, and the energy that comfort provides, can demand that the city and county offer cold weather shelters 24/7 over the next three months. We can insist that camps are not removed unless there is a safe, warm, indoor place for them to be moved to, and we can end the annual tradition of mourning more dead Sacramentans.
Sacramento still has time to save lives this winter — but we clearly don’t have the will.
