Mother knows best: Sacramento County, cities must play together on homelessness | Opinion
Thank God, someone is finally pulling out the “mom voice” in Sacramento politics.
That’s the stern, brook-no-argument tone employed by mothers (or motherly people) that gets everyone to sit down, shut up and start working together, whether they like it or not.
The adult in the room is State Senator Angelique Ashby, who is trying to force Sacramento county and city officials to finally work together on voters’ No. 1 concern: Homelessness and affordable housing.
The Democrat from Sacramento has introduced an amendment to her Senate Bill 802 legislation that would put Sacramento County supervisors at the same political table as its cities to jointly manage thousands of government-funded housing units for low-income residents, while pooling resources to combat homelessness.
None of the other government leaders were stepping forward with a comprehensive idea. So Ashby is filling the gap.
“If you were trying to win a popularity contest amongst local elected officials, you would not do this,” Ashby admitted at a press conference in the Capitol Annex on Wednesday, where she provided details of her proposed Joint Powers Authority (JPA) known as the Sacramento Area Housing and Homeless Agency.
This agency would replace an existing authority between the county and the city of Sacramento, the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, into a county-wide entity. SHRA is the landlord for more than 50,000 residents in the city and unincorporated county. It administers rental assistance to more than more than 13,000 units via the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s housing voucher program.
Putting the management of affordable housing, homelessness and other related grant programs under one roof makes sense. And it will take a force like Ashby to do it.
A united front against homelessness
Bills that tackle local collaborations like this without full-throated support from all the officials involved tend to put other state legislators in a tough spot. While SB 802 has already passed the Senate with its previous language, it sits now in the Assembly. Had the Sacramento-area senator introduced this language earlier in the congressional calendar, there’s a good chance the bill might have already been quietly killed.
Yet Ashby was joined that morning by Republican Assemblymember Heath Flora of Ripon, who also represents a portion of Sacramento County; former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg; current Sacramento City councilwomen Karina Talamantes, Caity Maple and Lisa Kaplan; and — surprisingly — Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, who was the only county representative at the announcement. (Notably, Ho sued Steinberg and the City of Sacramento for its response to homelessness back in 2023.)
For all their faults — and there are plenty! — that is an impressive lineup of serious, well-intentioned public servants, all of whom have clearly had it with petty squabbling. The participation of Ho, in particular, made the absence of others from county governance blatantly conspicuous.
“We have moved things from one organization to another; we’ve had very public fights,” Ashby said. “There have been some moments of success … but outside of those peaks, we have mostly experienced valleys in addressing homelessness … and we are falling woefully behind in affordable housing by hundreds and hundreds of units each year.”
Ashby insists there is only one pathway forward: Regionalization.
“If we do not work together, if we continue to be in silos, if we fear collaboration, we will not garner success,” she said.
The new JPA’s single governing board would be created from three members from the Sacramento City Council, three members from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, two from Elk Grove’s City Council, and one member each from the city councils of Folsom, Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights.
The bill stipulates the initial director of this project would be the current executive director of the SHRA, La Shelle Dozier, but what’s the point of scrapping a program if you’re going to keep the same executive leadership? It’s also concerning that, with 70% of the county’s homeless population, the city of Sacramento will be relegated to just three seats on an 11-member board.
That’s kind of the whole point of collaboration, right?
Where is the county?
Spokesperson Janna Haynes said by text that the county has not yet had time to analyze the bill, but that “the county values partnerships, collaboration and shared responsibility, as evidenced by our success serving the unhoused in our region.”
Supervisors have been working on a months-long effort to re-examine the SHRA. Now the county may be forced into collaboration sooner than expected.
Is this bill perfect? Absolutely not. By Friday, the board of supervisors, and the mayors of Elk Grove, Folsom, Citrus Heights and Rancho Cordova had all written letters of opposition.
But at least someone has finally stepped up to be the adult in the room.
“The legislative process is one where you work on the bill together. I don’t think it’ll look exactly like this at the finish line,” Ashby said. “I won’t dilute it, but I am willing to hear their concerns.”
As a senator, Ashby is in the best position to force these disparate parties into finally working together. In the past few decades, Sacramento has thrown hundreds of millions of dollars into various programs, boards and non-profits — $417.2 million has come from the state just in the last five years — all working toward the same goal, but rarely together. Where has that gotten us?
Sacramento already knows collaboration is the key to success, through our local JPAs over Regional Transit and our award-winning library system. But the city and the county haven’t met together on homelessness and housing for eight years. So why couldn’t a joint authority work on this issue, too?
No one is ever totally happy with compromise, but it’s long past time to sit down, shut up and get to work. These childish politicians have, by their actions, insisted on being dragged to the table. Ashby’s the mom to do it.
