Sacramento’s homeless need safety — and toilets. City Council must embrace Safe Ground

Over 10 years after homeless people in Sacramento first established a 200-tent encampment behind the Blue Diamond Almond Factory, the Safe Ground movement is finally getting its due.

On Monday, Mayor Darrell Steinberg unveiled a proposal for the city to buy 500 tiny homes to establish Safe Ground encampments around Sacramento, complete with toilet and shower facilities, at a cost of up to $5 million.

“I’m embracing Safe Ground, but I’m embracing it using roofs,” Steinberg said in a statement. “We have placed nearly 1,000 people in hotels and motels through Project Roomkey, but we desperately need more options when it comes to keeping these people off the street and housing those who are still living outdoors.”

The mayor’s announcement was a victory for homeless advocates like Mark Merin, a local civil rights attorney and Safe Ground supporter. Nearly 10 years ago, Merin put a tiny home unit on a parcel of property he owns at the corner of 12th and C streets. Community members supplied food and held an open house for members of the public to tour the model tiny home.

“What we were proposing there was that the city could designate places people could be without people being arrested,” Merin said. “We never could get traction. The city would never agree to allow either one of those concepts to move forward, so we continued to advocate for Safe Ground.”

The model unit stood there for years, unused, as the city’s homeless population expanded. While Mayor Steinberg has expressed support for tiny homes and pursued plans to build them, the question of where to put them has largely stalled progress. In February, the City Council approved the construction of 24 small “cabins” to house young adults who are experiencing homelessness. The Emergency Bridge Housing at Grove Avenue site is located next to a church parking lot in North Sacramento.

But big plans for shelters around the city have hit obstacles or been derailed by the coronavirus pandemic. In May, for example, the Trump Administration yanked approval for a 100-bed shelter site on X Street near Alhambra Boulevard, delaying it

In June, tired of waiting, Merin erected four tents on his plot of land at 12th and C, declaring it Safe Ground. The city attorney threatened action, but Merin said relations with the city have been cooperative and positive since then.

“We decided it was time to move ahead and show that it could be done, and it could be done safely,” Merin said. “That’s what led the mayor to endorse this concept.”

“Better late than never,” said Katie Valenzuela, a vocal Safe Ground supporter who will be sworn in as the Sacramento City Councilmember for District 4 next year. “I think Sacramento is the right size city to tackle this.

The idea of Safe Ground is simple enough: A city designates plots of land where homeless people are allowed to live in organized tent communities with access to toilets and other sanitary facilities. Safe Ground communities are self-governing, with residents making collective decisions about the community’s rules. Merin said similar efforts in Seattle have helped keep homeless people from sleeping out in the elements and have helped many transition into housing.

“The model, used in Seattle and other cities, is touted by supporters as an inexpensive way to provide homeless people a place to stay where they can have their basic needs met, safe from assaults, rapes and violence, and without being worried about losing their belongings,” wrote Theresa Clift of The Sacramento Bee in June.

Mayor Steinberg’s embrace of Safe Ground is an important step forward. The City Council should embrace the mayor’s proposal, but Sacramento must also go further. Five hundred tiny homes will not be enough in a county with at least 5,570 homeless people, many of whom sleep outdoors. Steinberg’s emphasis on “roofs” is understandable, but fixating on solutions that are largely out of reach will prolong and worsen the problem.

The question is not whether people will live in tents — they already do. The question is whether Sacramento will give its homeless population the dignity of a safe place to go, with access to toilets.

It’s long past time for Sacramento to say yes to the Safe Ground movement.

This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.