As Sacramento homelessness grows worse, city and county leaders play the blame game

Over the last year, Sacramento residents have been told their city and county governments have resolved their acrimonious history, marked by a lack of cooperation on the most critical issue facing the region.

To serve Sacramento’s growing and desperate unhoused population and clean up our streets, parks and waterways, a strong relationship between the city and county is vital.

Since Sacramento County CEO Ann Edwards succeeded Nav Gill at the helm of the region’s largest government in August, local officials have rosily portrayed themselves as having a more collegial partnership. But a letter from Edwards to City Manager Howard Chan last week signaled that dysfunction between the county and city remains the default setting in Sacramento. It’s a damning reality for our communities in which both agencies seem more concerned with pointing fingers than responding effectively to a humanitarian crisis.

Rather than leading with meaningful action and ambitious policy, county officials seem more concerned about what city officials are saying about them.

In the March 4 letter, Edwards stated that “both city elected officials and staff continue to misrepresent the County’s role and actions during public discussion with stakeholders, creating confusion and doubt. Worse, this is disruptive to the necessary work. It is difficult to have a constructive, productive partnership under these circumstances.”

Edwards’ letter was in response to a brief exchange between City Councilwoman Mai Vang and city Department of Community Response head Bridgette Dean during a recent update on the city’s $100 million homelessness plan.

“We’re not going to point fingers … but it is absolutely unsustainable if the county is not providing behavioral health and social services,” Vang said before asking how many safe ground sites the county was involved in. Dean replied that the city was using its own contractors at safe ground sites.

“Currently our operators are providing resources and wraparound services at our sites that we are contracting with,” Dean said.

Edwards pointed out in her letter that “operations are always provided by contracted, community-based organizations,” going on to detail several unanswered inquiries and efforts by the county to increase its presence at city sites.

This fracas over semantics and blame for the county’s level of involvement is an embarrassment. Both the county and the city share responsibility for failing to do more while homelessness was growing more pronounced year after year.

City leaders such as Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela and Mayor Darrell Steinberg have been criticized for trying to lead on this issue, while county leaders in charge of the region’s largest health and human services agency mostly remained in the background.

On the county’s side, supervisors have only recently begun facing some public criticism for an increasing homeless population in Sacramento. Ethan Dye, the county’s director of human services, appeared in front of the board in February to announce that funding for the county’s Project Roomkey would come to a close in mid-March, effectively shutting down three motels that house more than 300 previously homeless people. It was only after a public outcry that funding was announced to continue the program through the end of June.

In January, county sheriff’s deputies handed out a survey to businesses and apartment complexes near a large encampment on Fair Oaks Boulevard. Called a “Neighborhood Nuisance Abatement Questionnaire,” the document seemed to be a prelude to possible legal action against homeless people by the county. City officials have visited the camp, which is on a city-owned lot, but have declined to pursue any action to remove it. Local civil rights attorney Mark Merin called the survey “a county and (district attorney) campaign against city management, city government and city police.”

The public and the estimated 10,000 unhoused people sleeping outside in Sacramento — and all the residents affected by this crisis — deserve much better than this. They deserve action and leaders bold enough to embrace the burden of achieving it.