Elk Grove leaders say they want to address homelessness. So why are they blocking housing?

The juxtaposition of Elk Grove’s tough new anti-camping law and the City Council’s rejection of an affordable housing project contradicts the compassionate approach city leaders are trying to project. These moves are being dubiously sold to Elk Grove’s roughly 180,000 residents by politicians who claim they want to “change outcomes” but are pursuing the same failed policies that have shaped California’s housing and homelessness crises for decades.

An ordinance that went into effect this week essentially bars camps of four or more people within city limits, especially near schools, day care facilities, playgrounds and youth centers. The council approved the enforcement measure last month at the behest of members Stephanie Nguyen and Pat Hume, who are seeking higher office in the state Assembly and Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, respectively.

Hume, who is running for the District 5 supervisor seat, said “being punitive is not the goal. Changing outcomes is the goal.” If that’s true, officials of the county’s second-largest city should reconsider recent decisions that hamper the region’s ability to deal with homelessness.

Elk Grove housing officials have noted the dwindling alternatives for the estimated 150 people sleeping outdoors within city limits — and the more than 9,200 unhoused people across the county. The recent approval of an 84-unit transitional housing project in the Laguna area was a righteous move, but Wednesday’s refusal of 67 units of permanent supportive housing for the homeless — and the reasoning for it — were senseless and shortsighted.

The City Council tried to cool down the hostile rhetoric and mossbacked NIMBYism that filled the council chambers Wednesday night. But it still sided with those sentiments by denying the Oak Rose Apartments because of narrow zoning rules and planning guidelines for the Old Town area. Some members’ attempts to sugarcoat their unanimous opposition to the project does not change the fact that Elk Grove turned away the most needed and uncommon type of housing in California.

The 1.2-acre site, south of Elk Grove Boulevard and east of Webb Street, is surrounded by apartments, homes and aging commercial buildings. The developer tried to take advantage of a state law that streamlines approval of dense, affordable projects in urban and suburban areas. But Elk Grove’s Planning Commission rejected the request because the property is zoned for commercial buildings, prompting an appeal that the council denied Wednesday night. Instead of trying to change public perceptions or remove barriers to a project that could help address the region’s humanitarian crisis, city leaders chose to reinforce the misguided opposition.

Several council members lamented that the development tried to capitalize on state laws that expedite affordable housing projects in cities that are failing to build enough affordable housing. At the same time, they affirmed the need for such laws by blocking the project on the grounds that “local control” is more important than housing.

Homelessness is not exclusive to Sacramento; neither is the responsibility for dealing with its far-reaching effects on the health of our region. Elk Grove leaders can’t talk their compassion into existence without action, and there’s no compassion in cracking down on unhoused people while rejecting housing that could help lift them out of homelessness.

This story was originally published July 29, 2022 at 5:00 AM.