Sacramento County, city must stop fighting. SB 802 would force them to play nice | Opinion

Sacramento Sen. Angelique Ashby’s bold proposal to reshape how Sacramento addresses housing and homelessness, Senate Bill 802, has unsurprisingly sparked debate, precisely because it challenges the status quo and calls on our local governments to finally come together in a real way.

We can’t keep pretending the current approach is working.

Housing and homelessness are the defining issues of our time. No matter where you live in Sacramento County, people are worried about the rising cost of housing and are saddened and frustrated by the suffering they see on our streets. These challenges are deeply connected, demanding a coordinated response.

And the opposition this bill has received demonstrates exactly why it is needed.

The truth is, no one believes we are doing a good job. Not the public, and not the two separate grand juries that studied exactly this issue in 2019 and 2023. The number one recommendation from the Grand Juries in both years was to create a Joint Powers Authority to bring together our cities and the county under a single, accountable structure.

This idea is not radical: We already use JPAs to manage almost every other regional issue that crosses boundary lines including air quality, public transit, sewage, libraries and more. These models work because they create a space for our leaders to work together, share resources and make collective decisions.

So why not use the same model for the most urgent challenges we face today?

Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced a similar restructuring at the state level, creating a new agency with a nearly identical name and purpose. Ashby’s bill applies that same approach locally.

SB 802 would create a regional board modeled after the Sacramento Regional Transit District, with each city and the county receiving representation based on population. This board would retain full local control, making its own decisions about which projects to prioritize, how to fund them and where they should be located.

The bill also creates an advisory body of community members and policy experts, including individuals with lived experience of homelessness, to ensure the agency’s work reflects the needs of those most impacted.

Most importantly, the agency would be led by a professional executive director responsible for implementing the board’s policies and programs. That leadership role cannot be overstated: We need someone who is accountable to the citizens and whose job is to focus every single day on moving people off the streets and into housing. Our communities deserve that level of commitment, and so do the people who continue to suffer in a broken system.

Working together shouldn’t be controversial. But for too long, local governments have operated in silos. Right now, our region handles housing and homelessness through a patchwork of agencies and departments that often work separately. This leads to gaps in services, duplication and missed opportunities to help the most vulnerable.

Our Continuum of Care is tasked with coordinating our region’s response to homelessness, but as a nonprofit, it lacks the authority to require cities or the county to act. While the organization plays an important role in research, planning and data collection, it doesn’t have the power to ensure those plans are carried out. The result is what we see every day on our streets.

This isn’t about a lack of will or compassion. There are smart, dedicated people working hard across organizations and governments. The problem is the structure itself: We are trying to solve a regional crisis without a regional system.

We can’t keep letting a broken system fail people. Right now, at least 6,600 people in our region are experiencing homelessness, and most of them have been without shelter for a minimum of two years. We’re not building nearly enough housing to meet our region’s needs, either. So far, we’ve only reached about 27% of our Regional Housing Needs Assessment targets countywide. And, of the homes we are building, too few are affordable for working families and people living on lower incomes.

For those that oppose this path forward, I ask: If not this, then what? How many more grand juries must be convened? How much more time will it take? How many more consultants and reports do we need?

The best time to do this was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

This story was originally published July 15, 2025 at 6:00 AM.