Sacramento’s Pocket neighborhood needs more affordable housing | Opinion

When I walk through the quiet parks and scenic river levee paths of Sacramento’s Pocket neighborhood, I see more than just a beautiful area. I also see a severe housing crisis that is hurting our community.

As a social work student, I study how hard it is to find affordable housing. As a sister and an aunt, I have lived through the tragic human cost of this situation. My own sister and her husband were hardworking citizens who simply lost their home. Forced to live in their car, they had to place their 16-year-old son with family. The deep hopelessness of losing their home led to a downward spiral of addiction that eventually cost them their lives, leaving my nephew an orphan.

Look around the Pocket. Affordable housing is like an endangered species. And this endangers the fabric of the community.

Imagine the quiet panic of being priced out of the place you call home because housing costs have surged over $630,000 in our neighborhood. For working-class families and individuals, this is not a simple relocation; it is a traumatic fracture of their daily lives.

This financial displacement casts vulnerable people out of their familiar communities, tears away the foundational stability every human being needs to feel secure and forces them into an exhausting, day-to-day struggle just to survive, leaving them stranded in the fragile corners of the city.

This is a humanitarian crisis unfolding in our own backyards. Because stable housing costs too much, we see a visible rise in homelessness. The Pocket does not have the massive camps seen in downtown Sacramento. Instead, unhoused people must seek shelter in our neighborhood parks and parking lots. Simply moving a tent from a park to a river levee does not solve systemic failure. It only hides it.

Currently, our city’s response is disconnected. On one side, city workers and park rangers clear out temporary camps, pushing individuals one block to the next. These individuals don’t magically get a house; they just walk down to the river levee to hide. On the other side, local nonprofits and churches scramble to hand out food and basic supplies. This endless game of musical chairs only shifts the crisis; it doesn’t solve it.

To fix this crisis, we must address the root cause: We do not have enough homes that the average wage earner can afford. Data gathered by local housing agencies reveals that the growing gap between small paychecks and high housing costs is the primary reason people lose their shelter. If we want to keep public spaces clear, we need to build more affordable homes.

We need to aggressively expand and diversify our housing supply, and that means more affordable housing options directly within established, high-opportunity communities like the Pocket. We must embrace modern zoning methods that move beyond traditional single-family models and build more affordable apartments, duplexes and multi-family homes, particularly near local transit lines and commercial areas.

National research from housing networks proves that creating a dense mix of affordable apartments allows lower-income workers to live near their jobs, preventing the displacement that leads directly to the streets.

To achieve this, the Sacramento City Council has a profound opportunity to be the visionary champions our community desperately needs. True leadership isn’t just about managing a crisis; it is about building a legacy of compassion and foresight. Our city leaders have the power to greenlight vital projects and stand as protectors of our workforce, our families and our shared future. The city also needs help from the state for funding, and from the development community to make new housing a reality.

By welcoming diverse housing options into the Pocket, the city council can show the region that we do not have to choose between beautiful neighborhoods and human lives. We can bravely choose both, ensuring our legacy is one of strength, inclusion and permanent stability.

My nephew represents a generation of young people whose future depends on the choices we make today. We cannot stand by while housing costs tear our community apart and drive our neighbors into despair.

It is time to demand real solutions from our city leaders. By urging our city council to welcome affordable apartments and support aggressive residential buildings, we can replace short-sighted park sweeps with permanent stability.

Damaris Vasquez is a graduate student at the University of Southern California earning a professional master’s degree in social work. She lives in Sacramento.