Sacramento Homeless Population Grows While Mayor and Council Wring Their Hands
No one is talking about where homeless are dumping their waste
By Katy Grimes, December 10, 2021 7:32 am
A large homeless encampment of 160 RVs, campers, trailers, vans and cars, was cleared from a North Sacramento industrial area last week. Crews towed RVs, trailers and cars away. GoodDay Sacramento has video, and it’s not pretty.
Lining many streets in Sacramento are battered old RVs, campers and trailers, vans, and passenger vehicles, which have become homes for many.
The homeless encampment clearing was ordered by the City, and supported by Councilman Jeff Harris representing the area.
Almost immediately, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela expressed their disappointment, criticizing the clean up.
“I was very disappointed to learn about the City’s removal of 160 vehicles being used as shelter on Commerce Circle in District 3 this week,” Valenzuela said on her Facebook page. “We should not be wasting resources on further traumatizing and harming people who have no place to go, particularly when those actions take away the only shelter that people have during the rainy and cold season which can be life threatening to people living outdoors. In the end, those efforts also fail to address the issues impacting unhoused residents, housed neighbors and business owners every day.”
“We’ve just started discussions on Mayor Steinberg’s ‘right to housing’ proposal, which will define how we can meet folks where they are and offer them real, tangible alternatives to homelessness before asking them to abandon what little they have.”
The “Housing First” plan has been a dismal failure.
Valenzuela also represents a downtown city district congested with homeless RVs, campers and trailers and beat up passenger vehicles the homeless transients sleep in. And it was in her city district in which a “homeless” transient guy out on the streets despite his recent violation of parole, raped and murdered Kate Tibbits in the Land Park neighborhood, killing her dogs and setting her house on fire.
Does the left hand even know what the right is doing in Sacramento?
Within hours, many of the vehicles that voluntarily moved were back.
Since being elected in 2014, Mayor Darrell Steinberg has facilitated the growth of the homeless transient population in the city, because it appears the more money Steinberg spends on the homeless, the more homeless move to Sacramento.
The transient homeless problem has become so prominent, nasty RVs, trailers and campers, and beat up cars line streets in the Point West area of Sacramento, near Cal Expo and the Arden Mall where upscale office buildings, apartment complexes, medical buildings and hotels are located.
RVs, trailers, campers and beat up cars line streets around public parks.
RVs, trailers, campers and beat up cars line streets under freeways.
RVs, trailers, campers and beat up cars line streets line the Jackson Highway.
RVs, trailers, campers and beat up cars line streets near municipal golf courses.
RVs, trailers, campers and beat up cars line streets near the Executive Airport.
And no one is talking about where they are dumping their waste. It’s horrific enough to see transients defecating on a sidewalk on Broadway in front of a business or restaurant, but the line of RVs under the freeways downtown have been dumping their waste in the storm drains. And they’ve been dumping their waste in the Point West area in the storm drains. And along Jackson Highway, the golf courses and airport.
Mayor Steinberg wrings his hands and rubs his worry beads while the federal government and state continue to send more money his way. So as he continues to talk about his $100 million Comprehensive Siting Plan to Address Homelessness, they just keep moving to the city.
It’s well-known that the City of Sacramento tolerates the drug addicted homeless transient population. Numerous Sacramento residents have helped homeless who wanted to get out of the life. But in every case this also required drug addiction treatment. And nearly every case is someone who moved to Sacramento from another city or from out-of-state.
The Mayor has been exposed to several successful programs dealing with homelessness including Sacramento’s St. John’s Program for Real Change and San Antonio-based Haven For Hope. But those programs actually help change the lives of the drug addicted and mentally ill by focusing first on sobriety and treatment, and then life skills.
Allowing people to live on the streets, in camps, in their own filth, is cruel. Putting drug addicts and the mentally ill in tiny homes, apartments or motels never addresses how they became homeless in the first place, or the root of the real problem whether it truly is just homelessness, or is a larger mental illness issue.
Is it any wonder business owners and residents call the city and complain about the RVs, trailers, campers and beat up cars lining the streets near homes and businesses?
In January 2018, Mayor Steinberg announced he wanted to order 1,000 tiny homes to shelter the homeless.
In 2019, Sacramento officials announced a plan to open cabin-style shelters with services for 100 homeless people somewhere in North Sacramento.
In summer 2020, Steinberg renewed the call for 500 tiny homes.
“Sacramento is home to more than 6,000 homeless, vagrants, and drug addicts living on the street,” the Globe reported in 2019.
Today that number is more than 11,000 vagrants, and drug addicts living on the streets. Some live in RVs, trailers, campers and beat up cars, while others live in tents.
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3rd world is here – democrats must be pleased
Good work. Stay on their a___s!
Well said!
Get the trumpets ready. I feel another pronouncement from the Mayor/ Homeless Czar.
Wait for it, he will announce that Sacramento is in need of more Tuff Sheds to address the crisis. He will give you a number to remember, 500 or 1000.
Phew, what would we all do without his leadership on this issue.
Meanwhile, the souls on the streets waste away in their own FILTH.
PROGRESSivism without PROGRESS!
Maybe Sacramento Democrat Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Democrats like Councilperson Katie Valenzuela who completely control the Sacramento City Council might do more than just “wring their hands” about growing homeless problem if they had the homeless encamping in front of their homes?
DS: “We need more programs and funding!”
Does anyone know how a “person experiencing homelessness” gets his/her hands on a 32′ Winnebago? Am I doing something wrong?
This is all be design. The mayor may be wringing his hands but not about the drug addicted “homeless”. He does not like the blame so he wrings his hands and pretends he was just a innocent bystander in this debacle.
What about the property owners.
The piles of garbage collected and hoarding done by these “homeless” piled on owned property is not homeless living in the streets. Landscaping is being destroyed. Private property is being invaded. Business owners and their employees are being subjected to health hazzards of human waste. If the city doesn’t remove them streets will be over run with debris.
DS: “I keep giving them everything they want — food, money, medical, etc., etc., but they just keep coming and coming, more and more every day, and from all over the country, too! I just can’t figure it out. When are all these mice and their friends get tired of the free cheese and move on?”
Well played!
Deplorables
Aren’t you sick of these articles? Depressing…..so sad….never ever a glimmer of improvement….
Per the book “San Fransicko – Why Progressives Ruin Cities” by Michael Shellenberger, ease of obtaining drugs (and open drug sales and use) coupled with generous cash payments for “homeless” are major draws for homeless to San Francisco. Is that the core issue in Sacramento, too?
Yes it is John. Nearly every “homeless” transient on Sacramento streets is a drug addict – heroin and meth. And to support their addictions, they are breaking into people’s homes, cars, garages, sheds, and businesses every day. The police don’t respond because this is not considered a “violent” crime. Our mayor has even said “it’s just property.” These are not our neighbors who fell on hard times, as our Mayor likes to say. Many of the homeless were in jail or prison, and were let out by the governor for newly reclassified “non-violent” crimes. Crimes now considered “nonviolent” under Proposition 57 in California include:
human trafficking of a child
rape of an unconscious person or by intoxication
drive by shooting at inhabited dwelling or vehicle
assault with a firearm or deadly weapon
assault on a police officer
serial arson
exploding a bomb to injure people
solicitation to commit murder
assault from a caregiver to a child under eight years old that could result in a coma or death
felony domestic violence.
This is who is on the streets.
Thanks for the reply and information. Have seen other places where the estimates of addiction/mental issues approach that level.
“It’s well-known that the City of Sacramento tolerates the drug addicted homeless transient population.”…
“Putting drug addicts and the mentally ill in tiny homes, apartments or motels never addresses how they became homeless in the first place, or the root of the real problem whether it truly is just homelessness, or is a larger mental illness issue.”
I’ll bet the “homeless” would love going into tiny homes, apartments or motels — SF fount that with putting them into hotels was easy. Drugs/booze supplied of course, with no requirements for rehab/counseling — and with private bathrooms! None of them wanted to change anything in their lives and they were reluctant to leave! Sounds like Sacto is on the “no accountability” path.
What a fine article. Another one. Says it all about what is wrong here and CONTINUES to be wrong, with apparently no end in sight. Thank you so much, Katy, for being the rare voice on this issue, for Sacramento as well as all the other cities in California that are blighted by this outrageous problem. Under such “policies” NO ONE is helped. Not the homeless/vagrant population or the taxpaying residents whose public spaces throughout these cities are completely unsafe as well as trashed, repellent, and just downright nasty.
The situation can be solved, and relatively quickly, but Mayor Steinberg and his politician clones are against that. It turns off the money faucet for him and his friends who benefit from the misery of those who are wallowing in their addictions and brain fevers and filth on our city streets.
So much money to make this the abortion capitol of America, but no money to deal with this homeless issue. Pretty much sums up Democrat priorities. Arco Arena sits and rots while it could be used as a triage area for the homeless. I also notice that these RV’s are allowed to park in the poorer neighborhoods in town but not in the upper class areas.
Millions of taxpayer dollars have been thrown at the homeless problem here in Sacramento, yet it only worsens.
Mayor Steinberg and several councilmembers should be recalled. We need new leaders who have the knowledge and commitment to end this insanity for once and all.
Comrades
Why are Commissars making your life a living hell? What’s end game, a state wide Baltimore?
I recommend a city ordinance that prioritizes all transient encampments to re-locate in all voting council members’ neighborhoods as the first option while the “solution” is sorted out….
I sold my home in Tahoe Park in Oct 2020. I lived in Tahoe Park for 23 years. I moved to Modesto a year ago to be near my elderly parents and I’ve been planning on rebuying in Sac because I’ve really missed my old neighborhood and I’ll admit I really regretted selling my adorable 1947 cottage home that I lived in for 20 years. Well, I Drove to Sac last weekend to look at a few homes; I drove all over from Rancho Cordova back down Folsom blvd toward 65th street and I could not believe the homeless tents along Folsom from Mather to 65th Street. They are everywhere in Sac. They are in East Sac now, they are on Alhambra & Broadway, under the Freeway at T and 29th, they are on W Street going towards downtown, and also on Stockton Blvd towards south Sac, and they are all along 99 near Elk Grove and you see them on 99 in Galt too. I loved living in Sac for years. I loved to drive all around the lovely old neighborhoods from midtown to Curtis Park and Land Park, and then down Freeport and back to midtown and East Sac. I miss the HUGE farmers market every Saturday between X and W streets under the freeway, and then the Antique Fair every month under the freeways on X street. They are both gone! They’ve been replaced with homeless camps under the freeways on X and W streets! And I’ve only been gone 1 year and 2 months!!! I can’t believe the change in the homeless population in just over a year. It’s an invasion. They are taking over Sacramento and none of our City officials seems to be too worried about it. And I feel very sad because I was really excited and looking forward to moving back to Sac; close to my old stomping grounds, and now I don’t know if I want to anymore. Is that what I have to look forward to, seeing homeless tents and the filth that goes with all that all over the neighborhoods that made Sacramento such a lovely town? Guess I’ll just stay here in Modesto or Oakdale with the farmers and cowboys! There aren’t ANY tent camps anywhere here. I see homeless walking down McHenry once in a while, but there aren’t any tent camps; they’d probably want to put them to work on the farms surrounding Modesto! So, they don’t seem to hang out here too long. I don’t know what’s happening but seems like everything is falling apart in the bigger cities. Time to get rid of ALL these politicians that are destroying our cities and neighborhoods with irrational and dangerous ideologies.