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.
View Comments (22)
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!