Sacramento: Hapless on Homeless

The present day Sacramento homeless situation came to national attention in early 2009 when television journalist, and Sacramento native, Lisa Ling broadcast footage of what now would be considered a relatively small encampment along the American River on the then hugely nationally popular Oprah Winfrey television show. At that time Sacramento homeless was estimated to be about 1200 people. Newly elected Mayor Kevin Johnson immediately reacted with the creation of Sacramento Steps Forward to address the problem and associated aspects. Additional private organizations and public entities became engaged. Though tens of millions of public and private dollars and effort was locally expended, the problem only became worse with an exploding Sacramento homeless population. 

Safe Grounds, Homeless Default and False Solution

Safe Grounds homeless camping areas, distributed around the city, are too often the homeless impact “answer” advocated by many, including the present Mayor and by three major candidates for Mayor. That, at first glance, is a seemingly laudable concept to distribute the problems caused by homeless camping around the city rather than concentrating homeless caused problems into industrial areas or a few neighborhoods. 

With further thought, this “equally distribute the misery” concept is an unnecessarily expensive manner to provide the services most needed by homeless, including counseling on drug, health, and matters related to returning homeless to employment in the regular work force. By widely distributing sites of homeless service needs, those that provide services must every day pointlessly expend useless hours traveling among those sites, requiring additional staff to provide a given level of services, creating unnecessary additional expenses, rather than solutions. A single campus is far more cost effective.

Further proliferation of Safe Grounds sites solves absolutely nothing but short term political expediency. 

Creative Solution: Produce Locally and Employ Homeless, Rejected by City Hall

Several years back, Mayor Steinberg announced that the city would acquire five hundred tiny homes, accommodating two residents each, to house homeless. A contractor approached the city with a concept to set up a production line to produce those tiny homes within the city and when the five hundred units were delivered, produce and market to other jurisdictions. A major aspect was to employ homeless on that production line and work with construction unions to include those so trained into union apprentice programs, where homeless could become productive and self-supporting citizens. There was zero interest from City Hall to that creative solution. Further, years later, the five hundred Steinberg promised number of tiny homes have still not fully materialized. 

Steinberg Illegal Tax Proposal

Last fall, to great press fanfare, Mayor Steinberg proposed a sales tax to have proceeds divided between housing and transportation, which is blatantly illegal. Article II, Section 8(D) of the state constitution states, “An initiative measure embracing more than one subject may not be submitted to the electors or have any effect.” Transportation and housing are two subjects, not one, therefore, it would not even be allowed to be on the ballot. In a recent debate, one candidate to be the next Mayor supported this obviously illegal action. 

Sacramento Homeless Services Audit

The City Auditor has been engaged in assessing the cost and effectiveness of Sacramento homeless efforts for far too long, giving rise to suspicion that the Mayor and some City Council members do not want an unbiased assessment of the very expensive and largely ineffective city efforts in a publicly issued report, especially in an election year. The report has finally been released and it does show that city government homeless expenditures exceeded what is required for a Sacramento version the Haven for Hope model of proven effectiveness, explained below.

Sac DA Lawsuit

Last year, Sacramento District Attorney Thien Ho sued the city for not enforcing laws and ordinances regarding homeless camps and blocking sidewalks, which received national press attention. Ho had received thousands of complaints by citizens relating horrific experiences with homeless, many of which were drugged up and dangerous. There soon came false accusations that the District Attorney was just seeking publicity and higher office. During his run for District Attorney, Thien Ho told me that Sacramento City Hall had taken a radical interpretation to the 9^th US Circuit Court Boise decision on homeless camping on public property that was not supported by the actual text of that decision, and that the city should take corrective action. Reading that court decision, one comes to the same conclusion. Though this litigation is still in process, it does illustrate another conspicuous failure of Sacramento City Hall. 

Proven Homeless Solution and Proposed Optimal Site

Haven For Hope in San Antonio, has been nationally acclaimed and highly successful at dealing with homelessness and addiction, operating since 2010. That single campus model has been part of the Sacramento discussion and articles for years, spurred forward by the Hope for Sacramento organization. Visits to the San Antonio facility by supporters of a Sacramento version of Hope and a few political office holders have not brought about a serious Sacramento governmental effort. 

The ideal site for a Sacramento version of Hope is yet to be considered, that being the already publicly owned Rancho Seco venue. As a former nuke reactor facility, it already has high security features, huge infrastructure of electrical, water and sewer, and far more than sufficient currently unused acreage possessed by no other site in the Sacramento region. The prolific drug dealers that thrive off of the homeless would be effectively locked out, and shuttles could take residents to other areas. Rancho Seco already has railroad tracks so that transportation is also an option, also not possessed by any other site.

Rancho Seco now has a four hundred acre park, and while once site of a nuclear reactor, there is no residual radiation problem, unlike the fabricated claim of one City Council member.

A Rancho Seco single campus homeless Hope site would also render real hope to the long homeless plagued and beleaguered Sacramento central city businesses and residents.  

Conclusion

Sacramento seems to only fund endeavors long proven to be failures, such as “housing first,” unsustainable heavily subsidized and excessively expensive new construction and conversion of historic buildings far better suited to upscale (and property tax paying, unlike the above mentioned) housing.

Worse, after expensively acquiring central city hotel properties for homeless and low income housing, there is now the effort to get more hotel rooms in that area for regular commerce.  

Homelessness is only the most conspicuous of the numerous failures in recent years by Sacramento City Hall. Demise of the world’s largest jazz festival and the prospective loss of the almost hundred year old Sacramento Zoo, are more of Sacramento City Hall obvious failures of recent years.  

Sacramento residents have been badly served by their elected officials and deserve better.