Sacramento City Council Races to Clean up After Homeless

Following a late Tuesday vote, the Sacramento Department of Public Works is set to receive a $400,000 funding increase in an effort of step up its homeless waste disposal project.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg called the mitigation package “very significant” as the city council believes the money will hopefully help to offset the unpleasant amount of waste and trash left behind by homeless persons who aren’t able to be housed by shelters. “Certainly cleanup and addressing the impact of homelessness is absolutely essential,” Steinberg said.

The Mayor added, “I refuse to continue to preside over modest success, because we’re better than that,” and “we’ve helped hundreds, and now it’s time to turn it into thousands.” He also noted that the $400,000 measure is only a small part of a much larger plan set to be introduced next year.

It is no secret Sacramento’s homeless situation is an ever increasing issue as the city council declared a shelter crisis earlier this month. Furthermore, it is projected that 3,665 homeless reside in Sacramento while over 2,000 of those people are not able to acquire shelter due to overcrowding. This is a drastic comparison to neighboring San Francisco where there is only an estimated 7,000 homeless but the city’s overall population is nearly double.

So what exactly are newly designated funds being used for? As provided by the Mayor’s Office;

• $150,000 for the remainder of the fiscal year ending June 30 to fund two additional waste workers and pay disposal fees.
• $125,526 to buy a small rear loading garbage truck and pay for fuel
• $32,000 to buy a “gator” truck to clean up human waste

The money is in addition to an already $5.6 million state grant that is part of the Homeless Emergency Aid Program which is set to be available in early 2019. Although the measure may sound massive, it is a relatively minute portion of the city’s $1.1 billion budget.