Sacramento homeless, C St. near/around Stanford Park. (Photo: sacra.org)
Step Over the Delirious Drug Addict to See Sacramento’s Urban Dreams Art
While the art projects are beautiful, it feels more like lipstick on a pig in filthy Midtown Sacramento
By Katy Grimes, August 12, 2025 7:38 pm
Sacramento’s new Urban Dreams Art Experience is really interesting, and will surely make people smile when they see any of the 12 new pieces of free-standing art, including the giant squid on top of Mulvaney’s, a fabulous local restaurant.
However, while Midtown Sacramento welcomes the objet d’art, the city should start with the human element – the homeless drug addict encampments throughout Midtown, and the sidewalk filth they leave.
“Step into a living, breathing dreamscape during the Urban Dreams Art Experience from August 9 – September 14 where Midtown will be transformed into an open-air gallery of wonder with 16 large-scale, immersive art installations,” the Urban Dreams Art Experience website says.
It should say, “Step over the Delirious Drug Addict” into a living, breathing hellscape.
It saddens me that this is Sacramento’s reality.
As the Globe recently reported, “The City of Sacramento Department of Community Response received a $12.35 million ‘Encampment Resolution Funds grant‘ to purchase and construct additional tiny homes for homeless vagrants.
And it wasn’t just $12 Million in taxpayer funds for another 100 tiny homes, another $6,274,629 and $6,832,903 in government (taxpayer) grants fund the two non-profit organizations tasked with managing the homeless drug addicts and the new 100 tiny homes.
This is on top of the City of Sacramento providing tiny apartments in a renovated old downtown hotel which cost more than $445,000 per unit for about 250 square feet of living space.
There are many more examples of the ineffective “housing first” policy – old motels renovated, trailers provided, shelters, and none of it has worked, and billions in taxpayer funding spent, and we still have thousands of drug addicted homeless vagrants living on city streets.
So while the art projects are beautiful, it feels more like lipstick on a pig; the art would be better displayed in a clean and safe city where residents and visitors didn’t have to step over passed-out or sleeping drug addicts.
In conjunction with Sutter Health’s Midtown Second Saturday, The Urban Dreams Art Experience is presented by the offices of Mayor Kevin McCarty and Supervisor Phil Serna and is a collaboration between Midtown Association, Visit Sacramento and Sacramento Valley Spark.
A California native and Navy mom, Katy lives in Sacramento, CA.
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February 27, 2023
I like that squid atop Mulvaney’s, but if you were to hang the Mona Lisa in a filthy, grimy gas station bathroom it would be worse than having no artwork there at all. For crying out loud.
SOOOO much money wasted on useless, even harmful “Housing First” and the homeless-vagrant situation is worse than ever. When and where is this finally going to END?
Ha, good point!
A Mona Lisa in a dirty gas station is great imagery!
It would then get vandalized or destroyed..
I moved to Sac a several years ago and couldn’t wait to get out…heat, crime, and homeless camps. I periodically and very reluctantly return for stuff I can’t get up the hill.
I’ve even volunteered to clean up homeless camps and trash along the waterways and quite honestly, the local government agencies makes that a wasted effort.
Compared to other places I’ve lived, Sac is an absolute disaster.
@Craig, I commend you for at least trying. The problem is the Commucrats want society to deteriorate so they can gain power.
While I support public art installation and any efforts to beautify our public spaces, the City needs to prioritize public health and safety by tackling the homeless vagrancy problem head on. The focus needs to be on treating addiction and mental illness. Treatment IS housing. In addition, there are number of these folks, who need to be prison instead of roaming our streets. Downtown and Midtown Sacramento look like a zombie apocalypse.
That serpent looking “art” contraption thing on the roof looks like it was cobbled together from some junk left behind on the street by some homeless drug addict. Leave it to Democrat Mayor McCarty and Democrats who control Sacramento to waste millions of dollars on useless junk while the city’s streets are full of potholes and cracks, homeless are everywhere, public schools are abysmal failures, and crime is rampant.
@Samantha, I was thinking the same thing. Does it make sense to bring an expensive painting into a home that is inhabited by a hoarder?
Clean this dump up!