Sacramento (Monday, Jan. 4) On Tuesday, Jan. 5, Mayor Darrell Steinberg will ask the Sacramento City Council to officially declare reducing homelessness a top priority and launch the process for developing a city-wide master plan for siting, financing and operating sheltering solutions to bring thousands of people indoors.

Mayor Steinberg will also ask the Council to approve restarting the issuance of a $100-million bond to build affordable housing and permanent supportive housing in the city. Council members approved the concept in January 2020, but bond issuance was stalled because of the pandemic and its effect on City revenues.

By voting yes on Tuesday, the Council will commit itself to holding a series of workshops and engaging in intensive community outreach and site review over the next several months – culminating in a June up-or-down vote on the resulting master plan. Staff members from the City will work with their counterparts at the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency and Sacramento County, along with local stakeholders, to evaluate sites and determine their best use—i.e. for a Navigation Center, tiny homes, safe parking, etc.

While the Council vote applies only to the City, Mayor Steinberg said he and other officials would continue reaching out to and working with their counterparts at Sacramento County, which has responsibility for delivering human services in the county, to make the plan a joint effort. One workshop will be devoted to exploring the potential for establishing a large, service-rich campus to shelter people experiencing homelessness in the city and county and help them move into permanent housing. One model of such an approach, the Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas, has received considerable attention and study in Sacramento.

The City’s new Grove cabin community for transition aged youth in north Sacramento

Council members will be asked to lead the outreach in their districts. “One of the key principles of this proposal is that the City Council members, including me, directly engage with our community in wrestling with the question of where we can locate sheltering solutions,” Mayor Steinberg said. “My colleagues are the leaders in their districts and it’s going to be up to them to shape this in a positive way.

“The homelessness crisis in Sacramento and along the entire West Coast has reached a scale that cannot be addressed by fighting over each site proposed in each neighborhood on a case-by-case basis,” Mayor Steinberg added. “Let’s have the discussion as a community once and for all and come up with a master plan for addressing what we can all plainly see is an unacceptable and inhumane status quo.”

Councilmember Katie Valenzuela said urgent and comprehensive action is needed. Valenzuela recently convened a new task force to address homelessness in District 4, which includes the Central City.

“Last night, another unhoused person was found dead on our streets,” she said. “We urgently need to bring people living on the street indoors. The only way to do so successfully and at-scale is to have a clear roadmap and commitment from the Council and all stakeholders, including unhoused individuals and advocates. I commend the Mayor for bringing this forward and look forward to the robust citywide discussion that will hopefully result in action as soon as possible.”

Councilmember Jay Schenirer agreed that a piecemeal approach is not sufficient to meet the growing homelessness crisis. “To meet the challenge of homelessness in Sacramento, we need to think holistically and comprehensively,” he said. “Developing a master plan provides a roadmap for our work and resources, as well as providing a platform for how we can best work with our stakeholders.”

The City’s ongoing efforts to address homelessness would continue during the creation of the plan. These included the construction of a new Navigation Center near the WX Freeway at Broadway and Alhambra and the conversion of a motel in south Sacramento to permanent supportive housing.

Both private and publicly owned sites will be considered for inclusion in the master plan, which will also identify resources needed to prevent homelessness and provide rental assistance and other resources to Sacramentans who are housing insecure.

The measure proposed Tuesday also would direct City Treasurer John Colville to conduct a general fund stress test and analysis of debt ratios needed before issuance of an affordable housing bond. Falling interest rates have given the City more borrowing capacity.

If the treasurer gives the green light, and a bond goes forward, Mayor Steinberg said he will seek to ensure a sizable portion of the proceeds are earmarked to build affordable housing in the vicinity of UC Davis’ planned Aggie Square knowledge and innovation hub at Stockton Boulevard and Second Avenue. While Aggie Square promises to bring thousands of jobs and cutting-edge life sciences research to 10 acres of the UC Davis Sacramento campus, community groups have raised concerns that it will drive up housing prices in the adjacent Oak Park neighborhood.