Council allocates $67.5 million for affordable housing, youth, community projects
The Sacramento City Council took another major step toward fulfilling the promise of Measure U Tuesday by allocating $67 million in the mid-year budget for affordable housing, youth, participatory budgeting and new neighborhood amenities.
Members of the City Council listen to a presentation in January on the success of the SacYouthWorks program.
Funds became available because the Covid pandemic did not hit sales tax revenues, which include Measure U, nearly as hard as projected. Cannabis revenues also did unexpectedly well.
Tuesday’s allocations follow the expenditure of $89 million in federal stimulus CARES Act fund on community priorities aimed at helping Sacramento small businesses, families and arts and cultural organizations rebound from the pandemic.
Responding to a request from Mayor Darrell Steinberg, the Council voted Tuesday to allocate $31.5 million to the City’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
The money would allow the City to begin jump starting affordable housing right away, without having to take on bond debt, which Mayor Steinberg had previously proposed and had been endorsed by the City Council— pending a general fund stress test and review by the City Treasurer. The mayor’s goal is to eventually create an $100-million affordable housing trust fund, which could still involve City bonding in the future.
“We may come back to the bond in six months or a year, but if we can avoid indebting the city for millions of dollars for 30 years, I think that’s a prudent way to go,” Mayor Steinberg said. “We’ll build some great, great projects.”
Another $6 million would go to youth spending categories that could include mental wellness, academic support, violence intervention and workforce development. Championed by Vice Mayor Jay Schenirer, the effort is called the Children’s Budget and is being developed in partnership with the community.
Schenirer said so far more than 130 people from 71 organizations have participated in four workshops developing the priorities for youth spending.
Another $1 million was earmarked for the start of a participatory budgeting process in the city.
The mid-year budget contains investments in a number of significant Council priorities, including:
$2 million to help stand up the Office of Community Response, a new department created to reduce the need for a police response to homelessness, mental health and other social service calls. This adds to $3 million previously allocated.
$5 million for the relocation of the North Sacramento Library to a new and expanded location on Del Paso Boulevard.
$4.5 million for the long awaited Sacramento River Parkway Bike Trail on the river between Garcia Bend Park and Zacharias Park.
$4.4 million for the City’s climate action efforts, including three new full time positions to advance the recommendations of the Mayors’ Commission on Climate Change.
$1.5 million for improvements to Mama Marks Park, where a 9-year-old girl was fatally shot during a weekend of gun violence in October.
