Sacramento City Council approves deploying 63 tiny homes within 50 days
In order to accelerate implementation of the City’s recently adopted “safeground” ordinance, Mayor Darrell Steinberg Tuesday won unanimous approval of a resolution to get 63 tiny homes erected and occupied by unhoused residents within 50 days.
Last month, the council approved an emergency ordinance allowing for quick permitting of temporary tent encampments, safe parking lots and communities of tiny homes, trailers or sleeping cabins to house people experiencing homelessness.
Such encampments now require only an administrative permit to locate on any assembly site, such as a church property, or on sites in commercial or industrial zones at least a half mile away from another temporary shelter or sensitive uses like schools, childcare centers, parks or museums. Such temporary encampments will be permitted as long as the City continues to operate under a declared Shelter Crisis.
Tiny homes by Pallet Shelter can be assembled in minutes.
But no such permits have been issued since the ordinance was adopted Jan. 20. Mayor Steinberg’s tiny home plan aims to quickly create small communities around the city with the help of City Councilmembers.
The Sacramento City Council earlier this year allocated up to $4 million to buy tiny homes that could be supplied to organizations wishing to locate them in communities for the unsheltered. That money is expected from the state in mid-spring.
Readily available tiny homes and cabins, some originally developed for disaster relief, can be deployed and assembled within days or even minutes. The City’s mid-year budget contains $1 million to buy the tiny homes and help establish other Safeground sites. City Manager Howard Chan said the tiny homes are expected to cost about $10,000 each.
Under Mayor Steinberg’s leadership, the City has deployed a range of long and short-range strategies to deal with the growing problem of unsheltered homelessness. The City has opened hundreds of new shelter beds and is currently working on a master plan for siting homeless housing solutions all around the city.
To meet the short term need, the City has opened warming centers at the Library Galleria downtown and the Southside Park poolhouse, and a safe parking location at the City Hall garage (10th and I streets). In December it started issuing motel vouchers to unhoused families, and is currently up to about 300 vouchers at night with plans to expand further.
