Mayor Darrell Steinberg proposes right to housing, obligation to accept it
Sacramento (Aug. 11, 2021) Mayor Darrell Steinberg has proposed that Sacramento adopt a first-in-the nation right to housing for those living outdoors and a parallel obligation for people to accept housing when offered.
Mayor Steinberg made his proposal on Wednesday, June 30 in his 2021 State of the City address. Watch the speech here and read the full text here.
Many details remain to be worked out in the coming months, but the mayor pledged to get to work immediately on writing the ordinance in a “fair, achievable and comprehensive way.”
The growing crisis of unsheltered homelessness is the most pressing issue facing Sacramento and other California cities. Mayor Steinberg co-chaired Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Council of Regional Homeless Advisors, which in Jan 2020 called for a statewide right to housing. While legislators have subsequently introduced legislation that would establish such a right, it has not been enacted.
Establishing a right to housing would be a legal spur to require Sacramento to devote the resources necessary to shelter and house those living on the street. The 2019 Point in Time Count for Sacramento County found that 5,570 people experienced homelessness on any given night, with 3,900 of them unsheltered. The numbers have grown despite the fact that Sacramento Steps Forward, which coordinates homeless services, estimates that the combined efforts of the City and County have housed 13,449 people since 2017.
The City took a big step toward increasing the number of spaces available for people living on the street when the City Council voted unanimously on Aug. 10 to adopt a comprehensive siting plan for homeless housing solutions. The siting plan designates enough land around the city to house more than 5,000 people at a time in safe camping spaces, tiny homes, shelters, transitional and permanent housing — all with services to transition them out of homelessness. In the coming weeks, the council is expected to consider a funding plan that would total $100 million over two years, with most of the money coming from state and federal sources.
Even though the City is poised to make significant progress, Mayor Steinberg believes that in order to reduce homelessness long term, government must recognize that housing is a human right — not a commodity that is only available to those who can afford it. Sacramento would be the first city in the country to adopt such a comprehensive proposal.
New York City has the right to shelter for women, women and families – the result of a court ruling four decades ago. Massachusetts has a right to shelter for families and Washington, D.C. has one that applies only during freezing weather or when temperatures exceed 95 degrees. Mayor Steinberg noted that no jurisdiction that he’s aware of has combined a right to housing with a parallel obligation to accept housing when offered. This is a key requirement to get chronically homeless people indoors where they can receive treatment for mental illness and substance abuse, he said.
“There is no liberty in dying alone on the street,” he said. “Sometimes, people are so ill that they cannot help themselves.”
The mayor is not proposing any criminal penalties for those who refuse shelter, but says the City should be able to tell people who have refused offers of housing that they can’t remain in the squalid encampments that now cover many city sidewalks, vacant lots and freeway underpasses.
The New York Times: Sacramento Mulls a New Homeless Strategy: Legally Mandated Housing
