Sacramento adopts comprehensive plan for homeless housing solutions
Sacramento (Aug. 10, 2021) The Sacramento City Council Tuesday unanimously adopted a comprehensive plan to create more than 5,000 beds, roofs and safe camping spaces to mount a comprehensive response to the growing crisis of homelessness.
The plan is the product of more than six months of intensive outreach and work by the Mayor’s Office, City Councilmembers and City staff. Now that Council has approved the list of sites and strategies, it will be the job of City staff to carry them out. Most sites will not have to come back for another Council vote before moving forward.
City Manager Howard Chan said he would return to the Council to share his implementation plan within two weeks. City Councilmembers added language requiring the City to conduct additional outreach over the best way to operate housing solutions so that they co-exist well with the surrounding neighborhood.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg will discuss the vote and answer questions from the media at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 11. The availability will be livestreamed here on Engagesac.org.
Mayor Steinberg said negotiations are ongoing with Sacramento County to partner with the county to offer mental health and substance abuse services. “The power of this is going to be the siting, the money, the mental health and substance abuse,” Mayor Steinberg said. “It’s a comprehensive approach. We want to help people out of homelessness in to a better life.”
Twenty properties, 15 of them publicly owned, are designated as priority sites for transitional housing, congregate shelters, tiny home communities, and organized campgrounds. Each of the temporary housing options will offer services designed to help people find permanent housing and exit homelessness. In addition to specific sites, the plan identifies programmatic solutions that include motel conversions, increased housing voucher usage, scattered site housing and a larger campus whose location will be determined later in 2021.
Tier 2 sites require more vetting with property owners and the community.
The siting plan is paired with a financing framework expected to total about $100 million over two years, most of it from new state and federal resources, including the 2021 state budget and the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
The resolution approved by the Council directs the City to build the housing options in consultation with the Urban Land Institute, which has made design and architectural recommendations.. The plan also describes the need to establish a good neighbor policy or set of community agreements to ensure the safety of residents, neighbors and providers. These agreements will contain specific standards for operations, security, cleanliness, and community involvement. The plan’s appendix includes a template for future use and three existing good neighbor policy documents.
While Mayor Steinberg conceived of the plan, Councilmembers were tasked with identifying sites in their individual districts and vetting them with the community in a series of meetings, presentations, and workshops.
