Partnership agreement to reduce homelessness adopted by Sacramento city and county
Sacramento, Calif. (Dec. 6, 2022) – A first-ever partnership agreement between the city and county of Sacramento to increase outreach, shelter, mental health, and substance abuse services to people experiencing homelessness was passed Tuesday by the City Council and the County Board of Supervisors.
Mayor Steinberg joined city and county leaders on Dec. 1. From left to right (Supervisor Rich Desmond, Mayor Pro Tem Eric Guerra, Mayor Steinberg, City Manager Howard Chan, Councilmember Jeff Harris, County Executive Ann Edwards, County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy.
“There’s no easy or instant solution to our crisis of homelessness, but this gives us a real path to making the situation better for our neighborhoods and for those suffering on our streets,” said Mayor Darrell Steinberg. “This is going to require us to act. That’s got to make a difference.”
The five-year agreement includes joint outreach teams and a commitment by Sacramento County to do “whatever it takes” to meet the behavioral and mental health needs of people experiencing homelessness. The County is also in the process of increasing substance abuse treatment, with the goal of adding 500 new beds.
The county has agreed to add at least 400 shelter beds in the county and 200 beds in the city as long as it provides a site.
Under the agreement, the county will deploy mental health clinicians with outreach teams working in camps throughout the city. They will have the ability to assess people in the field and enroll them in services — something the city lacks. The city and county also will place their shelter beds in the same coordinated access system, making it easier to quickly survey available beds and place someone. The county has agreed to place a walk-in behavioral health center, known as a CORE Center, downtown.
A broad cross-section of community leaders, business leaders and people working to reduce unsheltered homelessness expressed support for the agreement at Tuesday’s meeting. “This is a big deal that is a decade in the making, and I’m so grateful to all of you for the hard work it took to get here,” said Erin Johansen, CEO of he Hope Cooperative and chair of Sacramento Steps Forward, Sacramento’s continuum of care.
“This agreement as written is extremely promising,” said Jeff Blattner, director of government affairs and public policy at the Sacramento Metro Chamber.
Mayor Steinberg said he knew of no other local governments that had entered such a joint, legally binding partnership agreement with such a commitment to provide care and assistance to everyone who needs it.
“I think it could be a very useful model for other cities and the state,” he said.
Ten teams
As part of the agreement, the City and County will create 10 new “encampment engagement teams” – staffed by a total of 50 people – to provide intensive outreach, assessment, navigation, service delivery and housing to as many people as possible in encampments within the City limits. Teams will include mental health workers from the County who have the ability and qualifications to provide a behavioral health assessment and enroll or link people to an appropriate level of mental health and substance use services.
The City has identified the initial locations for intense intervention based on its assessment of which camps present the greatest health and safety risk. They include areas such as the X Street corridor, the freeway crossings near Sutter Middle School in East Sacramento, Colfax Street, Traction Avenue, and Hagginwood Park. While it will take six months to ramp up the full 10 teams, City and County teams have already begun doing outreach together in top-priority sites in advance of the agreement’s adoption.
The City will be responsible for determining which sites the encampment engagement teams will be deployed to each day, conducting initial outreach and coordinating City services, such as solid waste removal, code enforcement and public safety protocol. County behavioral health workers will conduct behavioral health assessments in the field and in City shelters and enroll people in services. They will have the ability to write 5150 holds and petition the court to require people to receive outpatient treatment under Laura’s Law.
More shelter
In addition, the County will commit to adding 200 shelter beds within 12 months and 200 more shelter beds within 36 months. If the City provides a shovel-ready site, the County will agree to open another 200 additional shelter beds within the City.
The agreement also sets forth provisions for accountability and measuring progress with reports in open session to both the City Council and County Board of Supervisors.
The agreement between the City and County was a prerequisite for triggering “Measure O: City Of Sacramento Emergency Shelter And Enforcement Act Of 2022,” which was passed by voters in November.
