Apr 21

Apr 21 State funding crucial to stand up more homeless housing solutions, Mayor Steinberg says

Getting people off the street, Keeping people housed

Sacramento (April 21, 2022) Mayor Darrell Steinberg Thursday invited the media to tour the City’s La Mancha Apartments permanent supportive housing project to illustrate the importance of direct state funding to cities to address the crisis of homelessness.

La Mancha opened in 2021 as the City’s first Homekey project. The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency and Mercy Housing took a south Sacramento hotel and converted it to 100 units of permanent supportive housing for people who had been homeless. Two other Homekey projects will soon open— one in North Natomas and one in downtown Sacramento.

The mayor was joined Thursday by SHRA Executive Director LaShelle Dozier and Stephan Daues of Mercy Housing. Several residents of La Mancha shared how the project helped them exit homelessness, find a job or enroll in school.

Veada Pinkney, 49, said she had been sleeping in a park for more than a year when she was offered one of the studio apartments at La Mancha. In the 14 months she has been living there she has obtained her driver’s license, a job and a car.

“You gave me an opportunity when I was losing hope,” Pinkney said. “You gave me a place to take a bath, to cook, to eat, and I said I wasn’t just going to keep laying on my back and keep wasting my life and wasting time.”

Funding from the state’s HHAP program was critical in making this project work. A $2 million grant from HHAP is being used to help La Mancha operate for the next 10 years by filling the gap between what tenants pay in rent and the cost of the intensive case management and support services needed for residents.

Mayor Steinberg is joining the mayors of California’s 13 largest cities to ask that the governor and legislature approve $1 billion annually for fiscal years 23-24, 24-25 and 25-26 to go directly to cities as a continuation of the HHAP funding they are relying on to run the programs, sheltering and housing options created in response to the growing crisis of homelessness.

Other critical facilities that depend on HHAP for funding include the City’s Meadowview Navigation Center for women, its Grove cabin community for young people from 18-24 years old, the expanded shelter on North Fifth Street, the new navigation center on X Street and youth shelters like the LGBT center in midtown, Wind Youth Services and Waking the Village.