Ariane Lange
The Sacramento Bee
(TNS)
The Sacramento Fire Department will lead the city’s new inter-agency emergency response to homelessness, Mayor Darrell Steinberg announced Wednesday in his second of three State of the City addresses.
Assistant Fire Chief Brian Pedro will head up the effort, which will include the Department of Community Response, the Sacramento Police Department, code enforcement, behavioral health workers from Sacramento County, park rangers and outside nonprofit providers that contract with those agencies.
In his speech, given at the future site of a sprawling WellSpace Health facility, Steinberg said he had been struck by the urgent, synchronized response he witnessed during the harsh storm that hit Sacramento on New Year’s Eve. He said the city and county needed something similar for the “man-made disaster we call homelessness.”
“Homelessness is not a one-time natural disaster,” Steinberg said. “It’s ongoing.”
This approach will enable better real-time response to crises, he said, as well as greater accountability.
He emphasized that he believed it was possible to “not solve, but help make better” the issues unfolding on the city’s streets.
Several members of the City Council were on hand for the address, as well as officials from Sacramento County and county Board of Supervisors Chair Rich Desmond.
Steinberg acknowledged that city workers “cannot credibly offer people somewhere to go immediately” with the current number of emergency beds. On any given night, all spots are taken, leaving thousands on the street with no options. Of the 6,664 unsheltered people across Sacramento County, 75% were in the city of Sacramento, and 20% were in the unincorporated county. A small amount were in suburban cities.
Still, he said, he voted for stricter enforcement of city ordinances limiting where homeless people could set up encampments, saying that code enforcement is an important part of the strategy for addressing homelessness.
Currently, the city is under an injunction preventing it from evicting homeless people from their camps during dangerously hot weather. During a panel that followed Steinberg’s address, Assistant City Manager Mario Lara referenced the injunction’s “limits” on the city’s options. Many people in the crowd laughed when the mayor cut in, “Oh, that.”
Steinberg obliquely addressed the ongoing controversy stoked by Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, who has launched an investigation into the city for, in his view, inadequately enforcing city ordinances to keep homeless people from living on sidewalks by clearing their encampments. He said, “I will say this: Our county criminal justice system must also be a full partner.”
A significant number of homeless people, the mayor pointed out, are individuals who were released from our county jail right back into homelessness.
Steinberg told the crowd that the spiraling homelessness crisis — the county has said that for every one person moved into housing, three more people will enter homelessness — is a problem of systemic poverty.
Stienberg’s final address as part of the State of the City series will take place Friday when he outlines efforts to create a long-term source of funding for affordable housing and make investments to build a transit-friendly and climate-resilient city. The speech and panel discussion will take place at 9 a.m. at the ARY Place Apartments, 1717 S St., in Richmond Grove’s R Street corridor.
On Monday, the mayor and a panel discussed ways to build engagement across the capital through supportive policies aimed at boosting Sacramento’s music scene.
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