The city of Sacramento broke ground Friday on a new safe camping site for people living on the street in the River District, near Richards Blvd. and I-5.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The city of Sacramento broke ground Friday on a new safe camping site for people living on the street.
The city-owned lot is at 291 Sequoia Pacific Boulevard, surrounded by mostly commercial properties, just off Richards Boulevard near I-5.
“This is an opportunity for us to help folks that are currently living on the streets in the River District get off the streets,” said Phil Pluckebaum, the city councilmember who represents the River District.
He said the safe camping site will have space for 100 tents, offering individual raised platforms to keep them off the ground and canopies to help shield them from the rain and sun.
Those canopies are a direct improvement upon issues at a previous safe camping site in Miller Park, city leaders say, where exposure to the elements was a recurring problem.
Other amenities at the fenced-in River District site will include restrooms, dog kennels, garbage collection, phone-charging stations, case management, 24/7 security monitoring and a robust Good Neighbor Policy, according to the city.
“It is an incremental step. It is by no means the final destination for anyone. This is not permanent supportive housing,” Pluckebaum said. “This is just a place to provide security, storage and some dignity for the folks that are currently living outdoors.”
City leaders say some people experiencing homelessness have a tough time transitioning from the street directly into an organized indoor environment, so this safe camping site will provide a low-barrier alternative. Also, the city says a safe camping site like this is less expensive to construct than more permanent facilities and serves as the first step in the city’s shelter continuum.
It is just one of several city-owned properties identified and assessed last year for new shelters sites.
At a September city council meeting discussing the sites, neighbors shared their concerns.
“Our concerns with this site include the fact that it says ‘criminal activity will be grounds for exit.’ Where will they go? They’ll just go back to the neighborhood,” said River District executive director and resident Devin Strecker, adding the shelter is “going to be for up to 120 people, but we have approximately 200 people or more living on our streets. Where are those other people going to go?”
He brought letters of opposition from nearby business owners, property owners and homeowners.
“These are not NIMBYs; these people are already coexisting with the highest concentration of shelter beds. We have over 526 beds in the district,” Strecker said. “How long will this be here? Is this going to be a permanent location in our district?”
Mayor Kevin McCarty acknowledged neighbors’ concerns.
“There’s no perfect location. I know the people in the River District are saying, ‘Why here? Why not somewhere else?’ But I guess that’s the point, is that we can’t say, ‘Go somewhere else.’ We need to be everywhere in the city of Sacramento,” McCarty said. “If you look at the map, we are literally in every district now.”
The city currently has about 1,300 shelter beds. McCarty said the new sites – including the River District one – would bring that number to about 2,300.
So long as everything goes according to plan, the city expects to open this site in about three months – by late spring or early summer. The City’s Department of Community Response will manage intake and operations at the new site. Services will include access to behavioral health clinicians provided through the city-county partnership
Three other vacant city-owned parcels – in districts 1, 5 and 8 – are set to become micro-communities.
Each will contain approximately 40 tiny home units, focusing on specific populations like unhoused seniors.
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