Local government leaders from across the Sacramento region are meeting next Tuesday to figure out how best to collaborate on an issue top of mind for many Californians: homelessness.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty announced the meeting at his first state of the city address earlier this week. He called it the first-of-its-kind, noting it will bring together the county and six major municipalities in the region.
“We need to partner, share our resources, to maximize success,” he said Monday.
According to a press release, the meeting will gather 20 elected representatives, local nonprofits and city staff from each jurisdiction present. Those include the city and county of Sacramento, and the cities of Elk Grove, Galt, Folsom and Citrus Heights.
The non-profits in attendance will include Mercy Housing, Sacramento LGBTQ Center, My Sisters House and the Salvation Army, among 25 or so more.
The meeting will take the shape of a standard council or board meeting and will include a public comment portion.
A county spokesperson said elected officials will discuss current challenges and visions for the future. There will also be county staff tabling and offering information to the public during scheduled breaks during the meeting, which is projected to go until 5 p.m.
The gathering comes amid McCarty’s push to create tiny home villages for unhoused seniors across Sacramento, which is one of his central approaches to tackling homelessness during his first year as mayor.
Though the meeting is hailed as the “first-of-its-kind”, some advocates for Sacramento’s unhoused aren’t convinced it will make much progress.
Niki Jones is the executive director of the Sacramento Coalition to End Homelessness. She told CapRadio she fears the meeting could exclude the very population it’s aiming to help.
“I’m worried that simply putting decision making in the hands of the elected leaders [won’t] get to the solutions we really need.” She said, “I believe it to be sort of a rearranging of the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.”
Jones said the city and county of Sacramento have historically not had the smoothest relationship when it comes to collaborating on a regional homelessness strategy.
“The county and the city – for the last decade that I’ve been observing – they have each pretty consistently set blame and responsibility on the other,” she said. “They have accused one another of being bad partners.”
Jones acknowledges in the last couple years there has been more coordination and hopes that a productive relationship can continue.
Twana James, a formerly unhoused Sacramentan living at Woodhaven Apartments, said she hopes the elected leaders take into account what constant sweeps do those living on the streets.
“You keep taking their stuff and then moving them, and then you want them to trust you,” James said. “They’re not gonna trust you because you keep taking their stuff. They’re gonna be in panic mode.”
The meeting will take place Tuesday, October 28 at 10 a.m. at the Sacramento Public Library at 828 I Street in Downtown Sacramento.
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