Senate Bill 802<\/a>, which was put on hold in July 2025 after facing backlash, is again moving through the legislative process. The proposal would restructure the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency into a joint powers authority and rename it the Sacramento Area Housing and Homelessness Agency.<\/p>\nThe bill would affect Sacramento County and the cities of Sacramento, Folsom, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights.<\/p>\n
Sacramento County officials remain firmly opposed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re fundamentally opposed to the bill, uh, for a number of reasons, and the threshold reason is our analysis is that, it\u2019s not even legal,\u201d said Supervisor Patrick Kennedy.<\/p>\n
If approved, the measure would require the new joint powers authority to develop a comprehensive plan to address homelessness and housing within three years of taking effect.<\/p>\n
Kennedy and Supervisor Rich Desmond have sent a letter to Ashby seeking clarification, including how the proposal would ensure that funding decisions remain under the full control of each individual jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t seen where this would help anything. I mean adding another level of bureaucracy isn\u2019t going to make things more efficient. It\u2019s not going to make them happen sooner,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cWe\u2019re not here saying that we\u2019re done and we\u2019re claiming victory over homelessness by any means, but we do have programs that the senator\u2019s overlooking that have been very successful, including our partnership with the city of Sacramento.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashby did not provide a statement when asked to respond to Kennedy\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n
Sacramento City Councilmember Caity Maple, an early supporter of the bill, said the restructuring could improve coordination across jurisdictions.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving one place to go, no matter what your need is, you\u2019re going to get assessed and get to the right place. That\u2019s our hope with this bill,\u201d Maple said.<\/p>\n
In previous interviews, Ashby has assured the county and cities that each jurisdiction would remain in control under the proposed structure.<\/p>\n
Maple said the current system leaves jurisdictions working within their own boundaries and funding limits, which she described as inefficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of opportunities where we, if we work together, for example, pulling our funds to use an economy of scale, identifying locations in different parts of the county and the city, we could make real change right now,\u201d she said. \u201cEach jurisdiction is trying to figure out what they can do within the limits of their specific jurisdiction and the specific pot of money that they have. That\u2019s not efficient, and that\u2019s not how we do it in every other JPA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kennedy said the county is not interested in amendments to the bill. Ashby was not available for an interview.<\/p>\n
Sacramento Council begins talks to close $66.2 million budget gap<\/a><\/p>\n ABC10: Watch, Download, Read<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senate Bill 802 would reshape Sacramento homelessness response, creating a joint powerrs authority. SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. \u2014 The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-203071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-sacramento","9":"tag-sacramento-headlines","10":"tag-sacramento-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}