is supposed to be Northern California’s largest homeless shelter.<\/a><\/p>\nIt was originally scheduled to open last December, but a week into April, it’s still an empty building and a dug-up parking lot.<\/p>\n
“Government works slowly, but it should not be working this slowly,” Desmond said.<\/p>\n
Businesses along the Watt Avenue corridor say opening the shelter is critical to reducing neighborhood crime and blight.<\/p>\n
“People want to make sure that they are safe to go back and forth, whether they work there or they’re going to frequent a business,” said Jhason Wint, executive director of 80 Watt Business District.<\/p>\n
Sacramento County spent just under $23 million to purchase the property in October 2022, paying nearly $6 million above the appraised value.<\/p>\n
Plans call for building a facility that can accommodate 350 people, with emergency shelter beds, sleeping cabins, and parking spaces for people who sleep in their vehicles.<\/p>\n
“This is the model that shows the most promise to get people to voluntarily get off the streets and deal with the challenges they’re facing,” Desmond said.<\/p>\n
The county says it’s behind schedule due to problems with the property’s utilities, fire protection, storm drains and other construction issues.<\/p>\n
It’s now more than $1 million over the original contract price.<\/p>\n
“It really ties our hands in terms of doing more for the people who are out there on the streets,” Desmond said.<\/p>\n
Some people who live in nearby communities are disappointed by the delays.<\/p>\n
“It seems like so many times government things take forever to happen, if they happen,” said Fair Oaks homeowner Mel Sattler.<\/p>\n
The county is not releasing an updated opening date, but Desmond is hoping some part of it will be up and running by this summer.<\/p>\n
“There are an awful lot of people that are on a waiting list that are ready to go,” Desmond said.<\/p>\n
The total project cost is now estimated to be $64 million. Once it opens, the shelter will also offer showers, meals, laundry and behavioral health counseling.<\/p>\n
In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Months behind schedule and more than $1 million over budget, Sacramento County’s new homeless shelter on Watt Avenue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1493,121,357,123,122],"class_list":["post-255267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-homelessness","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-county","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255267","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=255267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}