{"id":372153,"date":"2026-06-23T23:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T23:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/372153\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T23:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T23:23:08","slug":"safe-camping-site-for-homeless-individuals-opens-in-sacramento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/372153\/","title":{"rendered":"Safe camping site for homeless individuals opens in Sacramento"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Abridged version:<\/p>\n

A new safe camping shelter opens this week in the River District, aimed at providing shelter for up to 125 people living on the streets north of Downtown Sacramento.<\/p>\n

The city of Sacramento is providing tents, restrooms and a small amount of storage for people in the shelter. The shelter does not include air-conditioning or a kitchen, but will have 24-hour security.<\/p>\n

The new site arrives after a city audit recently found there was \u201cno strong link to positive outcomes\u201d for people in Sacramento\u2019s network of shelters. <\/p>\n

A new safe camping site will soon open in Sacramento\u2019s River District, as part of the city\u2019s latest efforts to provide respite for people living on the streets.<\/p>\n

The River District, just north of Downtown Sacramento, has one of the region\u2019s highest concentrations of homelessness. Sacramento leaders gathered Tuesday morning to mark the opening of the new site aimed at providing basic shelter and amenities for people who are homeless in the River District.<\/p>\n

Outreach workers with the city have begun signing up people who may shelter at the site, which is expected to have its first tenants by Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The site has capacity for up to 125 people and provides basic access to restrooms and showers. Staffers who work with the city\u2019s homelessness programs said the shelter will also help them connect homeless individuals to the region\u2019s broader network of health services and housing resources.<\/p>\n

Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty said the new safe camping sites are part of a \u201cmenu of options\u201d the city is providing to individuals who are homeless.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are too many people who are still languishing on our streets, and sometimes, unfortunately, dying on our streets,\u201d McCarty said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd look, this isn\u2019t perfect,\u201d McCarty said. \u201cThere\u2019s not individual A\/C units for everybody here, there\u2019s not individual bathroom facilities \u2026 But, I\u2019d like to go for a walk 100 yards down the street and ask, is it better than what we have outside?\u201d<\/p>\n

The new shelter opens as Sacramento County has over 7,400 homeless individuals, including 3,944 who are unsheltered, according to a point-in-time count conducted in January. The count marks a 12.7% increase from the last count in 2024, and is lower than the peak count of nearly 9,300 in 2022.<\/p>\n

City provides tents, storage and chairs<\/p>\n

The new safe camping shelter has a \u201clow barrier\u201d for entry, and is not aimed at any specific populations of homeless individuals beyond people currently residing in the River District.<\/p>\n

The amenities on the site are simple as well.<\/p>\n

The site includes 100 wooden platforms for tents, sized just smaller than 8-by-8 feet, that sit on gravel. Each platform comes with a city-provided tent, a raised cot, two storage bins and a lawn chair.<\/p>\n

The camping platforms are all placed under tall, arching shade structures. There\u2019s no air-conditioning on the site, but shelter managers plan to bring in swamp coolers and fans during the summer months.<\/p>\n

During the winter, the city will switch out the current tents on the site for a more insulated variety that are \u201cmade for ice fishing,\u201d said program manager Hezekiah Allen.<\/p>\n

The shelter also has a common area, spaces for behavioral health and service providers, a trailer with shower stalls and a lineup of port-a-potties. The shelter does not include air-conditioning or a kitchen, but will have 24-hour security.<\/p>\n

\"homelessThe new safe camping site has 100 raised platforms for tents. (Tyler Bastine)<\/p>\n

The city of Sacramento spent $2.5 million on the construction of the site, and yearly operations are estimated to cost $1.2 million, according to city manager Maraskeshia Smith. Those costs including maintenance, community oversight and security services.<\/p>\n

The shelter also marks Sacramento\u2019s latest attempts at safe camping.<\/p>\n

The city previously leased property to a self-governed camping site known as Camp Resolution for about 17 months. In August 2024, however, the city deemed the safe grounds camping site a \u201cfailed experiment\u201d and forced the site<\/a> to close.<\/p>\n

Brian Pedro, director of the city\u2019s department of community response, reiterated that the new safe camping site functions differently and will maintain a \u201cgood neighbor\u201d policy.<\/p>\n

City shelters cycle back into homelessness<\/p>\n

The city of Sacramento spent $63.2 million on its homeless shelter programs between fiscal years 2024 and 2025. Despite that, a recent city auditor\u2019s report found there was \u201cno strong link to positive outcomes\u201d for people receiving shelter services.<\/p>\n

More than half of the people who entered the city\u2019s network of shelters, tiny homes and motel rooms return to homelessness, a recent city audit found. At the city\u2019s largest tiny home shelter on Roseville Road, 65% of people returned to homelessness or had an unknown outcome after leaving the shelter.<\/p>\n

The audit also found that the city of Sacramento hasn\u2019t consistently defined how program success should be determined, \u201cmaking it difficult to measure overall performance and progress\u201d toward the city\u2019s shelter goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese sites are not enough,\u201d said Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum, who represents the River District. \u201cThis is a step in the right direction, but we have a tremendous amount more work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"pressCity manager Maraskeshia Smith speaks at the new safe camping location on June 23, 2026. (Tyler Bastine)<\/p>\n

Permanent solutions \u2018could take a while\u2019<\/p>\n

The mayor, the city\u2019s homelessness director and the city manager acknowledged that bringing people to more permanent stability would be a complicated and lengthy path.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe long-term solution is to get people into housing, but that doesn\u2019t happen right away,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

The recent city audit found that the average length of stay in most of the shelters was more than 100 days. For some shelters, including the city\u2019s motel voucher program, the average stay was more than six months.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that it doesn\u2019t take six months to a year,\u201d Smith said. \u201cYou have to remember these people have to get jobs, they have to get IDs, they have to get services \u2026 so it could take a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Felicia Alvarez\u00a0is a reporter at Abridged covering accountability. She\u2019s called Sacramento home since 2015 and has reported on government, health care and breaking news topics for both local and national news outlets.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged version: A new safe camping shelter opens this week in the River District, aimed at providing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-372153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372153","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=372153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}