Sacramento Buys Vacant 102-Acre Meadowview Road Lot To Help Homeless Community

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — The City of Sacramento is spending $12 million on a vacant lot to help the homeless.

The 102-acre property on Meadowview Road south of Florin was bought from the federal government.

For now, city officials are planning to open it as a safe parking site for people living in their cars and a place to provide access to bathrooms, showers and other services. And in the longer term, the site could be used for affordable housing.

"We are finally acquiring the right sites to be able to stand up what is needed to provide the relief that all of our business corridors and neighborhoods deserve," Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said in a news conference Friday. "[To] actually help the people who are living in such disparate tent encampments and car encampments across the city."

City officials believe the safe parking site will open sometime this year.