Shelter and service site set to open next week for homeless in Sacramento
SACRAMENTO - A new shelter and service campus that can house up to 240 people who are homeless will be opening next week in Sacramento, city leaders announced Friday.
The campus is at 3900 Roseville Rd. in north Sacramento just off Interstate 80. It sits directly across the street from a SacRT light rail station and is not close to any residential neighborhoods.
Sixty tiny home cabins were built by Pallet, LLC, and the site houses 40 trailers. Most of these were provided by the state during the pandemic and placed at Cal Expo.
"You couldn't have selected a better site," said Brian Pedro, interim director for Sacramento's Department of Community Response. "You will have the people who will say, 'not in my backyard.' This isn't in your backyard. It's an opportunity to get more people off the streets."
The campus will also include restrooms and showers.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and the city are working together to expand electricity to each trailer and cabin for heating and cooling.
In the meantime, people staying at the campus can access a cooling and warming center. Office space will be in separate buildings on the campus for service providers, such as behavioral health specialists.
"This new campus uses existing City resources to combine humane, dignified shelter with the services people need to exit homelessness," Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said in a statement. "This site has the potential over time to help thousands of the people suffering on our streets and reduce the impact of encampments in our neighborhoods."
CBS13 got a first look at the new shelter site Friday afternoon.
"We give them bedding, pillows, a blanket. Two storage bins," said site director Justin Pagdilao on a tour of the tiny home cabin.
Their mission is not just meeting people's needs. It's building trust and community in a place that can serve as a fresh start.
"They really need that hope," said Pagdilao.
Diving into the numbers, Sacramento recorded more than 9,200 total homeless people in 2023, according to an annual report by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Of them, 72% have no shelter at all. That lands Sacramento as the fifth worst in the country for the highest percentage of unsheltered homeless people.
The top 5 are all California cities and their respective counties:
- San Jose / Santa Clara, CA
- Los Angeles, CA
- Oakland / Berkeley, CA
- Long Beach, CA
- Sacramento, CA
"For every one person coming off the street, three more people are ending up on the street. We don't have the housing supply and services to ensure they don't lose their housing when they are vulnerable," said Katie Valenzuela, Sacramento city council member representing District 4.
That's where the city and county have to put their focus if you ask Bob Erlenbusch, director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness.
"Two hundred and fifty spaces is great, but we need 1,000 at a time. We need five times that much," he said.
He calls the new shelter site exciting and promising, but only a first step in the right direction.
"They need to double down on affordable and accessible housing. Otherwise, the people in those tiny homes and trailers are not going anywhere," said Erlenbusch.
The more than seven-acre property is a former city corporation yard that was leased to the Air National Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers.
The city has evaluated more than 900 other vacant city-owned parcels. They could expand if the campus at Roseville Road reaches and maintains capacity and more funding is provided.
People staying at the city's only other Safe Ground site at Miller Park will be transitioned to the Roseville Road campus. The Miller Park site will be shut down.
The city added that the cabins at the new campus are different than the ones designated to the city by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The city said there are plans for Wellspace Health to build those on Stockton Boulevard and possibly through a Safe Stay community planned by the county on Watt Avenue.
Construction is scheduled to begin on Stockon Boulevard in the coming weeks, the city said.
Since Sept. 25, the city said outreach teams have referred more than 1,900 people to services and more than 3.5 million pounds of trash has been cleaned up.
