6PM City Council (Special Meeting)
Meeting Time: 08-09-22 18:00
eComments Report
Meetings Meeting
Time
Agenda
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6PM City Council (Special Meeting) 08-09-22
18:00
13 3 1 0 0
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6PM City Council (Special Meeting)
08-09-22 18:00
Agenda Name Comments Support Oppose Neutral
1. Rescind Ordinance 2022-0110 or Adopt an Ordinance Amending Ordinance 2022-0011, and Adopt a Resolution Rescinding Resolution 2022-0110 and Placing the Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022, as Amended, on the November 8, 2002 Municipal General Election Ballot File ID: 2022-01492
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Agenda Item: eComments for 1. Rescind Ordinance 2022-0110 or Adopt an Ordinance Amending Ordinance 2022-0011, and Adopt a Resolution Rescinding Resolution 2022-0110 and Placing the Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022, as Amended, on the November 8, 2002 Municipal General Election Ballot File ID: 2022-01492 Overall Sentiment
Cathy Creswell
Location:
Submitted At: 10:22am 08-09-22
Please see the attached letter from the Sacramento Housing Alliance urging the Council to rescind the proposed ordinance.
Matthew Kessing
Location:
Submitted At: 9:51am 08-09-22
We are in the position we are now because of decades of kicking the can down the road with respect to affordable housing all over California. Addressing shelter needs is needed, but any shelter space that is added will be quickly overwhelmed if the underlying causes are not addressed. Build more housing, and take deliberate steps to clear the existing Section 8 voucher backlog to prevent people that need housing vouchers from slipping into homelessness.
Muriel Strand
Location: 95820, Sacramento
Submitted At: 6:58am 08-09-22
Section 4.B of Ordinance No. 2022-0011 should read "a legally-binding memorandum of understanding that, at a minimum,
memorializes the respective roles of the city and county to CONTINUALL Y PARTNER TO END HOMELESSLESS in Sacramento County."
Also, the MOU must include actual affordable housing. City and County must again require actual construction of affordable housing matching the population needing housing. And the City and County must regulate all distant absentee owners of all affordable housing, so as to prevent and reverse predatory real estate market operations.
Finding permanent solutions for housing for the poor will be even more important when climate refugees start showing up here in a few years.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez recently reported that county annual expenses per homeless person were around $60,000, and for a formerly homeless person was about $40,000. But the cost of preventing a family from becoming homeless was only $5000!
909 12th street Suite 114| Sacramento CA 95814
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SHA
Board of Directors
Cathy Creswell
President
At-large
Paul Ainger
Treasurer
Volunteers of America
Valerie Feldman
Secretary
At-large
LaShawnda Barker
At-large
Stephan Daues
Mercy Housing
Tamie Dramer
Organize Sacramento
Jenn Fleming
Mercy Housing
John Foley
Sacramento Self Help
Housing
Nur Kausar
At-large
Stanley Keasling
At-large
Alicia Sebastian
California Coalition for
Rural Housing
Rachel Smith
Rural Community
Assistance Corporation
Holly Wunder-Stiles
Mutual Housing
California
August 9, 2022
Mayor Steinberg and Council Members
City Hall
915 I Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear Honorable Mayor and Council Members:
RE: Council Agenda Item 32. The Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022
On behalf of the Board and members of the Sacramento Housing Alliance we urge the Council to pull the ill conceived and shortsighted measure from submittal to the ballot and work to develop immediate and long term solutions to the crisis of homelessness in our City. While the ultimate solution is providing sufficient affordable housing, especially permanent supportive housing, we recognize more immediate action is needed to protect and serve those living on the streets. That is why we supported the City’s efforts to increase the number of shelters available in every council district and its commitment to Housing First policies. We have also appreciated the Mayor’s leadership in developing more resources for the development of affordable housing. These strategies lay an important foundation as the City has continued to work to address the affordable housing crisis. Sadly, this misguided and cruel ordinance, developed by business interests without Council or community input, is clearly designed to criminalize homelessness with only an inadequate commitment to building shelters AND NO commitment to building desperately needed permanent supportive housing. In fact, implementing and enforcing this ordinance will take critically needed resources away from building more affordable housing and is inconsistent with the City's Housing Element obligations and the City's commitments to the State when it received its Prohousing designation.
The Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022 purports to require the City to provide sufficient shelter for unhomed people. When the City achieves that objective, they are authorized to enforce anti-camping requirements, confiscate property and forcibly remove people. However, Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022
the ordinance fundamentally flawed in that it only requires shelter spaces for a small percentage of the need. Specifically the the City must be a threshold of shelter spaces equal to 60% of the Point in Time count. .
Then in order to start enforcing the anti-camping, the City is only required to show that they have shelters spaces equal to 20% of the 60%! In addition, the ordinance implies the City will be providing emergency shelters (which most people assume will include services, etc.) when the actual language only commits the City to providing enclosed or partially enclosed spaces of 70 square feet and make only a reasonable effort to connect unhomed people with appropriate services.
The proposed ordinance is also directly inconsistent with other adopted City policies and general plan commitments. Specifically:
1.Inconsistent with the Housing Element
SHA worked diligently with City staff as the City went through the process to update and adopt the mandated housing element of the general plan.
The City’s housing element included detailed analyses of the affordable housing needs and committed to implementing programs and policies to meaningfully address those needs including Housing First policies and programs to support building more affordable housing. The City’s element was found in compliance by the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD).
Unfortunately, the City’s actions to place this ordinance on the ballot could jeopardize the City’s compliance with State Housing Element law and HCD’s finding of compliance. No city or county can adopt a land use action that is inconsistent with the general plan, or any element within the general plan. Lesher Communications, Inc. v. City of Walnut Creek (1990) 52 Cal. 3d. 531. The City of Sacramento’s adopted 2021-2029 Housing Element includes Policy H-7.1 to promote housing first principles. The Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022 which requires prioritizing an increase in funding and resources for temporary and inadequate shelter and enforcement of the ordinance is clearly inconsistent with the City’s own adopted Housing Element policy (Policy H-7.1) and would therefore be void upon adoption. Id. In addition, the ordinance is also directly inconsistent with Policy H-7.9 to Remove Barriers to Accessing Shelters. The City has consistently acknowledged the need to address the identified barriers to entering shelter, including the need for shelters to accept pets, property and partners. The ordinance is only permissive about removing barriers; Section 12.100.020 E. only indicates the “city manager may allow emergency shelter spaces to accommodate partners and pets…” This permissive language is Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022
fundamentally inconsistent with Policy H-7.9 which commits the City to remove barriers to accessing shelter.
The Ordinance is also inconsistent with other Housing Element programs and policies. As an example, Program H-7.4 Permanent Supportive Housing requires the City to facilitate and provide permanent supportive housing options that offer appropriate services so that people experiencing chronic homelessness can maintain permanent housing.
This Ordinance commits the City to do the opposite: spend limited resources on providing inadequate temporary shelter or penalizing the people who do not accept, or for reasons related to a disability, cannot accept the temporary shelter option. Promoting additional construction of inadequate temporary shelter is inconsistent with the City’s obligation to facilitate permanent housing.
2.Inconsistent with the State awarding the City a Prohousing Designation
Compliance with the City’s Housing Element is also required as part of the City obtaining a Prohousing designation from the State of California. The Prohousing Designation provides increased funding opportunities for the City to build affordable housing by providing priority for the City to access those funds in the statewide competition. If the City fails to comply with the obligations in its housing element, it risks losing this designation and again, creating additional obstacles to creating permanent affordable housing. The City also received this designation by indicating it would implement several policies related to facilitating and expediting housing production. The diversion of resources needed to implement this Ordinance will impede the City’s ability to fulfill the programs which were the basis for the City receiving the Prohousing designation. In addition, Housing Element Program H11. Prohousing Designation, commits the City to receive and maintain the designation through the sunset date of January 1, 2025. As noted above, the inconsistency between the ordinance and the City’s housing element could make it impossible for the City to keep that commitment.
3.Inconsistent with the State Required Duty to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing
In addition, Government Code section 8899.50 requires every local agency, including local governments, have a mandatory duty to “administer its programs and activities relating to housing and community development in a manner to affirmatively further fair housing, and take no action that is materially inconsistent with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing. Gov. Code section 8899.50(b)(1) and (2). Ordinance Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022
No. 2022-0011 identifies that a majority of people experiencing homelessness are people of color and other members of protected classes, yet the Ordinance would actively segregate the individuals and families experiencing homelessness to isolated government required encampments or risk criminal penalties. In addition, the enforcement of the ordinance will have a disproportionate impact on members of protected classes further victimizing communities that have suffered from historic discrimination.
4.Violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by state and local governments and their programs. Discrimination under Title II of the ADA includes administration of programs in such a way that has a discriminatory effect on people with disabilities. The City must provide a reasonable accommodation to a person with a disability if an accommodation is necessary for the person to comply with the Ordinance. The Ordinance indicates that the City may provide a reasonable accommodation if necessary. This is not discretionary; the City’s ordinance must provide a reasonable accommodation for a person with disabilities if one is necessary to comply with the requirements of the City’s ordinance. In addition, the City’s housing element identifies the need to promote reasonable accommodation and identifies six specific policies to support older adults and people with disabilities. A permissive policy on reasonable accommodation is also inconsistent with the City’s adopted housing element goals and policies.
We urge the City to reject this ordinance, which did not go through any public vetting or consideration before the City Manager proposed it to the Council. This ordinance was proposed by business interests and the City Manager without any input from the community, people with lived experience, community-based organizations and the affordable housing building and advocacy community. Sacramento is facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis that deserves real solutions; to get people off the street and provide the needed affordable and permanent supportive housing. This ordinance does neither and will criminalize homelessness and divert critically needed staff and financial resources to enforce an inhumane ordinance.
Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022
The City of Sacramento should instead devote resources to create a real pathway home for our unhomed neighbors by effectively and expeditiously implementing its adopted housing element, housing first policies and investing in building more permanent supportive housing.
Sincerely,
Kendra Lewis, Executive Director Cathy Creswell, Board President Sacramento Housing Alliance Sacramento Housing Alliance