City of Sacramento
City Council - 12:30PM Report
915 I Street Sacramento, CA 95814
www.cityofsacramento.org
File ID: 2023-00995 8/1/2023 Discussion Item 5.
Ordinance Authorizing the City Manager to Implement a Temporary Shelter Program [In Lieu of Pass for Publication Ordinance to be Published in its Entirety] File ID: 2023-00995
Location: Citywide
Recommendation: (1) Pass a Motion pursuant to Council Rule of Procedure 13.B.2(b)(ii) to bypass the Law and Legislation Committee; and (2) Adopt an Ordinance authorizing the City Manager or designee to identify and open new temporary shelter sites dispersed throughout the City of Sacramento, and to do all things necessary and convenient to do so including: (a) adjusting revenue and expenditure budgets related to all funds received by the City in support of this temporary shelter program from any source, including the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency (SHRA); the federal, state, and county governments; and any other public or private source; (b) make interdepartmental transfers related to this program; (c) make financial appropriation changes and transfers of $250,000 or more necessary to implement and administer this program without City Council approval; and (d) execute any agreement up to $5 million necessary to implement and administer this program, subject to approval as to form by the City Attorney, without complying with the competitive bidding procedures in Title 3 of the Sacramento City Code and without obtaining specific authorization by the City Council.
Contact: Mayor Darrell Steinberg, (916) 808-5300, Office of the Mayor Contact: Mayor Darrell Steinberg, (916) 808-5300, Office of the Mayor Attachments:
1-Description/Analysis
2-Ordinance
Description/Analysis
Issue Detail: Unsheltered homelessness ranks at the top of issues causing concern among residents of Sacramento. The City Council has adopted various ordinances aimed at both moving people indoors and mitigating the effects of informal encampments in neighborhoods. These ordinances include requiring four feet of clearance on sidewalks and restricting encampments near critical infrastructure and schools. The City has increased its emergency shelter bed capacity from less than 100 beds six years ago to more than 1,100 today and has completed hundreds of new units
File ID: 2023-00995 8/1/2023 Discussion Item 5.
of permanent supportive housing, including two Homekey projects with a third opening soon. The City of Sacramento funds congregate shelters for adults; multiple programs for transition-aged youth, including a tiny home village and LGBT center; motel rooms for families; an Outreach and Engagement Center on Auburn Boulevard and a safe camping facility with tents and trailers at Miller Park.
Having more emergency shelter capacity will increase the City’s ability to get people into safe spaces and clean up informal encampments. The City and County of Sacramento are working together to add hundreds of tiny homes both within and outside the city limits that will be accessed through the joint Coordinated Access System developed by Sacramento Steps Forward. This partnership includes the State of California, which is providing 350 tiny homes to be located in the city.
Siting tiny homes takes time because of the need to construct the infrastructure required to serve the homes and to procure hundreds of units through a bidding process. In the meantime, the emergency shelters that serve adults are consistently near capacity, leaving the city without the ability to credibly offer individuals immediate placement in a shelter in most cases, and to require them either to accept the shelter or move.
Creating more safe camping sites and opening motels for adults would allow the city to get more people out of informal encampments while longer-term projects are being completed. On July 10, the city opened 60 new tents in an organized safe campground with services at Miller Park. The facility has been opened in stages to accommodate the workload of processing new entries, and each day the allotted slots have filled quickly. The new tents now house people who came directly from encampments designated as Level 1 by the City due to their size and the threat they pose to public health and safety. These include encampments at Alhambra and W Street; Traction Avenue, downtown, and 28
th and C streets. Outreach workers from the City’s Department of Community Response report that many of the chronically unhoused are more willing to come into an organized safe camping site than into an indoor shelter.
Giving the City Manager the unilateral plenary authority to identify sites would help ensure they are quickly and thoroughly vetted for potential issues. The previous Comprehensive Siting Plan passed by the City Council in 2021 relied on Councilmembers to identify sites, but only one of those ever opened for shelter. This record stems in part from the fact that the City Manager’s staff had not played an integral role in selecting and evaluating the feasibility of the sites and the costs associated with using them for shelter.
Having more temporary, emergency safe camping and motel facilities will enable the City to get people into a safer space immediately rather than requiring them to wait for a vacancy in one of its 1,100 existing shelter beds. Sacramento County mental health and social workers can come to these spaces consistent with the City-County Partnership Agreement to assess people and enroll them in behavioral health, substance abuse treatment, and other needed services.
File ID: 2023-00995 8/1/2023 Discussion Item 5.
This temporary strategy can end when the city and county implement their current commitments for hundreds of additional indoor beds.
This request is in addition to the city continuing to fully participate in the outreach strategies under the legally binding city county partnership agreement.
Policy Considerations: The recommendation in this report will allow the City of Sacramento to get people living on the streets into safer spaces with services while directly reducing the population of informal encampments on Sacramento streets and sidewalks.
Environmental Considerations: The proposed resolution delegates authority to the City Manager to identify and implement emergency camping and motel shelter sites and as such is an organizational activity that will not result in direct or indirect physical changes in the environment (CEQA guidelines § 15378(b)(5).) The City Manager will conduct environmental review, as necessary, as part of the review and approval of the identified sites. The extent and location of these sites is currently unknown and therefore meaningful environmental review would be speculative and is not possible at this time. (CEQA Guidelines § 15004(b); Friends of the Sierra Railroad v. Tuolumne Park & Recreation Dist. (2007) 147 Cal.App.4th 643, 653-659.)
Sustainability: Not applicable.
Commission/Committee Action: Not applicable.
ORDINANCE NO.
Adopted by the Sacramento City Council
Date Adopted
AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO IMPLEMENT
A TEMPORARY SHELTER PROGRAM
BE IT ENACTED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO:
SECTION 1.
The city council finds the following:
A. According to the 2022 Point in Time Count conducted by Sacramento Steps Forward, the estimated number of people living in tents and vehicles in the City and the County of Sacramento totaled 6,664, a 71% increase from 2019. Of these 6,664, an estimated 67%, or 4,444 people, were camping in the City of Sacramento. Participants in the Point in Time Count tallied 1,600 tents in the City and the County, a four-fold increase from the 2019 count.
B. The City of Sacramento has increased the number of spaces it operates in shelters, motels, tiny homes, safe parking lots, and safe camping sites from less than 100 six years ago to more than 1,100 today.
C. In December 2022, the City and the County of Sacramento adopted a partnership agreement that, in addition to other provisions, requires the County to open at least 200 additional shelter beds in the City limits if the City provides shovel-ready sites.
D. The City and County are currently working in partnership to find sites for and open 350 tiny homes pledged by the State of California to the City.
E. Until these facilities open, the City is limited in its ability to reduce the size of encampments because nearly all the shelter beds operated by the County and City are occupied.
F. Giving the City Manager the unilateral authority to implement a temporary shelter program, including the authority to identify sites, adjust the budget, and execute agreements, would help ensure new temporary shelter spaces are thoroughly vetted and quickly created.
SECTION 2.
Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in the Sacramento City Code, the City Manager, or the City Manager’s designee, is hereby given full authority to do all things necessary and convenient to establish new temporary shelter spaces necessary to make a visible and tangible difference on the streets of Sacramento, including but not limited to safe ground camping sites and motel rooms. This includes the authority to do the following:
a) Adjust revenue and expenditure budgets related to all funds received by the City in support of this temporary shelter program from any source, including the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency (SHRA); the federal, state, and county governments; and any other public or private source.
b) Make interdepartmental transfers related to this program. c) Make financial appropriation changes and transfers of $250,000 or more necessary to implement and administer this program without City Council approval. d) Execute any agreement up to $5 million necessary to implement and administer this program, subject to approval as to form by the City Attorney, without complying with the competitive bidding procedures in Title 3 of the Sacramento City Code and without obtaining specific authorization by the City Council.
SECTION 3.
To implement and administer the temporary shelter program specified in this ordinance, the City Manager or the City Manager’s designee may perform any of the functions specified in CEQA Guideline § 15025, subdivision (a).