City of Sacramento
City Council - 2PM Report
915 I Street Sacramento, CA 95814
www.cityofsacramento.org
File ID: 2025-00904 4/29/2025 Item 25.
Homelessness Workshop: Approval of Strategies Addressing Homelessness in the City of Sacramento
File ID: 2025-00904
Location: Citywide
Recommendation: Review, comment, and provide direction on the development and implementation of new strategies for increasing the capacity of the City’s temporary shelter program across the City, including but not limited to piloting the development of interim housing micro-communities featuring ultra-affordable, efficient housing serving targeted and specialized populations.
Contact: Brian Pedro, Director, (916) 808-7816, [email protected], Department of Community Response
Presenter: Brian Pedro, Director, (916) 808-7816, [email protected], Department of Community Response
Attachments:
1-Description/Analysis
Description/Analysis
Issue Detail: Homelessness is an issue that impacts communities without regard to geographic or political boundaries and for which there is no single answer or approach. The City of Sacramento plays a significant role in addressing homelessness and has been working in partnership with the County of Sacramento and the Sacramento Continuum of Care to create a systemic approach to addressing homelessness. The City has made significant investments of resources to increase access to and availability of shelter beds, services, outreach and permanent housing to those experiencing homelessness. Despite those investments, the crisis of unsheltered homelessness persists and continues to impact the entire community, including those experiencing homelessness, businesses, and neighborhoods.
According to the report of the 2024 Point-in-Time Count (PIT) for the County of Sacramento, on a single night in January 2024, approximately 6,615 persons were experiencing homelessness in the County. Approximately 3,944 of those people were unsheltered. Within the City of Sacramento alone, approximately 3,053 people were experiencing unsheltered homelessness. This population includes
File ID: 2025-00904 4/29/2025 Item 25.
veterans, women, children, persons with disabilities, seniors, and other vulnerable groups. People without shelter lack adequate sanitary facilities and are vulnerable to theft, crime, and extreme weather. These conditions threaten the physical and mental health of those experiencing homelessness. They also present a threat to the public health and well-being of the community.
While the report of the 2024 Point-in-Time Count indicated a 28.7% decrease in homelessness in the County of Sacramento since the 2022 Point-in-Time Count, monthly data from the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) indicates an increasing trend in the number of people experiencing homelessness since January 2024. The persistence of homelessness in our community and the continued rise can be attributed to the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; struggles with disabilities and chronic health conditions; and the continued challenges with housing affordability. Housing prices and rental rates continue to increase based on the scarcity of available housing.
The City’s response to homelessness has grown and evolved over the past eight years; especially in 2020 when the City began receiving State Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program (HHAP) funding, which has been used to significantly expand our shelter-bed inventory. In August of 2023, Council also granted the City Manager authority to do all things necessary and convenient to implement a temporary shelter program, including but not limited to safe ground camping sites and motel rooms (Ordinance No. 2023-0015).
Because of these efforts, the City currently funds 18 shelter sites across the City with 1,375 total bed capacity, with an annual operating cost of $34.5 million. It is important to note that this does not include maintenance costs of existing shelter facilities. Staff is currently working to renegotiate contracts to lower costs and anticipate savings that will be used to pilot new programs or cover increased costs to provide other ancillary services like citywide cleanup associated with homeless encampments.
The County of Sacramento funds and is in the process of bringing online new shelter programs that will bring their total bed capacity to approximately 1,500+. In total, there are approximately 3,380 emergency beds nightly County-wide, including privately funded programs. Despite the large number of shelter beds in the community, according to the Coordinated Access System (CAS), there are approximately 3,200 people and 700 families waiting for shelter space in Sacramento County.
Persistent challenges to the City’s current response to homelessness are prevalent and include high annual program operations cost, particularly the provision of services, reduced State funding, and the continued lack of permanent supportive housing or housing at a level that shelter clients are able to afford. As a result, shelter clients are staying in emergency shelters for months and years.
As City staff look to continue operating homeless response programs with reduced funding allocations, the Department of Community Response (DCR) is actively working to reduce contract
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budgets and evaluate the effectiveness of a variety of programs to consider how to bring more people inside to shelter or housing at lower costs, how to create throughput with the current lack of housing affordable to people experiencing homelessness, and whether there is another form of more cost-effective and efficient housing solution for people on a fixed-income, particularly seniors.
We have found that programs such as bare-bones safe ground/safe-parking do not offer adequate and durable support to people experiencing homelessness. Alternatively, creating small communities with a sense of belonging in a price range that can be sustained with a fixed income could be impactful and accelerate opportunities for people to live in a safe and stable environment.
City staff is currently developing new strategies for quickly increasing the capacity of the City’s temporary shelter program across the City. One of these strategies is the development of interim housing micro-communities featuring ultra-affordable, efficient housing serving targeted and specialized populations.
Policy Considerations: The proposed actions and strategies implement the City’s Housing Element programs H43. Housing for Extremely Low-income Households, and H37. Surplus Public Lands. In addition, strategies to increase the availability of housing is consistent with the Sacramento Regionally Coordinated Homelessness Action Plan (RCHAP), adopted in March 2024. The Project supports Solution 6 - Permanent Supportive Housing, which seeks to expand housing opportunities and capacity dedicated to meet the housing needs of people experiencing homelessness.
Economic Impacts: Not applicable.
Environmental Considerations: This report provides direction to staff for the development of interim housing micro-communities, which is not a project pursuant to CEQA Guidelines section 15378 (b) (5), and therefore not subject to CEQA per Guidelines section 15060(c)(3). 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.
Rationale for Recommendation: Housing supply, especially extremely affordable, efficient housing will have the most direct impact on the reduction of homelessness. Recommendations in this report seek to implement strategies to reduce ongoing operating costs and accelerate the production of low- cost efficient housing that can be stood up quickly. Investment in this type of housing is necessary to
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reduce homelessness in the City of Sacramento.
Financial Considerations: No new funds are being requested as part of this report.
Local Business Enterprise (LBE): Not applicable.