Homelessness will get worse in Sacramento until governments get their acts together | Opinion
Sacramento’s response to the worsening homeless crisis is at a crossroads.
Civic leaders, including the county district attorney and the presiding judge of the Sacramento County Superior Court, have separately expressed growing frustrations with city officials as unhoused people have congregated in large numbers around court facilities.
Downtown business leaders are fed up with people sleeping on city streets and frustrated by the proliferation of homeless encampments in the city’s urban core. Complaints abound that some residents of these encampments have menaced their employees and customers.
The frustration among city residents, business owners and homeowners is understandable. But the people elected to solve community problems can’t simply exploit that frustration and call it leadership. That’s where we are in Sacramento today; we lack unified government leadership willing to come together in a new and broader partnership to expand the response to the homeless crisis. Right now, some silos are blaming others, and the problem simply gets worse.
Opinion
The nucleus of a broader partnership already exists. Last December, after years of friction, the Sacramento City Council and Sacramento County Board of Supervisors approved a five-year agreement. Both sides committed to dedicating additional assets to the crisis, including 400 more shelter beds and 10 new “encampment engagement teams” to assess more residents of the streets and seek to provide them with more services.
This was a helpful start. But it was only a start.
The scope of the partnership focuses solely on the back end of the homeless crisis, those now on the streets. The front end of the crisis is Sacramento’s dramatically higher rents and the lack of affordable housing, which is driving residents to live in their cars or in tents.
District Attorney Thien Ho is seeking a greater law enforcement response from the city, as he embarks on a misguided investigation into potential civil or criminal violations committed by unspecified city officials. So is Michael Bowman, the presiding judge of Sacramento County Superior Court.
“I respectfully request that the Sacramento Police Department increase its presence near our downtown court locations, jury and employee parking lots, and that code violations be enforced,” Bowman wrote in his June 29 letter.
Both Ho and Bowman see the problem. Yet both must be part of the solution through a broader government partnership that includes their respective institutions.
A greater police response to homeless individuals who are violating a law or an ordinance will dramatically increase the caseload of the district attorney. Will he commit the necessary resources? To make the maximum use of his limited resources, will Ho and his staff coordinate closely with the very Sacramento city officials they are now investigating to identify and focus on the most troublesome street behavior?
A higher caseload for the District Attorney would mean a higher one for Judge Bowman at the Superior Court. Bowman oversees what could be a more active array of “Collaborative and Specialized” courts. They range from recovery treatment to drug diversion to mental health to chronic nuisance offenders.
If Sacramento, as requested by the judge, targets homeless encampments for stepped-up enforcement, will the court provide the necessary resources and capacity to convert this enforcement into positive change for those needing help? Will court leaders work with the city, the county and the district attorney to better synchronize their greater efforts?
Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper recently advanced a provocative idea to elevate a person’s third drug possession case into a felony with the intent of steering this chronic user into treatment. This is an example of how one leader’s idea changes how others must manage the criminal justice system. The sheriff provides law enforcement to more residents than Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester. The limited focus on the city by Ho and Bowman is misplaced. Moreover, one could argue that Cooper’s own department worsens the homeless crisis by releasing prisoners from county facilities in downtown Sacramento.
Will Cooper make good on a campaign promise to “be a better neighbor” and direct his deputies to transport released prisoners back to the communities where they were arrested instead of turning them loose in downtown Sacramento?
What we are learning as this crisis deepens is how some governments working together is not enough. All of our officials must make good-faith efforts to work together.
No more letters, no more investigations, no more complaining about the city on talk radio. It is time to pick up the phone.
