Once homeless, David Drelinger now challenging Eric Guerra for Sacramento council seat
David Drelinger, an activist and paralegal, is hoping to unseat longtime Sacramento City Councilman Eric Guerra in this year’s election.
The former foster youth said he decided to run for council after he brought an idea to Guerra’s office about tiny homes for the homeless and was “rebuffed” by a staffer.
“They wouldn’t give me the time of day,” Drelinger, 40, said.
Drelinger’s idea was to use Conex shipping containers to create tiny homes for the unhoused, modeled after a project in Los Angeles, on various vacant lots along south Sacramento’s Stockton Boulevard.
Drelinger said he cares about the unhoused partly because he used to be unhoused in Sacramento himself — first as a 17-year-old after aging out of the foster care system and again in his early 30s.
“That’s what makes me who I am,” Drelinger said. “I’m not a politician. I’m a fighter and a problem solver.”
Guerra also used to live in his car prior to his election to the council in 2015.
Drelinger holds a Juris Doctor degree, and works as a paralegal and legal document assistant, focusing on expungement services for former foster kids, he said.
A Tahoe Park renter, Drelinger said he would be in favor of making the city rent control ordinance more strict. The current Tenant Protection Act, which expires at the end of this year, allows for annual 10% rent increases.
“More tenant protections mean fewer unsheltered families,” he said.
In addition to the housing and homeless crisis, Drelinger said he is passionate about police reform. He wants the city to add more traffic cameras near schools, stop approving new military equipment for the department, and also require additional racial bias training to police officers.
An Office of Public Safety Accountability audit last year revealed that the Sacramento police do have a “continued occurrence of unlawful stops, searches, and seizures” that violate community members’ Fourth Amendment rights, specifically Black and Latino residents.
Drelinger said he would not want to increase nor decrease the police budget, which hit an all-time high $228 million in the current fiscal year.
When it comes to campaign donations, Drelinger’s campaign is very grassroots, he said. He is not accepting any money from special interest groups, only individuals.
“I don’t wanna be in anybody’s pockets,” Drelinger said. “I wanna vote from the heart and what’s utilitarian for the district.”
The primary will be held March 5. If no single candidate receives at least 50.01% of the vote, the winner will be determined in the general election Nov. 5.
In addition to Guerra and Drelinger, realtor Katherine “KC” Schuft and plumbing business owner Kevin Rooney are also running for the seat.
