Sacramento council gives city manager authority to open homeless Safe Ground sites

Sacramento City Council narrowly voted Tuesday to give City Manager Howard Chan a controversial power — the ability to open new sanctioned homeless campgrounds without council approval.

It’s an atypical way for the city to open homeless shelter projects, which can include months of public meetings, controversial City Council votes and sometimes vocal opposition from neighbors of proposed sites.

“I’m asking you to trust the city manager with these difficult siting decisions,” Mayor Darrell Steinberg told the council before the vote, which passed 5-4. “In my view, he has earned that trust,” Steinberg said of Chan, who has been the city’s chief administrator since 2017.

Chan will have $5 million to stand up the new Safe Grounds — much higher than the usual $250,000 limit for projects without council approval. Chan did not say Tuesday where the new Safe Grounds would go but said they would likely be city-owned lots that are not in the city’s central core. He said he could not promise the sites would be spread equally across the city geographically.

“For me, it’s going to be very simple,” Chan said. “What’s gonna be ready.”

Council members Sean Loloee, Lisa Kaplan, Karina Talamantes and Mai Vang voted against the item, raising concerns that the sites would be concentrated in underserved neighborhoods of Sacramento’s north and south neighborhoods.

“My district right now, we are at a tipping point,” said Loloee, who represents North Sacramento, where the city likely has the highest number of usable vacant lots, a previous city siting plan found. “I don’t want all the weight to fall to the districts that are oversaturated and disadvantaged.”

The city’s only Safe Ground, located at Miller Park, is typically full. At Safe Grounds, people usually still have to sleep in tents, but have access to bathrooms, showers, drinking water and other services.

Chan would be able to sign contracts up to $5 million for Safe Ground operators without asking for competitive bids, according to the city’s staff report. Steinberg said he did not want Chan to hire contractors to run the new Safe Grounds like they have for Miller Park, but to let them be self-governing like Camp Resolution in North Sacramento.

Steinberg asked Chan to use the $8.5 million the city expects to receive from the state, and to put up bond against it, as well as use some city funding reserves.

Steinberg said the Safe Grounds should start to open within 30 to 60 days.

In a separate action, the council also gave Chan the authority to use overtime in order to clear certain camps more quickly. That action was supported by a slew of business groups.

“Today, we reclaim the Sacramento we once knew and loved,” said Carlos Chavez of the Sacramento Region Business Association.

The enforcement action passed 7-2 with Vang and Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela voting no.

“People have been asking me for something different,” Valenzuela said. “This is more of what we do now.”

The city plans to clear the large longstanding camp at W Street and Alhambra Boulevard soon, Assistant City Manager Mario Lara said. During that sweep, the city plans to offer everyone spaces at Safe Grounds, the way it did with a recent sweep at 28th and C streets, city officials have said. Around the time of that sweep last month, the city moved 19 people to Miller Park, Lara said.

Amid pressure by Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, the council also agreed to start banning homeless camps around Sacramento Superior Court and the nearby D.A.’s office downtown.

The council Tuesday voted to add both properties to a list of so-called critical infrastructure properties where camps are not allowed within 25 feet.

The existing list of critical infrastructure, which the council first adopted in 2020, includes schools, child care centers, City Hall, community centers, hospitals, levees, rivers, colleges, police and fire stations and light rail stops.