Sacramento organizations gather to prevent 2022 Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act

Organizations spoke out about how Measure O would demolish homeless encampments and either relocate the unhoused or criminalize and remove them if approved.

Author: Simone Soublet, Giacomo Luca (ABC10)

Published: 6:59 PM PDT August 16, 2022

Updated: 11:38 PM PDT August 16, 2022

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Advocates rallied Tuesday against a November ballot measure that they said would demolish homeless camps and potentially criminalize the unhoused in Sacramento.

Four Sacramento organizations gathered in front of Mark E. Merin's law office to discuss the 2022 Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act, also known as Measure O.

"It’s so burdensome, so ridiculous, so abhorrent, that we decided – that is these organizations we represent decided- that it should not even be put before people for a vote,” Merin said.

This comes after the Sacramento City Council voted to adopt the ordinance on April 6, 2022, relating to the Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022. and then later called for the placement of the act on the general election ballot.

Organizations such as Area Congregations Together, Sacramento Housing Alliance, Organize Sacramento, Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness and the Sacramento Homeless Union spoke out about how Measure O would demolish homeless encampments and either relocate the unhoused or criminalize and remove them if approved by voters. If passed, the measure could also require Sacramento to shelter at least 60% of the city’s homeless population within 60 days.

“At the end of the day, people are homeless for a lot of reasons," said Crystal Sanchez, President of the Sacramento Homeless Union. "This is a crisis, we are in a housing crisis. We need to stop stereotyping and discriminating against all that are unhoused is one thing, and we all need to come to this table and ask how we can make our community better and better together."

Although this measure is scheduled to be included in the general election November 2022 ballot, petitioners would rather the city of Sacramento pour money into creating real housing, developing jobs and training and providing services including mental health and drug rehabilitation.

“We expect to continue building a movement led by homeless and poor people in themselves, but involving the entire community because... everyone is at risk for becoming homeless,” said Anthony Prince, general legal counsel for the California Homeless Union.

Many showed up to voice their opinions, and Tuesday afternoon, even a few coalitions from the opposite side sent out a statement regarding the matter. 

"Any efforts to silence the voice of the voters and maintain status quo conditions for the unhoused is a distraction from real change," said Amanda Blackwood, the President and CEO of the Sacramento Metro Chamber.

Joshua Wood is with Sacramentan’s for Safe and Clean Streets and Parks, the coalition, backed by business, labor and community groups that worked with City Council to craft the measure.

“This is really a tactic to stop the measure from going on the ballot and the real reason is, it polls so high, they know it’s going to pass,” Wood said.

The coalition argues the measure will address the immediate safety concerns surrounding homelessness, while paving the way for long-term programs to solve the growing crisis.

“Our goal is to make sure that Sacramento is safe and clean and provides services and shelter to make sure that the homeless are served and in a better place,” Wood said.

Proponents of the measure have high confidence if it reaches the ballot in November that it will pass, but there remains a lot of moving parts. It’s still unclear if or how the measure will be impacted by this latest suit 

Faith leaders urge Sacramento to stop towing vehicles used as shelter by homeless people

Friday, July 1, 2022 | Sacramento, CA

Andrew Nixon / CapRadio

Sister Gloria Wadud of Masjid Sabur addresses a press conference at Sacramento City Hall on homelessness in the region Thursday, June 30, 2022.

Sacramento faith leaders urged the City Council this week to end its policy of towing vehicles used as shelter by people experiencing homelessness, a practice the council voted to continue in December.

Leaders of more than 40 congregations signed a letter asking the council to stop the towing until the city can establish designated sites for unhoused people to park. The city has opened two “safe parking” areas over the past year, and plans to open more have stalled. 

The call from faith leaders comes days after the release of a countywide survey that found nearly 1,100 vehicles are used as shelter by unhoused residents. The 2022 Homeless Point-In-Time Count also found nearly half of all unsheltered adults had to relocate their tents, vehicles or makeshift shelters due to a recent request from law enforcement. Altogether it counted nearly 9,300 unhoused residents in the county, a 67% jump from three years ago.

During the first three weeks of June, Sacramento towed 161 vehicles, said city spokesperson Tim Swanson. That figure does not count vehicles towed by police. 

Swanson said the city’s code compliance team “does not determine how a vehicle is being used by its owner” when it decides to remove it. Citing a FAQ on the city’s response to homelessness, Swanson said people who are unhoused and use vehicles as shelter “are subject to the same traffic laws and parking regulations as are the owners and operators of all other vehicles.” 

Speaking at a press conference outside City Hall on Thursday, Sister Gloria Wadud of the Masjid As-Sabur mosque in Oak Park called the policy inhumane. After natural disasters leave thousands homeless, she noted, the government provides them with shelter immediately.

“Why is that not being done for our brothers and sisters sleeping on the street,” Wadud said. “Why is that not being done? What is the difference between them and them?”

Standing outside the minivan he calls home in North Sacramento this week, Michael Hogan said he’s just trying to get by. The 39-year-old said he lost his job as a truck driver during the pandemic. When unemployment ran out six months ago, he and his wife, Jennifer Stater, lost their apartment and moved into the van with their two dogs. 

Michael Hogan and Jennifer Stater have lived in their minivan with their two dogs in North Sacramento for about six months. The couple said they could not afford their apartment following a job loss and unemployment running out.Chris Nichols/CapRadio

The couple said they were able to remain in the same spot for months, but recently police and code enforcement officials have forced them to move every three days, uprooting the little stability they have. 

Outlawing the towing policy would help, Hogan said.   

“I mean they have all these empty lots everywhere. Why can’t you just say ‘Here, you guys go here for six months. That’s what we got.’ That’d help out so many people out here. It would,” he added.

The City Council in December voted 6-3 to reject a call by Mayor Darrell Steinberg to outlaw the towing practice. Steinberg had asked for a ban on towing if residents did not have a place to relocate and find shelter. There are approximately 1,100 shelter spaces citywide, though they are typically full on any given night. 

Last August, the council approved a comprehensive homelesseness strategy intended to add thousands of temporary shelter spaces — from tiny homes and respite centers to safe camping and parking sites — at 20 locations citywide. It was spearheaded by Steinberg with the goal of ensuring sites open in each council district. 

But after opening two parking sites in early 2021, it took the city nearly a year to open a single new outdoor homeless shelter, a camping site at Miller Regional Park. City staff and council members have said bureaucratic hurdles along with neighborhood opposition have bogged down progress. 

But as encampments spread further into residential areas, some neighborhood groups argue the city should retain its towing policy, regardless of whether safe parking sites have been established yet.

Dolores Sanchez said she’s sympathetic to the plight of unhoused people and helped homeless residents for more than a decade through volunteer work at her church. But she’s also advocated for the city to remove the growing collection of RVs, trailers and other vehicles used as shelter in her East Sacramento neighborhood. Sanchez claims they attract a larger group of people and illicit behavior. She added that she’s witnessed prositution, drug-dealing, fires and the dumping of trash at the sites. 

“Allowing people to just park anywhere they want is having an impact on taxpayers and renters and homeowners,” Sanchez said. “My quality of life, having lived here since 1988, has vastly changed and not for the better.” 

She encouraged the faith groups to open their parking lots and doors to unhoused residents as one solution. Many already open their doors as respite centers on the hottest and coldest days of the year.

In December, several business groups opposed Steinberg’s proposal to stop the towing practice, saying the growth of vehicle encampments has led to illegal dumping and car break-ins, making customers and employees feel unsafe. 

Speakers from the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and California Asian Chamber of Commerce all urged council members to vote “no” on the policy.

Robert Engle, who owns a property on Western Avenue near an encampment, was one of dozens of people who called into the City Council’s December hearing to oppose the proposal.

“The invasion of these homeless in our area is a crisis,” Engle said at the hearing. “They bring in squalor. They bring in contamination. They are not tax-paying residents of Sacramento. They are transient, so the consideration that they are somehow constituents is ridiculous.”

In a written statement, Steinberg said he will continue to push for all levels of government to be “legally obligated to provide shelter, housing, and mental health care for those in desperate need, and that people have the same legal obligation to accept that.” 

Mary Lynne Vellinga, Steinberg’s chief-of-staff, said there are no current plans to bring his proposal to end the towing practice back to the council.

Sacramento faith leaders urge City Council to vote to stop towing homeless vehicles

BY THERESA CLIFT

UPDATED JULY 01, 2022 11:00 AM

Homeless father Harold Hamilton said the city of Sacramento towed his family’s 2002 Buick LeSabre on June 19 — Father’s Day. “It felt disrespectful, like they were trying to emasculate me on Father’s Day and make me look like a horrible dad,” Hamilton said. He works at O’Reilly Auto Parts, but does not have the $3,000 to get the vehicle back, and is raising money for a new one, he said. The tow is one of hundreds that have occurred in the six months since the council voted to continue towing vehicles that are parked on a street for more than 72 hours, even if they belong to a homeless person with nowhere else to go. TOP VIDEOS Continue watching 2022 Emmy Awards nominations announced after the ad × More than 200 people affiliated with 43 Sacramento area congregations protested that policy on Thursday, sending a letter to Sacramento City Council members that called the sweeps inhumane. “We believe that forcing people to move, and to have their vehicles impounded, without providing safe relocation alternatives, is neither effective nor humane,” the letter read. Pastor Alan Jones of St. Mark’s Methodist in Arden-Arcade, who signed the letter, said he believes the council members are good people, but the decision to continue towing vehicles was wrong. “Sweeps are evil, they are injustice, they are oppression,” Jones said during a press conference outside City Hall Thursday. “When good people end up abusing significant portion of the population in their care, there is something terribly sick going on.” The council by a 6-3 vote in December supported towing, rejecting a proposal by Mayor Darrell Steinberg. Business leaders supported the policy, saying towing vehicles is an important tool that’s needed in some situations. They say some of the people who stay in the vehicles scare off customers, threaten employees’ safety, steal items and defecate near the door. Get unlimited digital access Subscribe now for just $2 for 2 months. CLAIM OFFER “The city should have all lawful tools available to protect the safety and well being of our community,” Amanda Blackwood, president and CEO of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber, said Thursday. “At times, towing a vehicle, as is legally allowable, is necessary and appropriate to protect public health and safety.” CHANGE COMING TO SACRAMENTO COUNCIL The council is comprised of the same members as it was in December. Three new members will be sworn in this year, all replacing members who voted to keep towing, but not until December. Pastor Amy Kienzle, of St. John’s Lutheran Church in midtown, said waiting until the summer ends would be too late. So far this month, temperatures hit triple-digits on 11 days, according to the National Weather Service, she pointed out. Vehicles, while an eyesore, often provide air conditioning or at least block the beating sun, she said. In 2020, the most recent year available, two unhoused people died with heat stroke as one of multiple causes. “Why would you take away people’s shelter when it’s hot?” said Kienzle after leading a press conference Thursday outside City Hall. “I don’t think we can wait through a summer when we’re already seeing so many days over 100.” Kienzle said the group now plans to focus pressure on the members who rejected it the first time — Angelique Ashby, Sean Loloee, Jeff Harris, Jay Schenirer, Eric Guerra and Rick Jennings. ‘THE TIMING WAS CRUEL’ During the first three weeks of June, the city’s code enforcement department towed 161 vehicles, not counting those towed by police, according to weekly reports council members receive. On May 25, as temperatures climbed to hit 103, dozens of police officers, code enforcement officers and tow trucks arrived at a vacant dirt lot in Old North Sacramento to clear a camp. Over a dozen homeless men and women dripped with sweat as they scrambled to move their RVs, vehicles and tents. The city towed 11 vehicles. “The timing was cruel,” Kienzle said, adding that the sweep prompted the leaders to decide it was time to present their letter. The May 25 sweep was the latest in a string of similar actions in North Sacramento. In December, the city towed 18 vehicles in a North Sacramento business park, prompting the mayor to bring the item to the council later that month. In February, the city towed 13 homeless vehicles from another North Sacramento street, including one belonging to Harold Hamilton’s father in law. “I will continue to fight for the proposition that all levels of government should be legally obligated to provide shelter, housing, and mental health care for those in desperate need, and that people have the same legal obligation to accept that help,” Steinberg said in a statement Thursday. “Rights and obligations, compassion and public safety must always go together.” The letter urged the city to open the 20 sites in its $100 million homeless siting plan it approved in August. So far the city has not opened any sites in the plan, though several are moving forward. A count in February found there are an estimated 9,278 homeless people in Sacramento County on any given night — more than San Francisco — and that up to 20,000 people will experience homelessness at some point this year. This story was originally published July 1, 2022 5:25 AM.

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article263057088.html#storylink=cpy

An elderly Oak Park woman’s longtime home might be sold due to unfinished construction. She’s fighting to keep it.

Wanda Clark stood in the driveway of her Oak Park home on Wednesday morning surrounded by family as she held back tears. The 71-year-old is fighting to keep the house she’s owned since 1995. But because of unfinished construction and repairs, it could be sold without her approval.

“We're trying to ask that they do not sell my home away from me, because I don't want to feel like — I don't want to be homeless,” Clark said through tears at a press conference, joined by community members and organizations trying to help. “I want to spend my best days in my home.”

The house has sat vacant for two years and has seen better days. In 2005, Clark says she took out a loan to add two bedrooms and a bathroom on top of her garage. Her daughter’s husband was killed, and she wanted to give her family a place to live. 

But she says the contractor took off with the money before completing the renovation. The addition on top of the garage sat bare for more than a decade, with the roof incomplete and wood frame exposed to the weather.

Clark, who works as a janitor for Sacramento County, lived with the property like that for years, saying she never missed a mortgage payment. She said the contractor later died, and she never saw a dime.

In April 2019, the city said it boarded up the home and that the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District shut off the power because of the property’s “dangerous condition and structural damage.” Last October, the city told Clark it would move to appoint a “receiver,” or someone to legally oversee the property in lieu of Clark. But it held off, telling her instead to submit building plans to complete the renovation. 

That didn’t happen, according to the city, and in April the courts appointed a receiver, who filed paperwork to put the home on the market. There’s now a “for sale” sign in the front yard.

Community members and organizations stood with Wanda Clark, 71, and her family in the driveway of her Oak Park home as she spoke about her fight to keep her house during a press conference on Oct. 20, 2021.Kris Hooks / CapRadio

 

On Wednesday, several Sacramento organizations — including the Sacramento NAACP, the local Habitat for Humanity group, the Sacramento-Sierra Building Trades, Sacramento Area Congregations Together and more — spoke in the driveway of her former home.

Clark has been living on her sister’s couch across the street from her home since 2019. 

Her younger sister Terri Austin said there has been work done to the house over the years, including new kitchen flooring and updating the bathroom, but nothing to the unfinished structure atop the garage because of the cost.

“When you’re paying bills and surviving, some things don’t make the cut,” Austin said.

She says she’s witnessed her sister stress to the point of extreme weight loss, as she works extra hours to find a way to save her home. 

“It is going to be impossible for my sister to watch other people move in here,” Austin said. “That’s gonna take her life.”

Terri Austin gives a tour of her sister Wanda Clark’s home, which has sat vacant for years. Clark has been fighting to keep the house she’s owned since 1995. But because of unfinished construction and repairs, it could be sold without her approval.Kris Hooks / CapRadio

Peter Lemos, Sacramento’s code compliance chief, said in a statement that the city has worked with Clark for years, even waiving thousands of dollars in fees levied against her.

“Unfortunately, the house remains in a dangerous condition both to the property owner and the neighborhood,” Lemos said. 

He says that, in addition to structural issues and toxic mold, there has been “illegal activity” at the home. 

“At this phase, the Court has ruled that the house should be put into receivership. Nevertheless, the City remains committed to continuing its work to help secure a positive outcome for the property owner,” Lemos said.

Clark and her family insist there has been nothing unlawful at her house.

Kelli Trapani, the spokesperson for Sacramento’s code enforcement department, said city inspectors met with Clark six times in 2011 to aid in gaining compliance. 

In the 10 years since that first meeting, Trapini said the city was in contact “at least 40 times to assist [Clark] in making the property safe and bringing it back into compliance.”

And it appears the city will attempt to keep working with Clark.

Betty Williams with the Sacramento NAACP said at the Wednesday press conference that she spoke with City Manager Howard Chan, who agreed to meet with Clark to find a way to solve the issue. 

City spokesperson Tim Swanson said that Chan agreed to meet with the NAACP and Clark.

“This is a shame. It shouldn't have taken this for us to come together to make this happen,” Williams said.

As Clark continues to watch her home of 25 years sit empty and boarded up, she’s pessimistic with little hope to save a property that she desperately wants to keep.

“I'm still fighting to stay in my home. That's my goal — to stay at my home,” Clark said. “Not to have to walk away and watch people run in and out of my house, because they want to sell my property from underneath because they feel like I'm not worthy of them to fix my home.”

Kris Hooks

The Paycheck Protection Program Was Meant To Help Places Of Worship In Need. In Sacramento, It Mostly Helped Ones In White Neighborhoods.

This investigation was produced in partnership with Reveal and NPR’s California Newsroom.

On an empty street corner in old north Sacramento, Pastor Alex Vaiz remembers the church he used to run. He tells stories about lively harvest festivals that drew hundreds of people, and City Council debates his church hosted inside a warehouse-like building. 

Vaiz used to run Vida Church, a mostly Latino, immigrant-serving church in this underserved part of the city. But the pandemic was hard on his church. Parishioners lost their jobs and stopped giving, in-person attendance did not lead to online viewership when government-mandated lock-downs closed houses of worship. In April 2020, they lost their lease. In February of this year, Vaiz and his wife gave their final Vida Church sermon and shuttered for good. 

“Our budget just fell all the way, 60 percent, and it just continued to go further,” Vaiz said. 

The closure was painful, because connection — what he sees as the center of worship — was more important than ever during the pandemic.

“That's the biggest part of ministry. It's connecting with your people, connecting with your congregation, connecting with the community, connecting with people that, they know you're there and they can go to you,” he said.

Vida Church is like many churches in neighborhoods that have a high proportion of people of color, and in particular those with large numbers of Latino residents. A massive federal lending effort, the Paycheck Protection Program was designed to help religious institutions. But an analysis by CapRadio and NPR’s California Newsroom found that in Sacramento, at least, those funds largely bypassed churches in diverse communities like north Sacramento, with relief dollars flowing primarily to neighborhoods where white residents predominate.

Despite the fact that the city is nearly evenly split between white majority neighborhoods and neighborhoods where people of color are in the majority, our investigation found that churches in white-majority neighborhoods got three times as much federal funding. 

 

Religious institutions in neighborhoods that are majority people of color, like Vida Church, got just $7 million in loans from the federal government, while churches in white majority neighborhoods got nearly $20 million. 

Vida Church didn’t even apply. It had no one on staff to handle an application, and they heard that they were eligible too late in the year. Latino and Asian churches faced language barriers that deterred them from applying, and many smaller churches serving people of color lacked the computers and scanners they needed to send financial documents quickly to banks. Some business owners also worried about taking out a loan in the middle of an economic crisis. 

Should Banks Have Done More?

The Small Business Administration, the government agency in charge of distributing PPP dollars, declined to be interviewed for this story. Instead, the agency sent a statement, saying it was “deeply committed to getting funds into the hands of struggling small business owners as quickly as possible and to ensuring the economic aid is accessible to all that are eligible.” 

A representative of the the California Bankers Association, an industry trade group, told CapRadio and NPR’s California Newsroom that our analysis did not prove systemic discrimination.

“I don’t think that all speaks to characterizing a bank’s intentions or, with respect to especially racism,” said the organization’s spokeswoman Beth Mills, who added that the banks did outreach to all communities. 

“There couldn’t be a stronger advocate for equality and serving everybody that needs to be served to promote economic growth and vitality within their own households,” she said. 

Churches In Underserved Neighborhoods: More Than A Place To Worship

The former site of Vida Church in Sacramento now has a new tenant.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio

For Pastor Vaiz, Vida Church represented a special calling. They ran a food bank and held events for the community. Many members of his congregation were recent immigrants. Claudia Ramos-Chile attended Vida Church for 13 years and said it felt like a home away from home for her. 

“The same feeling I had leaving my family and friends 30 years ago in El Salvador, feeling homesick about it, that’s the way it felt, it felt like I left my family,” Ramos-Chile said. “It’s painful not to gather, not to have that community with them.” 

Vida Church isn’t the only Latino-led church that suffered during the pandemic. Gabby Trejo, executive director of nonprofit Sacramento Area Congregations Together, said Latino-led churches in particular missed out on these federal loans. 

“The Latino faith leaders, they lead much smaller congregations and are having to be the admin, the pastor, the counselor, the everything,” Trejo said. “It might have been more difficult for them to actually access these loans and be thinking about those loans as they were also serving families and individuals.”

Trejo adds that a lot of Latino-led congregations also didn’t have big staff or a financial team to help them apply for the Paycheck Protection Program. Even though the application was fairly short, Vaiz and other leaders of Black, Latino and Asian congregations worried it would be a complicated government program. 

In addition, many churches that served African Americans and Latinos suffered financially, because those specific communities suffered financially. These two groups were the two most likely to have lost their jobs during the pandemic. 

“It is frustrating. When we look at the numbers of who got the loans and we look at how Latino faith leaders were left out and, you know, African American faith leaders were left out,” Trejo said. 

Churches In White Neighborhoods Expanded

But for churches in majority white neighborhoods, the story of how loans were distributed looks very different. 

Capitol Christian Center, a megachurch with a sprawling lawn and a large fountain at the entrance, is located in the majority white neighborhood of Rosemont. It received one of the largest federal loans given to any religious institution in Sacramento: $1.7 million. 

Interactive: Lookup which Sacramento County Churches received PPP Loans

Laine Alves, one of the pastors at Capital Christian, said the loan helped keep employees on payroll and even allowed it to make some new hires. 

“We hired a new worship leader during COVID. He just started in February of this year actually,” she said. “The church is here to support in all ways, we say we’re made up physically, spiritually, socially and academically.” 

With the help of the federal aid, Capital Christian’s K-12 school was able to safely re-open during the pandemic, a “huge win” for them, Alves added.

Capital Christian has hundreds of employees on their payroll and a full financial team that handled their Paycheck Protection Program application. While the loan has helped their church grow during a difficult time, it’s also helped them continue their community service work, like a monthly food drive for parishioners. 

Because they were able to meet the federal government’s criteria for using the money, their loan was completely forgiven.

Capital Christian isn’t unusual. Other churches also located in wealthier, white majority neighborhoods like East Sacramento received a large proportion of this federal loan money. 

The Table at Central United Methodist Church in East Sacramento received a more modest amount than Capital Christian, about $47,000, but even they mentioned having had on-staff accountants who helped shepherd the application through. 

“It helped us keep the musicians on payroll. We also have a nominal small maintenance crew. And it was wonderful to have, because otherwise you have a situation where, you know, folks are going to have to look at options,” said Bob Martinez, a board member of The Table. 

He said that while church donations did not decrease for his congregation, they were still grateful for the help the loan gave them. 

“We were very lucky, the contributions continued, the membership continued,” he said. 

Redlining And Its Lasting Legacy

Some experts see the distribution of Paycheck Protection Program loans as a continuation of the legacy of redlining. 

Redlining is a racist lending practice where federal government employees drew lines on maps and shaded in red neighborhoods where people of color lived, to signify these areas were too “hazardous” to lend in. 

“If you were to overlay a redlining map with a PPP loan map, you see the same kind of serial harm happening time and time again,” said Paulina Gonzalez-Brito, executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition. Her organization helps communities of color connect with banking institutions. 

On redlining maps from the 1930s, the area around Vida Church was shaded yellow, which means “definitely declining.” Government planners warned they were concerned about the neighborhood being “infiltrated” by immigrants from Portugal and the presence of “1 or 2 Negro families.” In 2020, very few places of worship in this neighborhood received PPP loans.

If you were to overlay a redlining map with a PPP loan map, you see the same kind of serial harm happening time and time again.
– Paulina Gonzalez-Brito, executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition

Gonzalez-Brito says it’s no coincidence that religious institutions in this area received very few federal loans, while white neighborhoods got the majority of this money.   

“This really is about the long history of relationships or a lack of relationships that financial institutions have had with Black, indigenous and people of color,” she said. 

She added that this legacy of discrimintaion puts the burden of responsibility on banks today. 

“The government or banks will say that these things just happen accidentally, that they're not in any way the way that they design programs, whether at the government level or at the financial institution level. And it's a way of washing their hands of responsibility,” Gonzalez-Brito said. “The way that discrimination happens or racism happens, it’s never by accident, it’s either by design or it’s baked into the system for generations.”

Pastor Alex Vaiz said he’s currently trying to get funding to reopen Vida Church in the fall. Standing outside his former church, the memories flood back. 

“We’d use all of that space for large Halloween events, we’d fill it up with jump houses, it was really neat because people would come out from the community and be able to hang out with us,” Vaiz said. “Lot of things, lot of memories.”

His church is looking to become a part of the Presbyterian Diocese and to open up in a new building in the fall. Until then, they’ll be holding services in peoples’ homes as they search for a more permanent location. 

Sarah Mizes-Tan

Guest Commentary: ‘Violence in Sacramento Requires Investment That Matches Scope of Issue’

(This commentary is provided by Sacramento ACT’s LIVE FREE Committee. ACT is an alliance of faith leaders, congregants, and community members committed to pushing criminal justice reform through faith-based organizing.)

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sacramento’s Black and Brown communities require dedicated investment from the City of Sacramento. As the city re-opens, it is bracing for a wave of violence, the leading edge of which we are witnessing in our own homes and neighborhoods. This is largely due to a lack of opportunities for our youth and insufficient resources to cover basic needs for their families.

The pattern of disinvestment and neglect in vulnerable communities that the city has demonstrated for decades must end. Those who bore the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic deserve investment of American Rescue Plan funds into their communities to begin to heal.

Rather than exhausting funds to mitigate the lethal consequences of gun violence, or sending more police into our neighborhoods, the city must invest in communities to alleviate the underlying causes and prevent gun violence from happening.

The city must act proactively and urgently.

A shift in the city’s gang violence prevention strategy must prioritize long-term, adequate funding and evidence-based community programs, in order to properly address the 50 percent increase in gun homicides Sacramento has experienced during COVID-19, part of a significant nationwide uptick in gun violence.

Last month, the City Council proposed to increase the Sacramento Police Department’s budget by over $8 million on top of its current budget of $156 million, and then proposed a mere $1 million for violence prevention, the same amount that’s been provided annually since 2016.

Moreover, the Department of Violence Prevention proposed defunding two CBO’s currently doing intervention work, Advance Peace and Healing the Hood. Effective violence prevention must target those who are at highest risk for being both victims and perpetrators of violence to effectively engage and provide them with wraparound services that center conflict resolution, mentoring, job training, and trauma healing.

Both organizations have strategies and relationships with impacted community members that cannot be replaced, as well as data and evaluation reports to prove their impact.

The scope of violence in Sacramento is not one that can be solved by punitive, carceral measures. We have witnessed Sacramento law enforcement try this approach for over a decade and fail to significantly lower gun violence rates in our most vulnerable neighborhoods.

To approve the proposed violence prevention strategy without amendment would be to risk the deaths of many Sacramento residents. The issue of gun violence is not a one-solution problem. Prioritizing arrest and incarceration only fuels this cycle, whereas community programs work to resolve the root causes, and as such require a long-term strategy.

As such, we request that the city:

  1. Commit to a minimum investment of eight percent of ARP funding ($9.7 million) towards community-based violence intervention and prevention programs, in line with federal guidelines. Considering each gun homicide costs the city $1.2 million, this investment of ARP funds has the potential to reap substantial societal dividends.

  2. Expand the number of organizations that receive funding, and prioritize those that have demonstrated long-standing commitment to Sacramento’s most vulnerable populations.

  3. Be transparent in the process with which grant recipient organizations are chosen (criteria, panelists).

A unique opportunity presents itself in the $121 million the City of Sacramento will be receiving, of which the U.S. Treasury ARP Spending Guidelines suggests should be spent on “evidence-based community violence intervention programs to prevent violence and mitigate the increase in violence during the pandemic.”

We look forward to working with the City to ensure investment in programs that will truly meet the needs of communities who have struggled most under the dual weights of the pandemic and of gun violence.

'It's Heartbreaking.': Sacramento County’s Affordable Housing Shortage Continues To Squeeze Lowest-Income Renters

Erica Jaramillo knows what it’s like to struggle to find affordable housing. 

At the end of July, her lease will expire in the Oak Park duplex she’s called home for six years. Her landlord is selling right in the middle of a red hot real estate market, so the chance of renewing is slim.

“It creates panic for me,” the 33-year-old Sacramento native told CapRadio. “It’s like the only thing I’m thinking about the rest of the day. Because all I have in the back of my head is ‘July 31st, July 31st.’”

A recent report found many of Sacramento County’s working-class residents simply aren’t making enough to keep up with these changes. Renters must now make about twice the state’s minimum wage, or nearly $27 per hour, just to afford the county’s average rent of $1,392. 

Jaramillo, a housing advocate who works as a program analyst for the state, said she’ll need to pay hundreds more every month to stay in the neighborhood — which like most of Sacramento is experiencing change as home prices continue to climb and some lower-income residents are forced out. 

Housing advocates say few places are feeling the effects of displacement more than Oak Park. The median sales price for a home this year is $357,500, a 600% increase from a decade ago, according to Ryan Lundquist, a real estate data analyst and appraiser. 

Oak Park homes “sold in an average of 20 days. But the real stat is half of all homes sold in 7 days so far,” Lundquist wrote in an email. 

Jaramillo’s current landlord, Anastasia Kryukova, said she doesn’t necessarily have to move, but acknowledged “there’s no way for me to predict” whether the new owner will choose to renew the lease.  

Jaramillo said the sale and non-renewal of her lease are, in effect, forcing her out. 

She said she’ll sell her car or take a second job to afford higher rent and to sock money away to purchase a home someday. But many don’t have that option. 

“It’s being uprooted,” she said. “This is home for me.” 

Sacramento County’s Lack Of Affordable Homes

The Sacramento County 2021 Affordable Housing Needs Report by the nonprofit California Housing Partnership found the county has a shortfall of 58,383 affordable homes for its lowest-income renters. That means a shortage for retail workers, janitors, child care workers and home health aides and more — all who make approximately $10 per hour less than what’s needed to afford the average rent.

The California Housing Partnership advocates for affordable housing and produces statewide data tools for housing research.

The group’s report considers a rental home “affordable” if a household spends no more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities.

The region’s affordable housing shortfall has hovered near 60,000 in each of the partnership’s reports, which date back to 2017. Statewide, there’s a need for well over 1 million additional affordable rental homes, according to the partnership. 

“To see that number on paper, it’s heartbreaking really,” Jaramillo said of the housing shortage. Jaramillo sits on the board of the grassroots group Sacramento Investment Without Displacement (SIWD) which works to prevent new development from uprooting residents. “What does that say about our futures?” 

SIWD sued UC Davis last year over the university’s Aggie Square development, a billion-dollar science and tech hub that’s expected to bring up to 5,000 jobs to the area and give Sacramento an economic boost. The group, which consists of residents who live in the area, said it would drive real estate prices even higher, making the neighborhood unaffordable for existing low-income residents and businesses. 

SIWD dropped its lawsuit last month after Sacramento officials promised to ensure all aspects of the community benefits agreement are met — specifically the $50 million investment to create nearby affordable housing. The city, UC Davis and Aggie Square developer Wexford Science + Technology announced the agreement in March..   

Aggie Square would sit between the neighborhoods of Elmhurst, Med Center, Oak Park and Tahoe Park, the latter two seeing housing costs dramatically increase over the years. 

“Sacramento is suffering in an unprecedented way,” said Cathy Creswell, board president for the nonprofit Sacramento Housing Alliance, which advocates for affordable housing. “It used to be that we were considered more affordable, especially compared to the Bay Area. But in the last few years, we’ve had the highest rent increases of any market in the nation.” 

The report by the housing partnership suggests Sacramento County’s poorest residents are in desperate need. It found 81% of the county’s extremely-low income households, or those who earn less than one-third the area’s median income, already pay more than half their earnings on housing and utilities.  

“It really means people are one crisis, one lost paycheck away from homelessness,” Matt Schwartz, president and CEO of the California Housing Partnership, said during a Facebook Live event announcing the report last week.  

Rent hikes, combined with pandemic-related job losses, have driven numerous Sacramento families out of their homes over the past year, said Gabby Trejo, executive director of the community-based group Sacramento Area Congregations Together, or ACT. Trejo also is a board member with SIWD.

“We’re getting calls from families all the time,” she said, explaining many calls are from the poorest in the region, including those who are undocumented. “The reality is with COVID, we have been not just devastated by the loss of lives and jobs. But it’s creating a bigger gap — a bigger wealth gap and making it more difficult to stay in our region.” 

‘More Money Than We’ve Ever Had Before’

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg called the report’s findings “both stunning and not surprising. We’ve known about this for a long time and it is not just a community problem here in Sacramento. It is our state’s biggest problem.”  

Even so, Steinberg said he’s more encouraged now than in the past because more federal and state funds are available to address the need. The mayor said he expects the region to use the money “to produce tens of thousands of additional units of housing and also prevent the displacement of people who are currently housed.”

Steinberg pointed to efforts like rental assistance, which helps tenants who lost jobs due to COVID-19 pay back rent. The city also set aside $5 million for “anti-displacement strategies” in Oak Park to help renters and homeowners stay in their homes as part of Aggie Square community benefits agreement

“There still might not be enough money (to address all the need), but there is more money than we’ve ever had before,” Steinberg said. 

The housing partnership report made several statewide policy recommendations for addressing the shortfall of affordable homes. It called for creating a $10 billion statewide housing bond to pay for five years of affordable housing for low-income families and people experiencing homelessness.

It also recommends new apartment and condominium developments be built in commercial and mixed-use zones when at least 20% of the homes are affordable to low-income households.

Additionally, it called for speeding up the construction of affordable homes and reducing uncertainty and costs for developers. To accomplish this, the state should create one decision-making process for awarding affordable housing development funds, the report said. Currently, four separate agencies must approve the funds. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on May 20 to streamline the review process for the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which could fast-track housing projects that cost at least $15 million as long as they include affordable housing.  

CEQA’s goal is to mitigate environmental damage caused by construction, but developers say it can unnecessarily slow down projects and sometimes discourage building altogether. The new law fast-tracks the review process for and will also apply to some manufacturing and renewable energy projects.

Chris Nichols

Aggie Square project moves forward with community benefits partnership

The "Community Benefits Partnership Agreement" includes a $50 million investment in affordable housing.

Author: Lena Howland (ABC10)

Published: 6:53 PM PDT May 11, 2021

Updated: 6:53 PM PDT May 11, 2021

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The City of Sacramento is moving forward with a $1 billion plan to expand the Sacramento campus of U.C. Davis. It's called the Aggie Square project in the Oak Park and Tahoe Park areas.

The project is a major investment, but it has not come without controversy.

Before Aggie Square got the green light from the city, multiple neighborhood associations expressed their concerns about traffic, parking and locals getting priced out of the market.

The city wanted to move forward, citing the billions of dollars the project would bring to Sacramento, along with up to 10,000 jobs.

The city was even sued by the Sacramento Investment Without Displacement Group, but that lawsuit was dropped minutes before the project got approved.

In a unanimous vote on Tuesday afternoon, Sacramento City Council members agreed on a settlement with a group that had filed a lawsuit over the Aggie Square project, creating what they're calling a "Community Benefits Partnership Agreement."

"I have affordable rent right now but me and the tenant above me, because it's a duplex, were told that she's going to sell it," Erica Jaramillo, an Oak Park renter and board member on Sacramento Investment Without Displacement said.  

Jaramillo has been living in Oak Park for the past six years with her lease ending in May but she says the house she's renting has already gone on the market. 

"Sure you can make double the profit right now but where is the responsibility for people who are relying to have a place to sleep?" she said.

It's stories like this one that SIWD is trying to avoid as the Aggie Square project moves forward. 

"We lose the flavor and culture in our communities when people are forced out of where they grew up," Tamie Dramer, Executive Director of Organize Sacramento and board member of SIWD said.

That's why the city agreed on a settlement with the group, creating what they're calling a "Community Benefits Partnership Agreement."

The agreement says $50 million should be put toward affordable housing in the area and the council started to make good on that promise right away on Tuesday, by unanimously voting on a $15 million loan to build a 225-unit affordable housing complex on Stockton Boulevard in the former Jon's Home Furnishers lot. 

"That is so important and imperative, $50 million can make a difference for so many families in our region to ensure that they're housed and we know that we have a housing shortage," Gabby Trejo, Executive Director of Sacramento ACT said.

Another part of their deal is 20% of all jobs created because of the Aggie Square project will be going to people living in impacted zip codes.  

"To us, that is a huge win because we want to make sure that residents have access to these jobs, that we are looking at the future so that residents don't have to drive too far to their jobs so they can actually spend time with their families," Trejo said.

It's a bit of a 180 since the lawsuit was first filed, but in the end, advocates are hopeful community members will now have a better seat at the table.  

"It's a big deal for Sacramento to not only get this project but that this coalition came along to make it a better project, to make it fit the community to make sure the community is included in all of the aspects of the development of this project," Dramer said.