January 23, 2020
Over 7 years ago, Sacramento ACT leaders at St. Mark United Methodist Church and Trinity Episcopal Cathedral conducted listening campaigns with our congregations. At least 30% of all interviewed cited the problem of homelessness as their number one concern. Out of that listening campaign, the Homelessness and Housing Local Organizing Committee was formed.
Two years ago, ACT organized an Action meeting at which the Mayor, the Chair of the Board of Supervisors and the Executive Director of Sacramento Steps Forward all signed a pledge to bring the matter of drafting such a plan before their respective agencies. However, the strong commitment to a regional, collaborative plan to end homelessness is still an unrealized dream.
In late 2017 and early 2018, ACT’s Theory of Change team conducted over 30 research meetings with public officials and community leaders and asked, among other things, “What is the greatest challenge facing Sacramento?” We met with ACT’s faith leader caucus and with our Local Organizing Committees and asked the same question.
Nearly every person we interviewed cited homelessness and the lack of affordable housing as one of the greatest challenges facing the Sacramento Region. We have an “epic” crisis with skyrocketing rates of rents and homelessness. Gentrification and Bay Area migration are driving up rents and prices and displacement. We do not have enough housing stock.
ACT has conducted over 20 research meetings with service providers, city and county government staff and elected leaders, and the leadership of Sacramento Steps Forward (SSF), a non-governmental agency created to disburse federal funding and coordinate regional efforts to address homeless issues.
We discovered that each agency and each government entity was working in separate silos with no common plan to effectively end homelessness in our county. Initiatives have been driven by funding rather than an overall vision, so programs come and go from year to year. The result is a disjointed system, difficult for advocates to understand and almost impossible for someone experiencing homelessness to navigate.
In a 2019 study, the California Housing Partnership found that Sacramento County needs 63,118 more affordable rental homes to meet current demand, and that renters in Sacramento County need to earn nearly $28 per hour to afford the median asking rent.
Later tonight, you will hear more specifics about what we have found about issues such as inclusionary zoning, housing conditions and affordability, sheltering homeless residents, mental health funding and services, and opportunities to direct County funding towards human services rather than incarceration.
The reality of thousands of our neighbors and family members living unsheltered on our sidewalks, vacant lots, and riverbanks is a wrong that we believe can and must be corrected. We believe that homelessness can and must be permanently eliminated this decade through the enactment of our action agenda.
Tonight we are asking Candidates for District 3 County Supervisor to stand with us and commit to action to solve the crisis of homelessness and affordable housing.
We can do better. We must do better.