Ending Homelessness is a Moral Obligation

July 24, 2023

Gabby Trejo, Executive Director

Ending homelessness is both a moral and a practical imperative and is the single biggest challenge our community faces.   Sacramento Area Congregations Together (Sacramento ACT), the region’s largest multi-faith social justice organization, believes that our shared faith traditions require us to work to end this travesty.  

But we can only do this by working together, by harnessing the expertise and energy of all sectors of the community, and by finding ways to overcome our differences. This has always been the impetus of Sacramento ACT’s work on homelessness and housing, and we have long called for a collaborative, comprehensive approach.  

Sacramento ACT congregations and its many members strive to make Sacramento a better place for all its residents. We believe that every person has a fundamental right to safe, dignified, appropriate and affordable housing.  We also believe that in addressing the current crisis, we must honor the dignity and worth and legal rights of all, housed and unhoused.

Now is a time for leadership at all levels and within all jurisdictions to address this crisis in all of its humanitarian, environmental, health, and public safety dimensions.   This requires leadership that is committed to collaboration and communication, is willing to set aside political ambitions, and to seek common ground and compromise.   

For this reason, the prospect of one arm of our elected government “investigating” and perhaps suing or prosecuting another is disturbing, to say the least.  Recent news coverage suggests that instead of keeping their eyes on real solutions that help unhoused people and the community at large, we are in danger of becoming a circular firing squad. We can and must simply do better than this.

It is tempting to respond to the various political games that trigger our emotional reactions.  But as these proliferate, we at Sacramento ACT know it’s time to bring the focus back to what will actually help people and the community at large.

Over the past two years, working together and with community partners, the City and the County of Sacramento have made significant progress toward collaborative solutions to our homelessness crisis. Sacramento Steps Forward has started developing a comprehensive plan to end homelessness in our region.  Although this problem—40 years in the making—has recently grown faster than we can address it, progress is being made. New shelter and safe stay communities are opening and affordable housing development has accelerated. 

Sacramento ACT applauds and supports these efforts. At the same time, we continue to call for greater investment and much more urgency in creating affordable housing and providing the services needed to help people retain or regain housing.  There is no single solution to homelessness, but it is clear that we must meet both the immediate survival needs of our unhoused neighbors and increase the supply of temporary and permanent housing. 




This is a time when local governments must ramp up their collaborative work and refuse to be deflected. We call upon the DA and the Sheriff to become more involved in this collaboration.  Our law enforcement and criminal justice professionals have important and unique roles to play in keeping all of us safe. They must be “at the table” in developing the Local Homeless Action Plan and other strategies to end this crisis.

While it might be well intentioned, a “law enforcement only” approach to addressing homelessness is doomed to fail because it does not address the fundamental underlying cause of homelessness: the collision of sky-high housing costs with poverty, low wages, drug addiction and mental illness.  Without housing alternatives, enforcement actions and sweeps are legally fraught, create only temporary respites for neighborhoods, and dramatically increase the chaos and misery in which unhoused people live. 

The people of Sacramento ACT despair at seeing families living in cars, motor homes and motel rooms; we are heartbroken to see obviously mentally ill individuals suffering on our streets in 100+ degree heat; we deplore the accumulation of trash that accompanies street living without sanitation services. We all should be deeply troubled by the human toll that homelessness takes on those experiencing it.

The crisis of homelessness has defied solutions for so long because there is no quick fix. Our message to our law enforcement and criminal justice leadership is just as clear. Set aside political differences and become part of the team. To all of our leaders we say: build trust, act with greater urgency, and keep at it.


Sacramento County Board of Supervisors District 3 Candidate Q&A

Earlier this year, we hosted a candidates forum prior to the 2020 Sacramento County District 3 Board of Supervisors primary election. Gregg Fishman and Rich Desmond emerged from the primary as the top two candidates  set to face off in the general election this November. A team consisting of Sacramento ACT staff, St. Mark’s United Methodist, and Sacramento CORE (consisting of St. Ignatius Loyola Parish, Jesuit High and Cristo Rey) attempted to organize a candidate’s forum for the general election, but Mr. Desmond declined to participate. Both candidates provided written responses to a combination of questions from January and new ones reflecting current issues. Topics addressed include inclusionary affordable housing, rising homelessness, COVID-19 relief funding, racism, and oversight of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office’s policing practices and budget. The questions and the candidates’ unedited answers can be read below and can be downloaded by clicking here.

Questions and Answers

1. In 2005, Sacramento County put in place an inclusionary zoning policy that instantly became a national model. It encouraged development of mixed-income communities, required 15 percent of all new housing units be affordable to low-income families, and went further to require developers to create housing for “extremely low income” families. It was instantly fought in the courts and politically by the big development companies. 

Five years ago, the County Board bowed to that pressure and repealed its ordinance. In the first year after that change, which followed a similar move by the City of Sacramento, construction of affordable units in our region dropped by 56 percent. And we have seen the stratospheric rise of rent and housing prices, followed closely by evictions and growing homelessness, that has followed. 

Inclusionary zoning means that we leverage our hot housing market to make it easier for low-income residents and people of color to afford to live here. It also leads to more integrated communities, where the poor and the wealthy are less separated by distance and access to resources. Will you support the reinstitution of a strong inclusionary housing ordinance based upon national models and best practices? 

2. West Arden Arcade, right here in District 3, is the neighborhood with the lowest median income in Sacramento County. Residents of the 95821 ZIP code have lower life expectancy and much higher chronic disease mortality for heart disease, stroke, and other conditions. Children and youth in this neighborhood also show a higher burden of disease, including asthma, dental disease, assault, and mental health issues. Deteriorating housing conditions and lack of enough affordable housing are a major factor in the higher burden of disease for people of color in West Arden Arcade. 

At the same time, communities like West Arden Arcade are almost completely built-out and have limited potential for new development. Policies and plans should therefore focus on housing conditions and housing affordability. What is your plan to create more housing and increase access to affordable housing in a built-out area like Arden Arcade? 

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3. Sacramento ACT and its Housing and Homelessness Committee have worked for years to push the County to draft a comprehensive plan to make homelessness a rare and brief experience in Sacramento. This plan would coordinate services and prioritize transitional and permanent housing options in order to end homelessness. Three years ago, we organized an Action meeting where the Mayor of Sacramento, the Chair of the Board of Supervisors, and the Executive Director of Sacramento Steps Forward all signed a pledge to make progress on a plan. The County Grand Jury has also called out the need for the County and Continuum of Care to develop a plan. In late 2018 the County formally adopted a plan in order to be eligible for state No Place Like Home funding. While useful in providing direction for improving housing and services, the plan was not based on quantitative analysis of needs or required levels of funding. 

Will you commit to achieving a countywide comprehensive plan to end homelessness based on quantitative analysis of capacity expansion needs and funding requirements in the first two years of your term as Supervisor? 

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4. It is often said, truthfully, that our County’s largest public housing project, and our largest mental health provider, are our jails. After a community outcry, the County Board recently decided to cancel an $89 million jail expansion project that would have devastated many other crucial services, including homelessness and Child Protective Services, and locked the County into decades of high operating costs and destructive outcomes for County residents. We now have the opportunity to change how our County approaches crime, poverty, housing, and mental health, and to move toward a more just and more effective system. 

Will you commit today to directing more funding to housing, mental health care, and schools rather than more incarceration? 

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5. Immediately, at the beginning of the Pandemic, Sacramento ACT organized a listening campaign where we heard the voices of over 300 families in the County. Families who were exacerbated financially, emotionally, and physically from the COVID-19 pandemic. We listened and we helped ninety percent of those families with rent assistance and we continue to hear stories of families who are struggling to pay rent and keep food on the table. In August the County Board of Supervisors were given the responsibility and opportunity to help our most vulnerable and essential workers in the county. Instead, $104 million of the $181 million from the CARES ACT was moved to the budget of Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones. Another $21.5 million went to the payroll and benefits of probations officers and park rangers. As people of Faith we believe the budget is a moral document where we explicitly define what is important to us. It became clear that law enforcement is important to the County when it misspent the community's money.

How will you ensure that the budget and any future relief money is truly reflective of the needs in our community and see that none of it is spent on Law enforcement?

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6. Some have criticized the Sheriff for a reluctance to address abuses of power by his officers and an unwillingness to have his department audited by outside entities. Additionally, our District Attorney has not brought charges against officers even when these officers shoot and kill unarmed civilians. With this in mind, what Policy or County Charters would you consider proposing to create better oversight and accountability to the sheriff's department given the Sheriff's history? 

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7. Would you support a reallocation of funding that goes to militarizing the police force to instead be spent on increasing funding for mental health services and community outreach programs in our communities?

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Candidates Forum: Sacramento City Unified School District Board

On Tuesday, September 29th, Sacramento ACT gathered all candidates running for school board in the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) to ask them about some of the most pressing challenges facing our district.  Listen to what they had to say in the video above.

Individual videos of the responses for each of the candidates can be accessed below:

We also asked all candidates to send us written responses if they would like us to share them publicly. We received written responses from Jose Navarro, Vanessa Areiza King, and Jessie Ryan and they can found below.

Responses we received from Area 3 candidate, Jose Navarro. 

1. Multiple audits show that students of color, students from low-income families, English learners and students with disabilities in SCUSD are significantly more likely to fail, significantly less likely to graduate, and subject to harsher discipline than students in other districts in California. In fact, the California School Dashboard shows that in 2018-19, white students were 34 points above the state standard in English Language Arts, while Hispanic students were 40 points below, African American students were 72.5 points below, foster youth were 82 points below, English learners were 58 points below, and students with disabilities were 100 points below the standard. A similar dynamic showed up in Mathematics: white students are above the standard, while all other groups were below, including Hispanics by 70 points, African Americans by 107 points, and English learners by 75 points. What specific actions will you take or policy changes will you support to address the long standing inequities and academic achievement gaps to ensure that each and every student receives a high quality education targeted to their unique needs, and how will you work to change the system to ensure equity in every classroom?

Response: I am one of those statistics.  An immigrant whose father was a farm worker.  A kid who wanted to learn about computers but we couldn’t afford one. What I feel most strongly about is how the School District has constantly manipulated their budget numbers – hiding money under the budget category for “Books and Materials”, never spending it, projecting a deficit, and then ending up with a surplus. If this were a one-time thing, I would understand. But anyone here who looks at the District’s projected numbers at the beginning of each fiscal year and then compares those same numbers to the end of the fiscal year one can only conclude that our school budget isn’t being mismanaged... it is being manipulated.

I will insist on two things for achievement gaps one that we invest on PK programs for all kids in the district and two that we hire the reading specialists we need to make sure every third grader can read at third grade level. I won’t tolerate another study, another task force, another delay. We have the money.  There is no better way to spend some of it.”

In terms of suspensions of students of color, we need to make sure that we have bi-yearly implicit bias training for staff. We also need to make sure we have well defined restorative practices and those practices are followed.

2. The District and its teachers union have been engaged in a cycle of mistrust and conflict that has made it impossible to fully address most of the challenges that affect students, from distance learning to school climate to serving special education families. This destructive dynamic must be overcome if SCUSD is going to address its long-term structural budget issues and avoid a state takeover. We understand that a Board member is only one part of a large and complex system. However, what are you going to do to bridge the District/union relationship and rebuild trust so that we can move forward without a state takeover?

Response: I appreciate the sentiment and sincerity of this question.  But given the dishonest manipulation of the budget numbers, the annual threat to layoff teachers, and the new bogeyman of state takeover... I don’t trust the District.

If I was a teacher and I experienced this level of dishonesty I would be as angry as they are. I’m not running to be on the Board of the Teachers Union.  I’m running to be on the School Board.  So before I find fault with the union, I will make sure the District cleans its own hands.  From where I stand the district needs to earn the trust of all employees, If we are to move forward.

That will be my first order of business since we will need to work together to solve all other issues”

3. We know that the mental health challenges for students have only deepened with distance learning. Even before COVID, the Children's Movement of California reported that nearly 1 in 3 California high schoolers reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks in a row and stopped doing some of their usual activities. Nearly 1 in 5 reported that they have seriously considered attempting suicide. And there was a 34 percent increase in suicides among California youth between the ages of 15 and 19 over the past three years. What actions will you take to improve our students’ mental health and increase access to mental health resources to address these challenges within our district during and beyond distance learning?

Response: I couldn’t agree more.  This school district can make zero claim about caring for student health.  They have only hired one school nurse for every 3,600 students.  It’s a laughable ratio.  So when you ask a serious question about serious mental health issues, I agree with you... 

Sacramento’s Mayor wrote the ballot initiative to fund mental health services. He passed it. It is ironic and wrong that his own School District doesn’t receive an adequate share of that funding to address the issue.  I will make that point and fight to make things different.  I will work with SCOE and Sac County.

Responses we received from Area 5 candidate, Vanessa Areiza King. 

1. Multiple audits show that students of color, students from low-income families, English learners and students with disabilities in SCUSD are significantly more likely to fail, significantly less likely to graduate, and subject to harsher discipline than students in other districts in California. In fact, the California School Dashboard shows that in 2018-19, white students were 34 points above the state standard in English Language Arts, while Hispanic students were 40 points below, African American students were 72.5 points below, foster youth were 82 points below, English learners were 58 points below, and students with disabilities were 100 points below the standard. A similar dynamic showed up in Mathematics: white students are above the standard, while all other groups were below, including Hispanics by 70 points, African Americans by 107 points, and English learners by 75 points. What specific actions will you take or policy changes will you support to address the long standing inequities and academic achievement gaps to ensure that each and every student receives a high quality education targeted to their unique needs, and how will you work to change the system to ensure equity in every classroom? 

Responses: One of the most important aspects of this challenge is continuing to find a way to increase our level of parent engagement in the district. The district needs to find ways to facilitate and empower administrators and teachers in finding creative, personal, and institutional ways of continuing to reach out to parents. The research is clear that parent engagement is critically important for student’s success. We need to continue to work collectively to find ways to further tap into this incredible resource, the love and dedication parents have for their children. It is also clear from the research that one of the greatest challenges in increasing students (especially minority students) intrinsic motivation for learning is the quality of relationships that they have with school staff and teachers, as well as how fair and equitable students perceive the school to be in its disciplinary forms. As SCUSD Board Member, one of my main goals will be to work with administration, teachers, school staff, students, and student families to strengthen our sense of community. I would like to assess and discuss ways to strengthen SCUSD Family and Community Engagement program to promote a warm and engaged environment in our classrooms and hallways. Additionally, it is critical to increase our use and implementation of restorative justice methods within the district in addressing students’ behavioral challenges without losing a student’s sense of belonging and importance in the school community. 

Along with these things, I believe it would be excellent to facilitate greater input from teachers on a year to year basis on our district programs. This could be done with the creation of an additional committee that includes administration, teachers, and our education partners in the Cal-State system to work toward the development of curriculum programs that have sound scientific research behind them in ineffectiveness, provide representation for minority history, and that would make sense in “real-time” for teachers when standing in front of a classroom. Teachers teach, and we have to find a way to receive greater input from them about how we (as the district) can help them be successful in their classrooms. 

An additional thought would be for the district to be more assertive in making announcements publicly about where it stands on social justice issues. SCUSD has a high percentage of minority students. The district has already made important institutional changes like no longer funding resource officers on school campus and being a Safe Haven district. The district needs to do it’s best to let all of our students know these changes were made and the value represented behind these changes. The larger environment in which our students dwell impacts their mindsets and the narratives they create. Am I seen? Does anyone care? Do I matter? Do I have a future? Does my future matter? The district needs to be as assertive as possible in answering in the affirmative to all of these questions. Our children are listening, and they are watching. 

Unfortunately for SCUSD, and for every family and student in SCUSD, the ongoing dysfunctional relationship between the district and it’s union partners overshadows some of the great work the district is already doing to show the community that it cares and that it’s addressing ways to meet its students needs (like providing meals, Chromebooks, bringing awareness of mental health issues and suicide, etc.). The stability and reliability of the district’s programs cannot be assured without the district and its union partners working together to address our ongoing financial uncertainty. It is imperative that the district and all of its stakeholders find a way to come to a solid financial standing. If we do not, the ongoing financial drama will continue to undermine the district’s efforts of outreach to families and schools, and it will continue to distract the district from the ever more important goal of providing each and every one of our students the best education possible. 

2. The District and its teachers union have been engaged in a cycle of mistrust and conflict that has made it impossible to fully address most of the challenges that affect students, from distance learning to school climate to serving special education families. This destructive dynamic must be overcome if SCUSD is going to address its long-term structural budget issues and avoid a state takeover. We understand that a Board member is only one part of a large and complex system. However, what are you going to do to bridge the District/union relationship and rebuild trust so that we can move forward without a state takeover? 

Response: Building trust in a strained and conflict-ridden relationship is one of the biggest challenges in the world. My work as a marriage and family therapist constantly reminds me of this. In attempting to address this challenge, we cannot lose sight of this simple truth: The district’s and the union’s paths are intertwined. We will win, and we will lose together. In the midst of this ongoing tension and litigation, it appears the district and the unions have lost sight of this fact. State receivership is a collective failure, with the biggest losers in all of this being our children. 

It will be necessary for all parties including the district, teachers union, and parents to address their concerns and acknowledge the fiscal realities the district is facing. From my outsider perspective, there appears to have been a lack of transparency and follow-through from the part of the district. This has rightfully led to mistrust and misgivings about collaborating with the district on finding a budget that meets the needs of our students, while also recognizing the possibility of state receivership. If elected, I believe my role would be one of organizing meetings to collaborate with the state and the district to address budgetary needs and prioritize expenses, meetings between the district and the unions to address contracts and limitations, and meetings with the public to address the budget and provide clarification to the community for the items that were prioritized in the budget. As we face this overwhelming challenge, let’s not lose sight of the real “enemy.” It is neither the district nor the unions. Let’s move on common ground and strive to create more common ground, because the true “enemy” is the possibility of state receivership. 

3. We know that the mental health challenges for students have only deepened with distance learning. Even before COVID, the Children's Movement of California reported that nearly 1 in 3 California high schoolers reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks in a row, and stopped doing some of their usual activities. Nearly 1 in 5 reported that they have seriously considered attempting suicide. And there was a 34 percent increase in suicides among California youth between the ages of 15 and 19 over the past three years. What actions will you take to improve our students’ mental health and increase access to mental health resources to address these challenges within our district during and beyond distance learning? 

Response: The ongoing public health crisis adds additional challenges to reaching families with students struggling with mental health issues. Reaching our students who are most vulnerable to develop severe mental health symptoms will require greater collaboration between the district, the city, and health providers to increase and facilitate access to mental health services with regular ongoing treatment for them and their families. One of the greatest contributing factors to mental health issues is loneliness and social isolation. Therefore any efforts the district can make to facilitate virtual gatherings and socially distanced physical gatherings would be important in combating this sense of loneliness and social isolation. I know that teachers are already making efforts in their own ways to create a sense of being “alone together.” Receiving input from teachers and administrators of how the district could facilitate or promote these gatherings would be important. The district needs to empower teachers and administrators with flexibility and freedom to be creative, while giving recognition and praise for creative and innovative efforts. 

Beyond distance learning, I believe the incorporation of evaluating for Adverse Childhood Effects (ACE) as part of our standard steps for admission would be important. ACE evaluations are being heavily promoted by the Surgeon General of California in the Medi-Cal system. Incorporating these evaluations would help the district and individual schools be more trauma-informed and resiliency-focused on addressing behavioral issues. This is critical since behavioral issues are often symptomatic and/or indicative of underlying mental health issues. In coordination with health providers, school nurses, school counselors, and psychologists, we would be better able to track and follow through on regular contact with our students who score highest on the ACE evaluation. This will require creativity and flexibility in meeting these students and parents “where they are at” both physically and emotionally to protect and promote the educational development of our students most vulnerable to mental health challenges. 

In addition, I also believe teachers are already doing a lot to incorporate social-emotional skills in elementary, and these skills need to continue to be strengthened and better incorporated into our middle school and high school programs. Even when students are physically safe and well fed, they will struggle to engage in rigorous academic work if they are emotionally flooded and physiologically hyper aroused. Taking time out of the school day to incorporate deep breathing, positive affirmation, mindfulness, soothing self-talk, and bodily awareness are key for soft skill development. These skills increase our ability to tolerate discomfort, to be more kind towards ourselves and others, and keep sustained attention. These are basic coping tools integral to our mental health. Teaching our students these skills is an ongoing part of their academic development. 

Responses we received from Area 7 candidate, Jessie Ryan: 

1) Multiple audits show that students of color, students from low-income families, English learners and students with disabilities in SCUSD are significantly more likely to fail, significantly less likely to graduate, and subject to harsher discipline than students in other districts in California. In fact, the California School Dashboard shows that in 2018-19, white students were 34 points above the state standard in English Language Arts, while Hispanic students were 40 points below, African American students were 72.5 points below, foster youth were 82 points below, and students with disabilities were 100 points below the standard. A similar dynamic showed up in Mathematics: white students are above the standard, while all other groups were below, including Hispanics by 70 points and African Americans by 107 points. English learners were 58 points below standard in English Language Arts, and 75 points below standard in Math. What specific actions will you take or policy changes will you support to address the long standing inequities and academic achievement gaps to ensure that each and every student receives a high quality education targeted to their unique needs, and how will you work to change the system to ensure equity in every classroom?

Response: I am all too familiar with these troubling statistics, they keep me up at night and drive my determination to repair a broken system for my children and all children!   As the parent of Afro Latino children, one with an accommodation plan and the other receiving special education services, I know firsthand how these numbers represent the stories of students within our schools. I am fighting tirelessly to disrupt long standing inequities within the district. Over the past three years, I have led efforts to increase student outcomes. And while the District has finally seen real progress, there is still much work to be done.  Student-centered improvements and policies that must be doubled down on include:

  • Increasing graduation rates - Since 2018, high school graduation rates have increased to 86% (exceeding the statewide average for the first time in many years).  These gains in student completion were a direct result of efforts like targeted credit recovery, where hundreds of students who were off track for graduation became eligible.  In addition,  the District introduced data systems that track graduation information in real time to allow counselors to document students’ graduation progress and status.

  • Improving college readiness - College readiness rates in our District have increased by 5 percent for all students and by 7 percent for Latinx students.

  • Providing opportunities for our students to participate in college entrance exams - Our middle school and high school students now take the PSAT and SAT test for free. Prior to 2017, just 24% of students entering their senior year of high school in our District had an SAT score on file compared to 87% in 2019 as a result of this effort, removing this as a barrier to college admission.

  • Free Applications for Financial Aid (FAFSA) filed by our students saw a 25 percent increase since 2016/17. 72% of Sac City Unified students now complete a FAFSA, up from just 47% of students in 2016-17.  This resulted in millions of dollars in additional aid for our neediest students!

  • Breaking down barriers to provide equal access programs - Sacramento City Unified School District has many pockets of excellence but it also has been plagued with deserts of despair . Unfortunately, while the system has served some student populations well it has left other populations behind (Black, Latinx, AANHPI).  In order to ensure EVERY 8th Grade Student has an equal opportunity to access the high school program they believe will provide them with meaningful and engaging learning experiences, the Board pushed to move away from site level selection and towards a centralized application and selection process to grow the number of Black, Latinx, and AANHPI eligible for admission to specialty  programs. 

  • Supporting "willful defiance ban" and expansion of restorative practices- The Sacramento region has been called ground zero for disportioncate suspension/expulsion.  SCUSD supported statewide legislation to ban willful defiance as a harmful catch all for school discipline issues. The establishment of restorative practices is a moral imperative, it should not be negotiable or left to a coalition of the willing.  Only when implemented at scale, will we truly address the racism in the classroom and at school sites.

  •  Increasing access to real time assessments of student progress - We didn't learn that my daughter was failing to read at grade level until it was nearly too late (half way into her second grade year). With the support of civil rights and special education advocates, the District is moving to conduct common assessments districtwide to help better understand the academic needs of students and provide needed interventions so that students like my daughter can reach grade level readiness.

  • Special education – For far too long the District has failed students with disabilities and changes are happening. The District ended a contractual clause (Appendix D) that allowed classroom exclusion of SpEd students. Knowing that all of our students are general education students first, this spring the District provided all staff with optional UDL (Universal Design for Learning) training  to help support inclusive decision making.  The Board engaged an expert from the Special Education Audit, Judy Elliot, to help lead a long overdue restructuring of the Special Education department, which includes two restructured positions and will allow support for ongoing student support.  There is a renewed focus on Multi-Tiered Systems of Support as a student-centered best practice rooted in a belief that all children can learn.  This is being scaled at a cohort of the District's neediest schools.

  • Ethnic studies curriculum as a tool for student engagement –  SCUSD was one of the first districts in the state to adopt Ethnic Studies as a graduation requirement in 2017. Ethnic studies pushes forward SCUSD’s effort to provide culturally relevant, reflective curriculum. Research has shown that a high school ethnic studies course examining the roles of race, nationality and culture on identity and experience boosted attendance and academic performance of students at risk of dropping out. I was proud to also champion Ethnic Studies as a graduation requirement in higher education.

2) The District and its teachers union have been engaged in a cycle of mistrust and conflict that has made it impossible to fully address most of the challenges that affect students, from distance learning to school climate to serving special education families. This destructive dynamic must be overcome if SCUSD is going to address its long-term structural budget issues and avoid a state takeover. We understand that a Board member is only one part of a large and complex system. However, what are you going to do to bridge the District/union relationship and rebuild trust so that we can move forward without a state takeover?


Response: I have spent my entire career bringing together unlikely coalitions to focus on improving student pathways in higher education.  This means sometimes vehemently disagreeing with partners but always treating one another with respect and a shared commitment to making the path better for our students.  The decades-long dysfunction between the District and its teachers union, has spanned many boards and Superintendents.  Though the players have changed the mistrust has not.  The very real structural financial challenges have only seemed to exacerbate the divide. I believe that the future of our students and this district relies upon the parties seeing each other as human beings first and not adversaries.  We are all members of the same team; rooting for one party to fail is in essence rooting for the failure of our students. First, there must be a shared agreement that a state takeover would be devastating to our most vulnerable students and families as well as irreparably harm our teachers and community.  One of the best ways to bridge that divide is by building with teachers on the ground and at a school site level in a deep and intentional way.  Our parents also have the potential to be the unit of change as observers in the critical negotiations that will be necessary to address the structural budget issues, build trust, and avoid a state takeover. Additionally, the California Department of Education and Superintendent of Public Instruction Thurmond have lifted-up a Labor Management Institute as creating critical space to develop stronger labor/management relations.  This includes bringing in skilled facilitators that help both sides engage in interest based conversations that are healthy and rooted in practical, measurable goals.  The District and SCTA should lean into this work as creating a vital container for the relationship building and grounding necessary to lay the foundation for greater alignment and relationships.

3) We know that the mental health challenges for students have only deepened with distance learning. Even before COVID, the Children's Movement of California reported that nearly 1 in 3 California high schoolers reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks in a row, and stopped doing some of their usual activities. Nearly 1 in 5 reported that they have seriously considered attempting suicide. And there was a 34 percent increase in suicides among California youth between the ages of 15 and 19 over the past three years. What actions will you take to improve our students’ mental health and increase access to mental health resources to address these challenges within our district during and beyond distance learning?

Response: I am deeply concerned with our students’ mental health and risk of suicide. I know that in addition to providing our students with direct support,  educators must communicate and provide our families with the tools necessary to see the signs of distress and to react appropriately. The trauma from the public health crisis compounded with the racial reckoning is leaving many of our students in a state of overwhelm.  Teachers, the District and trusted community allies must increase public outreach by sharing suicide prevention tips, signs, and how to reach immediate help through both the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 and SCUSD’s warmline number at (916) 643-2333.  We also need to expeditiously fund and launch a peer to peer mental health mentoring program so that youth have relatable touchstones that can help them navigate these uncharted waters (the board will be voting on this critical investment at an upcoming meeting).

·  Trauma Informed Training- This year SCUSD staff received Kognito - Trauma-Informed Practices for K12 Schools - as a way to recognize and understand the root causes of trauma, how to engage students with compassion and empathy, and how to get help if needed - particularly if there is a safety concern such as suicide. The goal of the training is to recognize signs of trauma and distress and intervene before a student becomes so emotionally distressed they experience thoughts of suicide. Last year 2,618 staff members successfully completed the Kognito suicide prevention training where they learned about the signs of emotional distress, risk factors for suicide, and how to help student access supports to mitigate mental health risks and save lives. 

·  The district focused support for different high needs student populations and trained and provided resources for staff to assist students in crisis, including groups that might need additional support such as LGBTQ+, students in foster care, and Students experiencing homelessness.  Utilizing a combination of staff and community based partnerships, students receive targeted real time intervention from trusted brokers.

Finally, we must recognize that for many of our students home is not a safe space.  All the tools in the world cannot adequately compensate for in-person mental health support. There are students physically disconnected from the very schools that served as their lifelines.  This knowledge must serve as a North Star as we move towards safely reopening.  

Letter to the County Board of Supervisors Regarding FY 2020-2021 Budget

ACT’s Homelessness & Housing Local Organizing Committee (LOC) Letter to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors Regarding the FY 2020-2021 Budget:

September 2, 2020 

Supervisor Phil Serna, Chair, and Members 

Sacramento County Board of Supervisors 

700 H Street, Suite 2450 

Sacramento, CA 95814 

Dear Chair Serna and Members of the Board of Supervisors: 

Sacramento Area Congregations Together (SacACT) provides these comments on the FY 2020/21 budget that was released on August 28, 2020. 

We appreciate the brief opportunity we had to discuss the general direction of the budget with staff, and we reiterate our concern that the budget MUST address public health and homelessness in a robust way. We understand the county struggles with loss of revenue and increased costs due to the pandemic, but it is essential that decisions about whether to augment or cut programs depart from the “status quo” orientation we see in the proposed budget. Click here to read the full letter.

Recent actions by the board that essentially delegated the CARES decisions to the County Executive officer make it clear that law enforcement still has a stranglehold on the budget. Our perception of your recent decisions, while perhaps intended to minimize negative impacts on the FY2020-2021 budget, is that they hold the Sheriff’s Office essentially “harmless” while other county human and health services are considered less worthy of being held harmless or even augmented. Especially we ask that you not delegate any major decisions to the County Executive without clear direction by the Board. 

SacACT respectfully urges you to take seriously the notion that budgets are moral documents that reflect our values and raise the value of human needs for health, income support, rent relief, and other urgent services as high as possible in the budget you are about to adopt. 

Beyond that, we urge you to start a process for the FY 2021/22 budget that will closely look at all the ways the county spends money with an eye to rethinking the balance of human services that prevent crime and reduce policing needs versus direct law enforcement activities. The safety of county residents is certainly an important part of your overall job—but there are many ways to make this a safer county, and they don’t require that law enforcement get the lion’s share of general funds available.

Increased Funding for Homeless Services 

For many years, SacACT has urged key elected officials in our community to sponsor the development of a comprehensive, collaborative plan to end homelessness. Given the huge number of homeless people on the streets, and others cycling in and out of emergency shelters, it is clear that we have a long way to go to solve this acute problem. As a result of this enormous unmet need, SacACT has supported incremental increases in County funding for homeless programs in recent years without challenging the design of various programs because almost anything has been a positive step toward improving our community’s support for homeless people. 

Top management of the County’s executive team assure us that the County has preserved funding in the proposed FY 2020/21 budget for all of the programs funded in the FY 2019/20 budget unless it is clear that service needs have declined. Detailed information about program funding levels and sources received 9/1/2020 confirm that this is the case. The Board has already approved, on a provisional basis, at least 11 contracts over the period from June 16 to July 23 with entities that provide housing and services that implement various County homeless programs. These contracts amount to $8.9 million dollars of the $24.3 million the County budgeted from all sources in FY 2019/20. Approval is still needed for the majority of the funding for the program and service operators that will be funded out of the final FY 2020/21 budget. We appreciate the Board’s actions to date, and the recommendations of the Executive Officer that nearly all programs will continue to be funded at the level approved in FY 2019/20 and higher in some cases. 

We are disappointed that the pandemic and its economic repercussions, even with extensive financial support from state and federal governments, did not motivate the County Executive to expand the scope of existing programs or lead to new programs. We have three specific recommendations for new and continuing programs: 

a. Homeless Encampment Outreach and Support 

The original Covid-19 Homelessness Response Plan included $1.25 million to support outreach to homeless encampments throughout the County and the City of Sacramento. This effort was funded by $0.25 million from County DHS to fund placement and upkeep of sanitation stations. $1.0 million from the Sacramento CoC funded outreach services, water deliveries, food distribution, and protective gear in order reduce the spread of the virus. Medical review and assessment was provided through UC Davis medical students and other trained volunteers. Although not directly mentioned in the Board letter for Agenda Item #9 3 of the July 14 Board meeting, the $2.15 million approved did include funds to continue encampment outreach through September 30. SacACT recommends that the County fund an encampment outreach program through the balance of FY 20/21 as follows: 

i) Augment its DHA homelessness programs to extend this encampment outreach effort through the end of FY2020/21. This would cost about $0.75 million. 

ii) Because DHS intends to fund the sanitation stations (porta potties and wash stations) only until the end of the year; therefore the DHS, Public Health Division budget should be increased to fund sanitation services by $0.5 million 

iii) Since it is critical that trash services be added to what has already been provided to encampments from April through July to these encampments, the budget of the Waste Management Department should be increased to support placement of waste containers and frequent waste pickup, and 

iv) Park Rangers and Sheriff Deputies should be directed to not harass the encampments that have been de facto sanctioned by virtue of the extensive support they have received since April of this year. 

b. Permanent Supportive Housing 

On August 11, County staff put forward a proposed application for the State’s Homekey Program that is generally understood to fund acquisition, rehabilitation, and operation of motels as permanent supportive housing. The Board rejected this proposal on the grounds that the specific motel proposed was too important to the continuing development of McClellan Business Park. Although this means Sacramento County lost the opportunity to apply in the first round of applications, it is possible that funding may be available later this year.

The County should develop a proposal that is scalable using new manufactured housing as the basis for one or more “tiny home” villages. A 20-unit manufactured housing village with associated common use structures comparable to the St. John’s project funded by the City would cost about $4.5 million, but would re quire only about $1.0 million from the County with the balance from State Homekey funds. There is ample evidence that more housing is needed to serve unsheltered homeless people, and this is the fastest and cheapest way to provide this housing. SacACT recommends setting aside $1.0 million of funding not tied to the CARES expenditure deadline, so that if Homekey Program funding is not available, this “setaside” can be redirected to other purposes during the year.

c. 2021 Point-in-Time Count 

In FY2016/17 and FY 2018/19, the County provided $50,000 to the CoC/SSF to assist with the biennial Point-in-Time Count. This is a primary data collection effort that helps to characterize the size and nature of the unsheltered homeless population in our community. The County is a direct beneficiary of the data collected for use in designing the nature and scale of County programs. No evidence of such funding exists in the detailed budget materials provided by DHA to SacACT. This effort must not be compromised by funding shortfalls. SacACT recommends that the County find $0.05 million from some other homeless program with a flexible funding source and allocate it to the CoC/SSF for the 2021 Point-in-Time Count. 

Homelessness Prevention: Immediate Rent Relief 

We call for the Board to authorize $5 million for a renter relief program, to be administered by SHRA in parallel with the similar program authorized and under development for the City of Sacramento. Although the legislature has passed, and the governor has signed, AB3088, this legislation does not relieve tenants from repaying the debt they owe landlords. In fact, it requires partial payments of monthly rents beginning September 1 despite reductions in unemployment benefits to laid-off workers. The need for renter relief still exists, starting immediately. Given the scope of the current economic crisis, our unemployment levels, and the devastating social (and real budgetary) costs of increased homelessness, it is not too much to ask that a mere 1 percent of the County’s general fund be used to prevent at least 1,000 families from becoming homeless in the next three months. How inequitable it would be if the City of Sacramento uses relief funds to take responsibility for some struggling renters, and the County fails to do so! 

In April and May, SacACT conducted a listening campaign with over 100 area residents most severely impacted by COVID-19. They told us that they were barely hanging on before this crisis. They told us their minimum wage jobs hadn’t allowed them to save for this “rainy day” and they didn’t have family able to assist them. For most of them, their service industry jobs have NOT come back. 

Today, eviction is looming over their heads. What will they do? Where will they go? They are understandably terrified. Assisting as many of these families as we can is a perfectly appropriate use of federal and state funds. We need to remember that it will benefit us all by boosting our economy and preventing costly downstream problems. 5 

Since the likely source of funding for a short term program is HUD ESG-CV2 funds, SacACT believes that the Board of Supervisors should approve funding for a renter relief program as an amendment to the current year’s Housing Authority of the County of Sacramento Annual Action Plan. SHRA is hard at work designing the City’s program as this is being written. This program will have as its overarching priority the prevention of eviction for our most vulnerable neighbors. With the work being done by SHRA, there is no need for the County to “reinvent the wheel”, but simply to augment the pool of funds to be administered by SHRA, reserved, of course, for assistance to County residents. 

We Need to Reimagine the Budgeting Process 

There is an urgent need for the county to expand the transparency and public involvement in the budget process. The Board’s recent action to delegate to the County Executive officer the allotment of CARES Act funding, whatever its motivation, appeared to be a flat-out giveaway to the Sheriff’s Office at the expense of critical public health and social services for which Congress intended the funding. Notwith-standing that the motives may have been good, this approach to major funding decisions should NOT be repeated. 

We suggest that not only should the board consider specific spending proposals from ourselves and other human services advocates in this budget; you should also commit to an ongoing and transparent process to look at long-term budget issues. You should establish a citizens’ task force and schedule periodic open public workshops over the coming months so that potential restructuring of the budget can be explored before the 2021-2022 budget starts to take shape. You should give people an opportunity to learn more about your constraints, to review current spending and projected future needs, and to offer recommendations to reduce the reflexive need to protect the Sheriff’s Office in spite of the potential cost to other vital services. 

A Comprehensive, Regional Plan to End Homelessness 

For years, Sacramento ACT has implored elected officials in our community to come together to develop a comprehensive plan to end homelessness. Ending homelessness – making homelessness brief, rare, and one time – is not only possible, but will lead to a vast array of human, social, and even financial benefits. The human and social costs of ‘managing’ homelessness in our current manner are huge in terms of wasted human potential, pain, suffering, and loss of dignity. The financial costs are also huge in terms of hospital visits, law enforcement, trash pickup, lost business revenues, and much, much more.

The County simply has to fundamentally rethink the nature of the revenues it receives and the expenditures it undertakes in order to increase the priority of homelessness relief and prevention efforts. Business as usual is insufficient in these unusual times. The lives of thousands of existing homeless people and the possibility of thousands more becoming homeless are too important to the future of our community. The critical first step to long-term solutions is a real plan with goals, measures of progress, and the ability to promote genuine collaboration among all the stakeholders, and the county should immediately begin a joint process with other agencies to, at long last, prepare this plan. 

Summary 

In summary, we urge you to make three changes to the staff’s budget proposal and the associated program activities it funds: 

1. Increase $1.8 million in funding to add/restore three homeless programs operated by DHA with support from other departments. 

2. Direct staff and encourage the Sheriff to adopt new practices that avoid “sweeping” homeless encampments sanctioned through the Homelessness Response Plan activities. 

3. Allocate $5M, or 1% of the general fund, to a rent relief program to be administered by SHRA. 

In addition, we urge you to commit yourselves to two critical efforts in this fiscal year: 

1. Create a new, transparent, values-based and community-based budgeting process for the 2021-2022 fiscal year to begin with public outreach and workshops early next year. 

2. Working with your colleagues throughout the community, begin the work to develop a regional comprehensive plan for ending homelessness. 

Thank you for your consideration of the needs of the many homeless and low-income citizens of our County who need your support. 

Gabby Trejo, Executive Director 

SacACT 

CC: County Executive Officer Nav Gill 

Deputy County Executive Officer Bruce Wagstaff 

Clerk of the Board 

10 Commandments for Dismantling Systemic Racism and Affirming the Rights and Dignity of Black, Brown and Native People

Statement of Sacramento ACT Faith Leader Caucus, August 30, 2020

10 COMMANDMENTS

For Dismantling Systemic Racism and Affirming the Rights and Dignity of Black, Brown & Native People

1.         THOU SHALL MAKE NO GRAVEN IMAGE OF WHITE SUPREMACY, BUT THOU SHALL DISMANTLE ALL FORMS OF SYSTEMIC AND STRUCTURAL RACISM.

All policies, practices, procedures; symbols, symptoms, and similarities of White Supremacy, institutionalized and structural racism and discrimination shall be not be legally permissible, not socially tolerable and shall be abandoned, and abolished throughout the city, county and state.

2.         THOU SHALL HONOR ALL BLACK LIVES. IN RECOGNITION OF THIS, THOU SHALL ACKNOWLEDGE JUNETEENTH AND KEEP IT HOLY.

The lives and well-being of Black people matter in our society and shall be respected and honored by ensuring that all city, county and state policies and practice include a racial and gender equity analysis that factors representation for Black people.

As a recognition of the final enslaved Africans learning of the Emancipation Proclamation, on June 19th, 1865, all city, county, and state employees shall be given a paid day of vacation to celebrate, commemorate, and educate themselves on this historic milestone in our nation’s history.

3.         THOU SHALL NOT KILL UNARMED BLACK, BROWN & NATIVE PEOPLE, BUT RATHER DEESCALATE, NEGOTIATE, AND INVESTIGATE.  

Law enforcement shall not kill unarmed residents but shall follow the dictates of AB392 when interacting with unarmed residents.

4.         THOU SHALL NOT STEAL RESOURCES OR RIGHTS FROM BLACK, BROWN & NATIVE COMMUNITIES.  

When public agreements have been made and ballot measures have been designated to benefit Black and Brown people, deliver those funds as promised. “Reallocating” resources aimed at empowering the Black and Brown community is civic theft. Re: #GIVEITALLBACK #MEASUREU.

Voting is a fundamental right of all citizens and shall not be hindered or impeded in any way. Efforts to disenfranchise communities of color from voting shall be stopped. During the current pandemic, means of voting that are safe and accessible must be made available to all citizens. 

5.         THOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST PEACEFUL PROTESTERS.  

Cease and desist from accusing, attacking and arresting peaceful protestors. Black, Brown & Native people who fight for their freedoms are not rioting, they are rebelling against systemic racism and oppression. Leave them free to exercise their first amendment rights. 

6.         THOU SHALL NOT HIRE, NOR HARBOR RACIST POLICE OFFICERS.

Police officers shall be pre-screened for ties to known White Supremacy Organizations, hate groups, and domestic terrorism groups and such shall be not be hired onto the force or removed from the police force upon credible reports being confirmed.

7.         THOU SHALT DIVEST FROM THE POLICE STATE AND INVEST IN COMMUNITY.  

We demand that our city, county, and state leadership put its budget where its mouth is. Dismantling the police state begins when significant resources are divested from the militarization of law enforcement and invested into public safety that includes funding for community development, mental health services, substance abuse services, affordable housing, and after school and youth programs.

8.         THOU SHALL ESTABLISH ACCESSIBLE AND AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE FOR BLACK, BROWN & NATIVE PEOPLE. 

We demand that Black, Brown & Native people shall have access to affordable, quality healthcare and all structural and systemic obstacles to granting such access be removed lawfully and fiscally. This includes access to preventive care, emergency treatment, and ongoing resource to uplift marginalized communities with the tools necessary to counteract pre-existing medical conditions.

9.         THOU SHALL DECARCERATE NON-CRIMINAL OFFENDERS UNJUSTLY SENTENCED. 

Thou shall cooperate with all state-wide efforts to enact restorative justice for non-criminal offenders who were unfairly sentenced. Thereby, reducing sentences, releasing Black, Brown & Native people from prison, and restoring citizenship and dignity. Black, Brown & Native people who were unjustly sentenced shall be made whole through mental health counseling, job and career counseling and placement services, and a formal apology from the appropriate official. 

10.       THOU SHALL ENACT REPARATIONS AND RESTITUTION TO BLACK PEOPLE FOR THE LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

Systemic subjugation and the enslavement of people of African descent in the State of California from 1848-1855 led to the systemic dehumanization and discrimination and institutionalized racism that has perpetuated generations of marginalized and disenfranchised decedents. The path to restoring generational trauma is through a formal apology and financial restitution to the descendants of formerly enslaved people of African descent in this State. Doing so resolves the unpaid debt owed to Black people whose ancestors suffered 400 years of chattel slavery in the United States and it will redeem the soul of this State of its original sin. RE: AB 3121.

Signed,

Sacramento ACT Faith Leader Caucus

August 30, 2020

 

 

Statement from Sacramento ACT Board of Directors

June 1, 2020

Sacramento ACT is deeply grieved by the murder of George Floyd, and so many other black men and women at the hands of the police. We see the pain and anguish of the black community, a community that still bears the weight of the killings of black men by police locally such as Stephon Clark, Mikel McIntyre, and Joseph Mann and the failure of our officials to hold law enforcement accountable.

We are committed to accountability as an organization.  We are dedicated to accountability in our city and county to end police brutality and violence in our communities of color, and especially in the black community. 

At this moment, we call on our non-black brothers and sisters to not only hear the pain of the black community, but to do both the internal work and to join in the external work that is needed to bring about healing and justice in our communities.

ACT co-hosted a Prayer Rally with National Action Network on Saturday at the Genesis Community Church.  At that rally, Pastor Efrem Smith, co-lead pastor of Bayside Midtown Church and ACT Board Member gave the following reflection.

I’m here as someone who was born and raised in South Minneapolis.  And where George Floyd was killed, that’s where I grew up.  I had to watch the block where I was raised become ground to take another black life.  On 38th and Chicago, I rode my Big Wheel, I rode my skateboard, I learned to ride a bicycle. I read comic books with my friends, Otis and Oscar and Tony and Kevin. I saw girls like Sabrina and Tasha learning dances and double-dutching and preparing to be cheerleaders at our neighborhood high school…

Right in that neighborhood there are churches, there are elementary schools, gas stations, high schools, Boys and Girls Clubs. There is enough in that neighborhood for it to be a thriving and flourishing place for people of all races and all backgrounds.

But a week ago, that sacred ground that raised me took the life of a man who looks just like me. And we need to be sick and tired of it so that we say No More! No More! Not my city, not my block, not my neighborhood, not my community, not my kids, not my nephews. No More!

My heart is broken as I watch the city where I was born, burn.  But we must get to the core of WHY it is burning….  It’s burning because it took way too long for the District Attorney to come forward with the courage, not just to charge one officer, but to charge every officer that was there … [and] stood by and did nothing

It’s not enough to say I’m grieved and I’m heartbroken. It’s not enough to say I’m praying with you and I’m praying for you.  It’s when ALL of us TOGETHER decide to use our gifts, our voice, our talents, our time, our treasure, our resources to solve this.

It’s not enough to unleash compassion. There must be repentance. There must be responsibility and there must be restorative justice.

Because what is going to happen if the right actions are not taken in love, non-violently in this country, is that the genocide will be replaced with gentrification. And so the very people who are hurting right now, they will be displaced. Businesses will come that they don’t own. The dollar will be turned over…

For too long, under-resourced communities have not just had to fear for their lives from police officers, but we’ve had to fear of dying from high cholesterol and diabetes because we can’t even buy healthy food in our own neighborhoods… We need a radical, revolutionary turn in what it means for this nation to be committed to the communities that black and brown people are isolated and segregated to…

I pray now as one from Minneapolis and as one who is deeply grieved that we can be the change.”

ACT is committed to resisting ongoing police violence and to building a public safety system here in Sacramento that we can all trust. We will be calling on city and county officials and law enforcement officials to take the zero tolerance pledge #FireAllRacistCops while we use the H.E.A.T. (Hiring, Equipment, Accountability, and Training) model to transform our public safety system. We are committed to building a just and equitable community for all.

Research Report: Sacramento ACT Candidates’ Forum, District 3, County Board of Supervisors

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.

A Town Hall Meeting on Homelessness in Sacramento Statistics and Data – Prepared by Sacramento ACT

SEIU Local 1000

Sacramento Area Congregations Together

Loaves and Fishes

March 19, 2019

See the full report here.

Since 1991, Sacramento Area Congregations Together (Sacramento ACT) has been the public voice of the progressive faith community. Today, ACT’s 56 member congregations and the 60,000 families we represent draw on our shared faith values as we lift up voices that are often silenced in our community: youth, communities of color, immigrants, homeless residents and new voters.

Within ACT, subgroups of congregations work to improve education and safety in our community, increase access to healthcare, end the ‘school to prison pipeline’ and push for police accountability, eliminate homelessness and support human services, advocate for immigrants and refugees, and engage voters to vote their values.

We work tirelessly to urge the City and County of Sacramento to develop a comprehensive plan to end the crisis of homelessness. Because our region currently has no coordinated roadmap, the system is a navigational nightmare for those who are homeless and those who wish to help. Unconscionably high numbers of people are falling through the cracks. Often our work involves meeting with key elected officials or speaking before the city council or Board of Supervisors.

Everyone who is interested in working for system change is invited to join us!

Sacramento ACT Statement on Last Night's Protest and Arrests

March 5, 2019

Last night 200 people, many of them student leaders, gathered in East Sacramento for a non-violent protest in response to District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert’s decision to file no charges against the officers who killed Stephon Clark while she also defamed his character to support her lack of action.

The Sacramento Police Department responded with a massive, militarized show of force and arrested 84 protestors, including clergy, faith leaders and a journalist, after herding them onto a bridge.

Sacramento ACT condemns this police response in the strongest terms.  While faith leaders and community leaders have been preparing for protests with de-escalation and non-violent protest trainings, the Sacramento Police Department chose to appear with a disproportional show of force.  Protests will continue as the community gives voice to its anguish and pain over the ongoing deaths of black and brown community members at the hands of law enforcement. Where is the de-escalation on the part of the police?

We call on all people of good conscience and good faith to join us in speaking out for justice to our elected officials and lawmakers to demand change:

  • The officers who killed Stephon Clark should no longer be able to police our communities.

  • Empower our Police Commission to make disciplinary recommendations and restore their ability to review any and all policy that impacts Public Safety in our community.

  • The City Council should implement a higher standard for the use of deadly force that mirrors AB392 on a local level.

  • The City Council should lead the State conversation to raise the standard for the use of deadly force to that of AB392.

 

 

COMMUNITY CONDEMNS $1.4 MILLION AGREEMENT TO PAY FOR MORE POLICE ON SCHOOL CAMPUSES

Most powerful at last night’s Board meeting were the voices and stories of high school students from throughout the District. Every single student in attendance demanded the Board acknowledge their negative and traumatic experiences with police officers on campus and reject the contract in order to find alternatives to policing. As Stephanie López Hernández, high school student at Luther Burbank and member of Brown Issues states, “Nearly all the research about police on campus shows that it undermines safety and harms students, but the Board could have simply listened to the voices of Black and Brown students here in their own District. We live it every single day. Voting to extend this contract is a betrayal of the trust Board members have tried to build with our communities. They were more concerned with temporary inconveniencing school administrators than the lifetime of trauma and criminalization that’s triggered when there are cops on campus. We need more counselors, more teachers, more support; not more cops.“

Sacramento ACT Theory of Change Research Report, November 2018

Read the complete report here.

Introduction

In August of 2017, Sacramento ACT began a process to develop a new Theory of Change to guide our work for the next five years.  We formed a team that included board members, staff and leaders.  We designed questions for a research phase during which time we would seek to understand the political, economic and faith landscape of Sacramento, the major challenges facing our region, and the perception and role of ACT now and in the future.

The team conducted over 30 research meetings between September 2017 and March 2018 with public officials from both Sacramento city and county, representatives of 3 school districts, local activists and non-profits, members of the immigrant community, and representatives of the philanthropic, union, media, and business sectors.  We also met with ACT’s faith leader caucus, Local Organizing Committees, and brought findings for discussion to ACT leadership assemblies. This is the picture that emerged from our research.

Sacramento sits at a crossroads of identity. Will we become a city, county and region that prioritizes racial and economic equity, a region that is truly diverse with opportunities for all to participate?  Or will be become a region dominated by the demands of the privileged? Poised on the edge of our future, we face choices.  Sacramento can choose to become the city where there is inclusion of income diversity or it can push out current residents in favor of wealthier newcomers. Will Sacramento invest in all of its neighborhoods, with special attention to those who have experienced disinvestment?  Or will resources be concentrated in the downtown core?

In February 2018, Policy Link published two important reports on Sacramento whose findings support our research: Advancing Health Equity and Inclusive Growth in the Sacramento Region and Health Equity Now: Toward an All-In Sacramento