Three people in Sacramento County could turn the region’s homeless management on its head by a new ordinance that would force hundreds of residents to relocate elsewhere. Those three are a majority on the Board of Supervisors who shouldn’t vote to make matters worse.
In a recent Supreme Court decision, cities in California and other western states are no longer required to have shelter capacity available to homeless residents in order to local law enforcement to remove homeless from public property. The decision, stemming from a tough ordinance enacted in Grants Pass, Ore., overruled a previous appellate court case that found that moving homeless from public property with no shelter alternative amounted to cruel and unusual punishment and a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.
In the math of the unhoused in Sacramento County, the one jurisdiction where a punitive new anti-homeless ordinance could seriously change things is in The Uncity. This is the vast unincorporated area with about 600,000 residents (more than the City of Sacramento) that is run by the Board of Supervisors. These communities include Orangevale, Carmichael, Fair Oaks, Antelope and Arden-Arcade.
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Based on a recently-announced new survey of the county’s homeless population, Sacramento this January had the largest unsheltered population by far, some 3,053 residents. The unincorporated areas of The Uncity have a larger overall residential population at approximately 600,000 compared to Sacramento’s 530,000. The unsheltered population in the unincorporated areas in January was calculated to be 561 unhoused residents.
Sacramento’s unsheltered population in 2024 dropped by 31 percent compared to the same survey in 2022. The Uncity’s unsheltered population, meanwhile, dropped by a whopping 61 percent over the same period. This isn’t because the county was better at solving the problem. The county was better at moving the problem. The county’s unincorporated communities had 20 percent of the region’s unsheltered homeless population in 2022 and only 14 percent in 2024, while Sacramento’s share went up from 67 percent to 77 percent. Some neighbor.
The burden on Sacramento is even worse when comparing the unsheltered homeless to the community’s overall population. In Sacramento, there is one homeless person for every 174 housed residents. In The Uncity managed by county supervisors, there is one homeless person for every 1,070 residents.
The other cities have such small homeless populations to be inconsequential in overall management, but the numbers are interesting. There are about double the homeless in Folsom, for example, than in The Uncity based on their respective populations. The city with the fewest homeless for its size is Elk Grove, with one unhoused for every 2,168 residents. Closest to Elk Grove is Rancho Cordova, with one homeless for 1,560 residents. Next is Citrus Heights, with one homeless per 1,391 residents.
There is no evidence that anti-encampment ordinances solve homelessness. They simply move where that same person without a place to live will find a spot for the night.
If Elk Grove were to get tough on its 83 estimated unsheltered residents and pass some tough new anti-homeless ordinance to encourage these souls to find shelter elsewhere, it would not materially change the math of the problem. It certainly would cement Elk Grove as a bad actor, both in its inadequate efforts to build affordable housing and to kick out the few homeless that live there. But Elk Grove has already minimized its homeless challenge to next to nothing.
If the county were to do the same with a new tough ordinance to move its homeless population to other jurisdictions, that is tantamount to a declaration of war on Sacramento and other neighboring cities.
Sacramento and the county are now in a very tenuous partnership on how to manage homelessness collaboratively. The agreement calls for both to make a modicum of progress on providing additional shelter capacity. The county is the provider of social services such as mental health and addiction treatment for all county residents who need them. And as part of this partnership, the county pledged to provide more outreach personnel to provide the “wraparound” social services for unsheltered residents as a step preparing homeless residents for jobs and, hopefully, housing.
The good news is that the county’s unsheltered homeless population is down by 41 percent this January compared to 2022, although some homeless advocates question the result based on record demand for free daily meal programs at sites such as downtown’s Loaves and Fishes .
The bad news is that the progress in opening more shelters is dependent to state funds that are now at risk long term due to worsening budget problems. This so-called “partnership” between Sacramento and the county is largely based on somebody else’s money, namely that of the state taxpayer.
The ball now, more than ever, is squarely in the court of the five supervisors - Phil Serna, Patrick Kennedy, Rich Desmond, Sue Frost and Pat Hume. Here are three things to watch.
Will the county meet or exceed its targets to provide additional shelter space with its agreement with the city?
Will supervisors enact new anti-homeless ordinances that are tougher than that of Sacramento?
And most importantly, will supervisors make progress to reduce homelessness by applying for new state funds made available by Proposition 1 this March for additional mental health treatment and housing?
If the county supervisors fail to take advantage of this golden opportunity to expand housing and mental health treatment in the months ahead, we will all suffer the consequences regardless where we live. They’ve already done an outstanding job at shifting the problem disproportionately to Sacramento. Now the solutions fall disproportionately to them.
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