Sacramento’s Camp Resolution residents don’t know where to go as city clears camp. ‘I will die’

A tight-knit group of homeless people who have lived on the city-owned land they call Camp Resolution were scrambling to make plans Sunday afternoon as the hours ticked down until the city of Sacramento has warned that they will be considered trespassers .

Nearly 50 people , including many seniors with disabilities, have been living at the encampment in city-issued trailers vacant lot on Colfax Street and Arden Way since 2022 .

The city’s eviction notice orders all residents to leave by midnight Monday. But in the final hours before a possible sweep, many residents were still trying to figure out their next steps.

By Sunday afternoon, two residents had already suffered seizures from extreme stress as eviction loomed, Crystal Sanchez of the Sacramento Homeless Union said.

Jeanne Gillis, 53, was one of them. She suffers from the autoimmune disease lupus, which affects her kidneys, lungs and brain, and causes seizures, she said in an interview with the Sacramento Bee Friday. At the time, Gillis said she feared she would die if she was evicted from her home at Camp Resolution.

“I’m being forced out of it into a tent,” she said Friday. “If my illness doesn’t kill me, the streets will because I can’t lock a tent.”

The city has offered shelter beds to all 48 residents at city shelters located on Roseville Road and Auburn Boulevard. Both shelters usually allow guests to only have one dog, meaning many Camp Resolution guests would have to part with their pets. In addition, the Roseville Road trailers and tiny homes do not have electricity or generators, creating issues for Camp Resolution residents on medical devices including oxygen machines.

Gillis said she had no intention of going to the shelter at Roseville Road because she relies on her generator to stabilize her health issues. Without proper air conditioning, she said the heat and stress would cause her seizures to worsen.

On Sunday, as she was attempting to move her stuff to a secure storage unit, she experienced a seizure. Sanchez, who helped Gillis recover, said overwhelming stress had caused it.

“This camp is a little bit in shambles right now because everybody’s in urgency to try to figure out what we’re doing,” Sanchez said.

Preparing for possible eviction

According to the city’s eviction notice, people who choose to remain at Camp Resolution past midnight may be considered in violation of various state laws or city ordinances, including trespassing and occupying a trailer outside of permitted area.

“If you remain on the property after Aug. 26, further enforcement action will be taken,” the notices state. “Shelter space has been reserved for you.”

But many people living at Camp Resolution are planning to stay put.

Residents released a “Call to Action” flyer asking the public to gather at the Camp from 8 a.m. to noon Monday to “pray, support, witness, learn.” The flier also asked people to bring food, water and supplies to donate to the site.

Resident Twana James, 55, said she was cooking more than 100 tacos for people still at the camp Sunday night. She decided not to take a shelter bed at Roseville Road because she was determined to help out others at Camp Resolution as long as she could.

“I haven’t packed a thing, not one thing,” James said. “I don’t know where I’m going to go. I don’t want to go out there. It’s dangerous out there, and then you go to jail.”

The residents who live at the camp rely on community members and organizations for food, clothing and supplies. The camp is self-governing with the homeless residents making their own rules and key decisions.

Although they are not in permanent housing, residents feel they are in an environment that’s safer than the streets while they wait for housing. They have doors and gates that lock, bathrooms, water, and a sense of community.

The camp had a waitlist of over 800 people, and mostly admitted people with chronic physical disabilities. Although those people collect disability and Social Security checks, they have said those payments are too little to afford market rate rent in Sacramento, where a studio often costs more than $1,500 a month. There are thousands of people on the waitlist for affordable permanent housing in Sacramento. Some report waiting years for a spot.

Sanchez has been attempting to find permanent housing for a few of the camp’s most vulnerable residents, but said she had been unsuccessful so far because she has been unable to connect with the city.

She said the two shelter options offered to residents are “band-aid solutions” that will not provide people adequate medical and mental health resources.

By her count, Camp Resolution on Sunday still had 30 residents. The rest had decided to leave, but she did not know whether they were back on the streets or in shelter beds.

Calls for city to halt shutdown

The Sacramento Homeless Union has filed a motion for a temporary restraining order requiring the city to hold off on closing Camp Resolution. The court hearing will be held 11 a.m. Friday at the Sacramento Superior Court.

On Saturday, Disability Rights California also called on the city of Sacramento to halt the planned shutdown of Camp Resolution until after the court hearing, “in light of the high risk of grave bodily harm or death facing these residents.”

Andrea Henson, co-counsel for the union, said she planned to sleep in the camp overnight in case the city began eviction procedures immediately.

“Historically, in Sacramento and in other jurisdictions, sweeps are violent, they’re hostile, they’re unforgiving, and they’re certainly not empathetic,” Henson said. “So I’m not leaving because these individuals deserve that.”

Why is the camp closing?

Due to vapor contamination, a state agency allowed people to live in the site in trailers, but not in tents on the ground. The type of contamination that’s present is not harmful to people in vehicles because they’re raised off the ground, the California State Water Resources Control Board has said. In an April letter, the city said there were people sleeping in tents and that the camp would close in May.

The city then backed off on that plan after residents begged the City Council for more time, and people stopped camping on the dirt.

On May 15, the homeless union sued the city, seeking a judge order barring the city from closing the camp until all residents are in permanent housing. The judge has so far ruled in the city’s favor on that case, but it is still active.

Meanwhile, in July civil rights attorney Mark Merin, whose nonprofit Safe Ground Sacramento had held lease with the city , sent a notice of plans for lease termination, which is effective Monday.

Merin has said that although the lease is ending, it is up to the city whether to clear the residents off the site.

The lease states, “upon the expiration or termination of this lease, lessee shall peaceably vacate the premises and deliver the premises, vacant of all guests to city.”

However since it’s a city property and city trailers, the city could have let the camp stay.

The council discussed the situation behind closed doors Tuesday, but the high-profile decision to close the camp did not get a vote or discussion in an open session of a City Council meeting. Neither City Manager Howard Chan nor Mayor Darrell Steinberg were present at Tuesday’s open meeting, where several Camp Resolution residents spoke.

Get Product Recall Updates