Sacramento City Council Approves More Help For Homeless
SACRAMENTO (CBS13)- More beds and year-round shelters; that's the move city leaders took to help with homelessness, funding $800 more annually.
City Council members voted to approve funding for several items on their 21-point plan to end chronic homelessness, but only touched on a few points and some homeless said it's not enough.
"If they were to stop criminalizing, they could speed up the process of finding housing. They could better implement plans to get people off the streets," said Faygo Clark who is one of 5,000 homeless accounted for by the city.
Approved
"Right now it's more beds and more time of those beds. We have some shelters that close at 6 or 7 in the morning. We want to make sure that those are open 24 hours 7 days a week to really take some pressure off of the communities where they reside, so folks aren't really out on the streets," said Councilman Jay Schenirer.
The new beds and year-round shelters will cost $800,000. The city will spend $400,000 from the general fund and in a surprised donation, Sutter health foundation with match that.
"It's significant. It's almost doubling what we're putting in now as far as homeless issues," said Schenirer.
The city stopped short of funding the bigger ticket items that include tiny home villages, a crisis triage center, and attended bathrooms which would cost millions more.
"I like the idea of there being an attended bathroom. I think it shouldn't have to be this mobile one that's going to cost even more than the stationary ones we already have," said Faygo.
Some homeless think the $4 million the city currently spends on homeless issues could be better spent.
"We keep looking at it as creating new money, but how do we re-appropriate the money we're already spending into a more productive fashion," he said.
The city realizes these moves won't solve homeless issues, but they plan to continue to move forward to try and find funding to help pay for the rest of the programs in their 21 point plan.
