Sacramento City Council Exploring Options For Low-Income Families In Downtown

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Downtown Sacramento is reinventing and improving itself, but the process may leave a fragile part of the community behind, low-income families who struggle to find a place to live that they can afford.

The Sacramento City Council is looking at a possible change to the rules regulating residential hotels and single room occupancy units that provide affordable shelter.

"The ordinance has been working fine, they've wanted to maintain 712 single room occupancy units in the city and that's what the ordinance has done," said Darryl Rutherford, executive director of Sacramento Housing Alliance.

Some hotels want to opt out of providing the housing, to upgrade their spaces and maybe increase their profits.

Currently, some rooms go for about $500 a month.

"They're still going to be required to provide relocation costs to the tenants that are living there, and they're going to have to help find comparable units somewhere in the city, city to what hotel Marshall did a few years ago," said Rutherford.

Tuesday night, the council was simply hearing ideas, more of a procedural step. But next week, it will hear testimony, and public comment before deciding on whether they will adopt these changes to the ordinance.