15-03-2025
South Sacramento declares: We don't want to take brunt of solving homelessness
Homelessness remains the number one issue the Sacramento community wants its leaders to address, but how the city addresses it can leave a lasting impact in one neighborhood.
A 102-acre plot of city land in South Sacramento symbolizes the tension between what the community wants and the desires of the Sacramento Council to find more land to shelter homeless people.
Opinion
That tension was on full display at the March 11 city council meeting where Mai Vang, who represents south Sacramento's council District 8, voiced what her community wants.
'For far too long the development of South Sacramento has happened to us, when vital and significant decisions were made without our input. This project is an opportunity to interrupt that cycle and to do things with transparency and integrity,' South Sacramento resident Danny Williams said at public comment on Tuesday.
Purchased by the city in 2022 for $12.3 million, the 102 acres has been coveted for different purposes. Vang wanted the land for a potential sports complex and affordable housing.
'I saw that property as an opportunity to really transform south Sacramento, given the conversation that council was having at the time about inclusive economic development.'
Later, former Mayor Darrell Steinberg included it in their Comprehensive Siting Plan to Address Homelessness.
Since then, Vang hasn't given up on ensuring the land will be used to uplift her district. This reflects her experience of growing up in poverty in her district as the daughter of Hmong refugees from Laos. District 8, whose most prominent neighborhood is Meadowview, lacks the investment of other city council districts. Vang has focused her time on the council on such issues as violence prevention, guaranteed income and improving community gathering places, libraries and community centers.
The development of the 102-acre site on Meadowview Road is an extension of Vang's priorities for her district.
But as discussions about what to do with the land heighten, other priorities come into play.
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For Vang, she sees the land best used for affordable housing and a sports complex. The goal in mind is to uplift communities in places like Detroit Boulevard and Meadowview by giving more housing options to them and making the area a more desirable place to live.
Mayor Kevin McCarty says he wants what's best for Sacramento as a whole. For a city that faced a budget deficit and is currently broke, the priority is money. To get funds to update the existing homeless shelter system, he wants to sell the land.
'We have multiple (homeless) sites in the city right now that are occupied with tiny homes and we're looking to expand but we need resources.'
McCarty finds keeping the land and building housing for the homeless insufficient given how much money it would cost to create and upkeep another site.
'We just need more money to open up more tiny homes on the sites,' McCarty said.
How the mayor's idea squares with Councilwoman Vang's desire for community benefits to come from this land remains to be seen.
The 102-acre site is landlocked, without a road to enter it. Ten acres of it is wetlands. Needless to say, it would be a huge undertaking for the city to take on by itself.
Selling the land puts money in the pockets of the city for other needs now, as the 102-acre land will take years before anything can break ground.
Moreover, choosing to have a big homeless presence on this site would further hurt South Sac.
'If the council so choose that path, it would be devastating. That policy idea is literally redlining homelessness and concentrating poverty,' Vang said.
Everyone has to play their part in solving homelessness, as equally as possible. The debate over this 102 acres of Sacramento land may be on its way to a positive ending.
