What a hypocrite Steinberg is being- when it comes to his plans in North Sac.
The Mayor Says “yes” to a homeless shelter site in North Sacramento’s easternmost District 2- surrounded by unincorporated County neighborhood - but “No” to homeless plans for safe ground in South Sacramento’s Meadowview.
What happened to the $12 million the city spent in Meadowview for the homeless- using funds from the Mayor’s Aug 2021 homeless “comprehensive siting plan”?
By June, the 102 acres of land no longer seemed to be purposed for the use of city homeless relief- but instead announced as dedicated for a “youth sports complex”
https://www.kcra.com/article/sacramento-mayor-darrell-steinbergs-state-of-the-city-address/40299508
From KCRA news article above:
“The property is close to the Morrison Creek and Meadowview Regional Transit light rail stations. When it was first purchased, the city had said it planned to use it to help people experiencing homelessness and affordable housing. Steinberg said Wednesday that more than half of the land could be used for "other economic drivers or more community amenities."
Asked whether the remainder of the property would still be used for people experiencing homelessness and affordable housing, city spokesperson Andrew Kehoe told KCRA 3: "The city is still considering a portion of the site in the short term for safe parking. No final decisions have been made."Asked about the homeless crisis in the city, Steinberg acknowledged that the problem is worse but said the city is “doing more than we ever have.”
Steinberg said that when he started as mayor, there were less than 100 shelter beds a night. That number is now at 1,100 beds a night from various programs.
“The truth of the matter is we can’t do it alone,” he said. “We need all of our partners. We’re not a health and human services agency. We don’t do mental health or substance abuse. And so we need a full partnership.”
He said that dealing with poverty will help address the root cause of homelessness.”
Hmmm. Does anyone else notice what a hypocrite Steinberg is?
Both are “city owned” assets- but one was purchased for $12 million, a whopping 102 acres, specifically dedicated for helping the homeless and bought using funds from the comprehensive shelter siting plan…and one is the Science center building- formerly a thriving natural science museum, a park amenity, used for youth education and field trips, adjacent to a (lighted) sports baseball field - within a few acres of established parkland.
We can say “yes” to a shelter there? Why not reinvest in the ball field that already exists? Why, does the Mayor act as if they have put such an investment for the homeless into this existing Science building, when all they did was pay for a “service contract”- (a contract that didn’t even specify a location when it was approved, for $3 million- in January 2022?)
The land in Meadowview cost 3 times that amount- $12 million! But we don’t hear the Mayor using his same argument for not letting THAT site lay fallow, or that they’ve already put $12 million, “by the way”, into it…
Both these plans were heard on the agenda 7/26/22 at city council- as items #23, #24
But look how the mayor frames each:
Item #24 (former science center building to be repurposed as a homeless shelter) starts at 1:18:00 in player below
Steinberg:
“We must say yes, many more times than we say no”
Item #23 (TOT funding- aimed at use for Meadowview youth sports complex funding)
Video starts at 54:55
Sounds so “innocuous”, it’s just an agenda item aimed at updating an ordinance that deals with travel and hotel tourism funds…
However, it’s obvious that this item was specifically crafted to create a different plan, one to NOT use the Meadowview site for anything homeless related…
https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2022/06/15/sports-complex-meadowview-steinberg.html
So again we ask- why are we saying “no” to the 102 acres in Meadowview being immediately used for a place for the homeless to go? For homeless “safe ground” camping purposes- to provide relief to downtown’s crisis situation of encampments…? The mantra of those opposed to dealing with illegal encampments in the city- or on the AR parkway seems to be that we can’t ever have anyone move an encampment to a more appropriate location for sanctioned camping… that these poor folks have “nowhere to go”.
Really?!
Then why are we saying yes to an investment in a youth sports complex on land that was bought for relief for this problem…? And to add insult to injury—while the abandonment of the already existing lighted ball field in the city’s long neglected Del Paso Regional Park’s Renfree field, will just continue to erode, and supposedly anything that was worth saving or investing into in North Sac is off the table, because the city’s Dept of “Youth & Parks” has no funding for maintenance or investment there…? so let’s just have a 50 bed homeless shelter in the abandoned Science museum building … because according to the Mayor, “we can’t let a city owned asset lay fallow”-
except when it’s the 102 acres in Meadowview
…and we need to invest our youth!
Except for those in North Sac
We need more lighted youth sports fields!!
….but not in Del Paso Regional Park, or in North Sac, or District 2- let’s push all the city’s homeless projects out there, even to the very tip of the city boundaries… because THAT is where “we need to say yes”, to continually making shelter space for the city’s homeless…“much more often than we say no”.