Sacramento Taxpayers Pay for Mobile Veterinary Clinic for Homeless Drug Addicts’ Pets

Sacramento Taxpayers are paying for a “Mobile Veterinary Clinic” for Homeless Drug addicts’ and street people’s pets. The City of Sacramento has decided that rather than pay for drug and mental health treatment for homeless drug addicts,  they will use taxpayer funds to vaccinate and spay/neuter the pets of the City’s homeless.

That’s some real “quality of life” prioritizing going on by city bureaucrats. In reality, they don’t want the homeless off the streets as homeless drug addicts are a massive revenue source.

With a budget deficit of $44.1 million, the city is neutering and spaying the pets of the thousands of homeless drug addicts living on our streets. The Sacramento City Council approved a $1.7 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2025/26 in June. I can think of a few budget items that can be cut…

“Front Street Animal Shelter’s Homeless Outreach and Assistance Program (HOAP) is celebrating its first neuter surgery performed inside its new mobile veterinary clinic,” the City of Sacramento reported Friday.

“This milestone marks an important step in expanding veterinary care to unhoused pet owners and underserved communities. The fully equipped van now allows the HOAP team to provide on-the-spot exams, vaccinations, treatments and spay and neuter services directly in the field.”

“This moment has been years in the making, and it’s hard to put into words how proud and excited we are to see it finally in motion,” said Animal Care Service Manager, Phillip Zimmerman. “The HOAP team is rewriting what community animal welfare can look like.”

That’s funny – I have to pay thousands of dollars annually for all of my veterinary care. And the City of Sacramento recently threatened to fine me $600 if I did not re-license my two dogs.

Homeless drug addicts’ dogs are not licensed. But they are getting free veterinary care now.

This “quality of life” service is being paid for by Measure U funding, passed in 2012 by Sacramento voters, it’s a “temporary half-cent sales tax” to restore essential services that had been cut or scaled back during the Great Recession.

Poppycock – it’s a city slush fund. The City of Sacramento could have and should have cut back its own bloated administrative staff back during “the Great Recession,” but didn’t and still won’t. Instead, they put additional sales taxes on the ballot, and convince low-information voters to pass these “quality of life” taxes.

Proof of a city slush fund – it’s a a “general-purpose tax.”

According to the City of Sacramento, “Measure U is a general-purpose tax – the revenue it produces goes into the City’s General Fund and can be used for any municipal purpose. Measure U helps maintain and improve quality of life in Sacramento by providing funding for safer neighborhoods, better-maintained parks, and stronger community programs.”

But Measure U also goes for Public Safety! So it has to be important.

Budgeted for public safety in Measure U funds is $21,635,930 through 2029.

Animal enforcement has received $1,977,933 under community development.

Here is the City of Sacramento Fiscal Year 2024-2025 Measure U approved city budget of $159,317,260:

and the approved 2024-2025 Measure U Police Department budget $10,175,308:

Here is the 2024-2025 approved Measure U budget for the City Manager $6,975,558:

The Sacramento City Manager gets an additional $7 million to spend?

And the Community Development 2024-2025 approved Measure U budget $18,168,816:

Notice that the City of Sacramento is spending an additional $4 million on neighborhood code compliance… gird your loins – they are coming for your property.

And taxpayers are paying for the spaying and neutering of homeless drug addicts’ pets because, “While many people in our community are struggling with the high costs of pet ownership and decreased availability of veterinary care, the unsheltered population faces some of the greatest challenges,” Zimmerman said.

The “unsheltered population” – the latest euphemism for homeless drug addicts, created to justify “housing” for homeless rather than treatment.

Further justifying the “housing” is HOAP Program Coordinator, Jenna Topper:

“In a reality where individuals face multiple barriers toward accessing housing, our team is dedicated to supporting people and their pets so that animal-related obstacles are not one of them,” she said.

Ah, so that’s it – they are living on the streets because they can’t “access housing.”

Taxpayers need to not only provide homeless drug addicts homes, apartments, transit passes, food, and medical care, now we are paying for their pet care.

When will we show some decency and send the homeless on much-needed European vacations?

Here are a few photos of Sacramento’s “unhoused” I took within the last week:

There are homeless living in RVs and SUVs in the park, a woman lives in an old school bus, people live in cars, in tents, or we see them just passed-out on the grass. I see them grouped together daily buying/selling/doing drugs.

This guy lives in the park. Thursday I saw him shooting up in his leg.

And a few more:

The City of Sacramento budget is not focused on the priorities the people want and need; rather it is the priorities of the administrative class, which keeps expanding. The administrative class only cares about their jobs, rather than the services taxpayers and residents require.

Here’s a thought: why not take the city taxpayer funding allocated for homeless vagrants’s pets, and spend it on treatment of the homeless drug addicts? We wouldn’t need to vaccinate their pets that way.