Sacramento City Council Votes Homeless Out of City Hall… and Back to the Streets

Earlier this month, Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty announced a new policy to prohibit homeless people from sleeping outside City Hall overnight. His policy would overturn former Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s original ordinance allowing homeless vagrants to sleep on City Hall grounds overnight. That turned into homeless vagrants hanging around City Hall all hours of the day and night, on city streets and in the park across the street.

McCarty’s predecessor, Mayor Steinberg apparently didn’t mind stepping over bodies and feces to get to work, as he allowed homeless to camp in front of City Hall. And he put City Hall employees and city residents in harms way.

The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday voted to approve a new ordinance to prohibit homeless drug addicts from sleeping outside of City Hall between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Mayor McCarty complained that cleaning up after the homeless drug addicts cost (taxpayers) around $355,000 per year.

That’s a lot of power-washing.

But the problem is this new ordinance has no solution for dealing with the homeless drug addicts – it will merely push them out to other streets, businesses, parks and even nearby homes.

Rules for thee… The downtown businesses have been begging the city for help for years in dealing with the growing homeless problem.

Sacramento has a terrible homeless problem largely because the former Mayor Darrell Steinberg never dealt with the growing mentally-ill, drug addicted vagrant population, while counting the million$ in homeless funding coming in. It was cruel to allow drug-addicted and mentally-ill people to live, and die, on Sacramento streets, while lining the city’s coffers with money meant for dealing with and helping them.

Ironically or out of self-interest, Steinberg created a non-profit for mental health in 2015 before he termed-out of the California Legislature.

“California sets the standards for the nation in prevention, treatment and recovery; where all people receive quality care and support when, where, and for as long as they need it,” his website says.

The Steinberg Institute claims as its mission:

“Transforming California’s mental health and substance use care systems through education, advocacy, accountability, and inspired leadership.

We are an independent, nonprofit public policy institute dedicated to advancing sound public policy and inspiring leadership on issues of mental health and substance use.”

As Mayor, rather than address the root causes of the explosion of drug addicted vagrants living on city streets, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg made permanent housing for the city’s homeless his focus. While to some housing sounded reasonable, but Steinberg authorized the renovation of an old downtown SRO hotel to provide 250 square foot apartments that cost more than $445,000 per unit.

He authorized building tiny homes and studio apartments, provided RV trailers, renovated hotels and motels, and gave over parks and parking lots to homeless.

His Steinberg Institute shifted focus to policy, research, and advocacy. Lobbying.

In 2023, the Lisa Stone Pritzker Family Foundation, a supporter of Steinberg’s Institute, posted this about the Steinberg Institute:

In 2023 we announced Vision 2030, our framework for the state of California to tackle some of our toughest challenges. Vision 2030 lays out ambitious goals to reduce homelessness, hospitalization and incarceration for people with behavioral health conditions and build a behavioral health workforce that meets the diverse needs of the state.

The Steinberg Institute legislative packages appear to be devoid of actual help for the mentally-ill homeless drug addicts.

The closest legislation I could find for mentally-ill homeless vagrants is the 2023 Steinberg-sponsored Homelessness Accountability and Results Act, AB 799, which “requires the State to take a more direct leadership role in working with local jurisdictions collaboratively to set homeless reduction targets.” It was made a 2-year bill.

The 2022 “Mental Health Services Act was designed to foster innovation in county behavioral health departments to ensure Californians with severe mental illness receive the care they need.” The bill died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Most of the Steinberg-sponsored legislation is for the mental-health industry and not those in need of mental-health care.

You can see Sacramento’s conundrum.

However, it appears the current Sacramento Mayor isn’t far behind the former mayor. Mayor

Councilwoman Mai Vang opposed Mayor McCarty’s ordinance, and complained to KCRA 3, “This policy does not build housing. This policy does not treat the health of our neighbors. This policy does not address the root causes of the crisis on our streets.”

She’s right about the policy not addressing what is causing homelessness, but it’s not a lack of housing. These people desperately need mental health treatment, and drug addiction treatment. Mandatory treatment.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order late last week to mandate hospitalization for homeless people suffering mental illness and addiction.

“The Federal Government and the States have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats,” Trump stated in his order. “Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order. Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens.”

As I’ve reported for many years, don’t blame the homeless population in California on former Governor Ronald Reagan – he did not choose to close the state’s mental hospitals as the leftist media has incorrectly repeated for 50+ years – he was ordered to.

It was President John F. Kennedy who in his October 31, 1963 legislation –The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 — ordered the building of 1,500 mental health centers, while closing many mental health hospitals over time, known as deinstitutionalization. Governors were just required to execute on the President’s Order, while at the same time, Congress failed to fund the mental health centers. This was three weeks before Kennedy’s assassination.

“Only half of the proposed centers were ever built; none were fully funded, and the act didn’t provide money to operate them long-term. Some states saw an opportunity to close expensive state hospitals without spending some of the money on community-based care,” the Seattle Times reported in 2013 on the 50th anniversary of the Community Mental Health Act. “Deinstitutionalization accelerated after the adoption of Medicaid in 1965. During the Reagan administration, the remaining funding for the act was converted into a mental-health block grant for states.”

The explosion of California’s drug-addicted and mentally-ill homeless can be directly linked to Democrats’ determination to empty out the jails and prisons through legislation and ballot initiatives, claiming to be for safe neighborhoods and the well-being of our children. Combine that with the outrageous housing prices and high rents, and California is ground zero.

And Sacramento is worse, with more homeless per capita than Los Angeles or San Francisco.