The City of Sacramento has broken ground on a new Safe Camping site in the River District for people experiencing homelessness.
Construction at the City-owned lot, located at 291 Sequoia Pacific Blvd., is expected to take approximately three months to complete.
Once finished, the Safe Camping site will host 100 tents on individual platforms. The tents will be placed between large metal shipping containers that feature overhead canopies to provide increased protection from both the sun and rain.
Other amenities at the fenced-in site will include restrooms, dog kennels, garbage collection, phone-charging stations, case management, 24/7 security monitoring and a robust Good Neighbor Policy.
Safe Camping is a key component of Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty’s six-point plan to address homelessness. The City’s Department of Community Response (DCR) will manage intake and operations at the new Safe Camping site.
City Express recently sat down with DCR Director Brian Pedro, who also leads the City’s Incident Management Team, to learn more about Safe Camping and how it will help people experiencing homelessness while addressing quality-of-life issues in the River District.
City Express: Congratulations on breaking ground on the new Safe Camping site. We understand the site will be up and running in the next few months?
Pedro: Yes, our partners at Public Works are making terrific progress in getting the site leveled and outfitted with water, electricity and other necessary infrastructure. So long as everything goes according to plan, we expect to open the site by late spring/early summer.
There are some interesting design elements at this Safe Camping site, including the utilization of storage containers with attached covers to provide shade in the summer and cover from rain in the winter. How did you arrive at this idea?
That came in part from lessons learned at the City’s previous Safe Camping site at Miller Park. We felt that an added layer of protection against the elements would go a long way in supporting our clients while also increasing the durability of the site. My team had seen these shipping containers with arched covers around town and thought it would be a cost-effective way to create covered areas where we can place our raised platforms and tents.
How does Safe Camping compare to City’s other shelter programs, such as the Roseville Roseville Road Service Campus or X Street Navigation Center?
Well, Safe Camping provides a temporary sheltered environment for people experiencing homelessness, but it’s different from those other facilities in that it is less expensive to construct, and we can stand it up and take it down much more quickly.
Some people experiencing homelessness have a difficult time transitioning from the street directly into an organized indoor environment. Safe Camping provides an alternative. We see it as the first step in the City’s shelter continuum.
People who are currently camping on the streets of the River District will now have a safe place to camp where they can stabilize and become connected to case managers, who work to build rapport and trust. We expect that people will camp at the site for a limited period of time and then transition into our more traditional shelters, including the ones you mentioned, or to other improved circumstances.
How will Safe Camping improve quality-of-life issues in the River District?
It’s no secret that there is a concentration of unsheltered residents in the River District. Our goal is to offer people a safe and structured place to camp, store their possessions, access restroom facilities, etc., so there is less direct impact on the surrounding community.
DCR has a dual mandate: providing outreach and engagement while also ensuring compliance with City laws and ordinances. The City’s Incident Management Team will remain active in the area, making sure that people know where they can camp and keep their possessions and where it is unlawful to do so.
What would you like people to better understand about Safe Camping?
As our City Council has stated repeatedly, addressing homelessness needs to be more than just telling people where they can’t be. We also have to have places where they can be, and DCR has been working nonstop to increase our shelter capacity in a fiscally responsible manner and provide safe locations where people experiencing homelessness can stay and receive necessary supportive services.
Safe Camping is an incredibly important tool in our toolbox that will have an immediate, positive impact on the River District and the city at large. With a low barrier to entry, it provides a centralized location where the City and its partners – including behavioral-health clinicians provided via the City/County partnership — can meet people where they are and aid them in their journey toward housing, stability and healthier outcomes.
