ACTION!!! – Press Conference – Monday, September 21, 2020 at 11:30 am at 5085 Stockton Boulevard. (Residents of this encampment will be speaking), followed by a March down Stockton Boulevard to 5700 Stockton Boulevard (the site of a recent eviction of unhoused campers) for a rally.
SACRAMENTO SERVICES NOT SWEEPS COALITION (SSNSC) also demands that Sacramento City and County take immediate action to:
1. Defund the County Sheriffs Hot Team and the Sacramento City Police Impact Team and repurpose these funds to develop teams of health, mental health, peer advocates and substance abuse service teams to become first responders to homeless encampments.
2. Safe Ground/Shelter/Services – The City and County has dragged its feet for years on siting and funding adequate transitions from camping to housing.
3. No hospital dumping of homeless patients to the streets or to encampments.
4. No More Sweeps, which violate a Court Order and Public Health Order – “CDC guidance for those experiencing homelessness outside of shelters is to be strictly followed. To maintain public health and safety, allow people who are living unsheltered, in cars, RV’s, and trailers, or in encampments to remain where they are, unless the people living in those locations are provided with a real-time access to individual rooms or housing units…”
5. Safe Parking areas for unhoused families living in vehicles (City Councilman Eric Guerra agreed to siting a vehicle shelter in his district, but has not followed through.)
6. City officials meet with SSNS members and the unhoused community members ASAP.
7. Cooling centers, clean air centers are badly needed through climate emergencies.
8. Audit of spending on homeless services, including law enforcement/mitigation funding.
9.County must continue to provide hand washing, restrooms, water and Supportive Services to the encampments.
Betty Rios, Kevin Carter, Crystal Sanchez, Faye Wilson Kennedy and other SSNSC leaders have been voluntarily providing essential services (i.e. water, food, equipment and support) to the Stockton Blvd unhoused encampments for months. They have witnessed these fellow Sacramentans suffering through blazing hot days, dangerous air – dense with smoke particles, risks of COVID 19 to elderly and health compromised campers and constant threat of eviction. These leaders call out:
“Enough is enough! Though the City/County homeless system has provided port-potties and hand-washing stations and recently virus testing in recognition of these encampments as shelter-in-place areas for unhoused people; accessible cooling and breathing centers have not been provided. Real time -accessible housing has not been offered.
Now the City and in particular Councilman Eric Guerra refuse to stop this eviction, which will force hundreds of people to wander through the Stockton Boulevard and adjoining neighborhoods, putting themselves and hundreds of residents at risk during the pandemic. The Stockton Boulevard Business Improvement District should be ashamed of pushing for this illegal eviction during climate emergencies and a pandemic and campers and their advocates will be pushing back.”
