Editor’s Note: This article was written by Crystal Sanchez, founder of We are not Invisible, a Fresno nonprofit organization that helps homeless people with basic needs and stands up for their rights. Check out our article for more information on Crystal.
There are 22,000 people on the streets of Sacramento. Let that sink in. Most of us do not have to just imagine it, as every day we see this reality line our streets. While to others this is the reality they live and die in.
Millions of dollars are funded to help, but with what progress? For the City of Sacramento and other jurisdictions, it has become a boxing match among many entities. Trial and error works in experiments but not in the science of solving a humanitarian crisis where the basic dignity, life, and death of a community are on the line. New teams of people are created to shuffle people from block to block, but why? It doesn’t matter who wears the uniform to do the task. As long as we criminalize survival with no true solutions we will continue to increase homelessness.
The Point in Time analysis reported nearly 50% of those experiencing homelessness are considered ‘chronic’. 60% reported being unhoused for more than 3 years. 58% of unsheltered report disabling conditions vs. 40% in 2019. 74% of the unsheltered population reports being homeless continually for more than a year. Black individuals are 3-4 times more likely to experience homelessness. There was a substantial rise in vehicles used as housing counted – in 2019, 200 vehicles were counted; in 2022, 1,100 vehicles, equating to 1,782 people. The report also notes the new trend of “vehicle encampments.” In addition to the Point in Time count, the report also provides an annualized count of people who experienced homelessness at some point in the last year – up to 22,000.
We as Sacramento residents want to see people off the streets, in dignified housing options with wrap-around services. We all bleed, we all breathe, we are all human no matter what our housing status is.
Again Sacramento is enforcing ordinances with no services to go to. Getting on extensive waiting lists in a crisis is like putting a bandaid on a bleed-out situation. We need a tourniquet, and STAT!
So the title is ‘What if we are wrong?’ Why is homelessness criminalized, and penal codes and law enforcement teams created to corral, harm and discriminate against a specific group of people, pushing them into poorer neighborhoods? Is this a new type of redlining? Skid rows? Lining up plans for internment?
Homelessness in its entirety needs to be moved under the Public Health Department, with the assistance of other county entities such as the Department Of Health Services. The County of Sacramento is equipped with a social service sector and the budget to do so. The City is juggling homelessness on a shoestring budget.
Homelessness is a public health crisis not only for the unhoused, whose lifespan is shortened by living in the elements, but because of the deteriorating ecosystem of Sacramento. The key areas of specialization in the field of public health include environmental health, community health, epidemiology, global health, and health policy and management. The public health department also has another set of rules that apply. They work off the health and welfare codes which could produce a health approach versus a criminalization approach, with the laws already in place to provide and protect our most vulnerable. What if we deemed this as a public health crisis? Let’s define what that is. A public health crisis is a difficult situation or complex health system that affects humans in one or more geographic areas (mainly occurring in natural hazards), from a particular locality to encompassing the entire planet. Why are we not moving homelessness under this critical resource and funding it to end this crisis?
I am putting out these questions to get us Sacramento residents to think: are we doing this wrong? Can we create a place we can all thrive and be healthy together?
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