Sacramento city officials won’t evict homeless people at Camp Resolution, a self-governed and city-sanctioned encampment, but instead will help occupants of 2225 Colfax Street—formerly a dumpsite—move into permanent housing, they said in a recent letter.
The city leased the land to nonprofit and homeless services provider Safe Ground Sacramento in March 2023 under an agreement that automatically renews every 120 days but recently warned the nonprofit that the lease will end by June and asked that occupants be gone by May 16.
During a recent city council meeting, residents of the encampment asked officials to reverse their decision and keep the site, which has been used to shelter homeless people since 2022.
“We’re somebody,” one occupant said during the April 30 meeting.
“I mean, we don’t cost you guys nothing. We get our own food, people come in here and give us food, we get our own clothes.”
Mayor Darrell Steinberg vowed not to displace the camp’s occupants.
“We will not displace you from Camp Resolution without some other alternatives that are safe, dignified, and indoors,” he said.
In a May 2 letter by Assistant City Manager Mario Lara, officials said they would let the residents stay as long as some changes were made for their safety.
Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho warned the city in a November 2023 letter of several concerns he had regarding hazards at the site that he could sue over.
According to the letter, the city first received approval for homeless people to live at the former dumpsite in 2022 from the California Regional Water Quality Board, which had restricted the land for industrial and commercial use because of cancer-causing chemicals beneath the surface.
For decades, the land had been used as a vehicle maintenance yard where barrels of diesel and gasoline were stored underground, according to the district attorney.
The Water Board had temporarily allowed the city to use the site for residential use as long as several conditions were met, including that no people sleep on the ground and that there be no tents, which have been repeatedly ignored.
“The rampant and unabated safety violations underscore why the city’s plan of housing people on a toxic dumpsite was ill-conceived and ill-fated from the beginning,” Mr. Ho wrote in the letter.
The city’s agreement with the water board is set to expire on Aug. 31, according to the April 30 city council agenda.
To keep Camp Resolution alive, city officials said the operator, Safe Ground Sacramento, would need to work with the residents to ensure the property complies with the Water Board’s safety requirements.
Starting May 6, the city said the nonprofit and camp residents must work with and allow city staff to plan for the construction of affordable housing on the vacant property, with current occupants getting first dibs on the new units.
The homeless at the site must also let city and county departments help them enroll in services to find housing, city officials said in their recent letter.
