Sacramento mayor hails new tiny home project
Alan Riquelmy
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg on Wednesday stood before a plot of empty, blighted land, telling those assembled before him that change was on the way.
Steinberg said he expected a groundbreaking on the site in just a few months and that 175 tiny homes, part of the county’s safe stay community program, would be arriving in the new year. The tiny homes will stand adjacent to a larger project — the Wellness Campus. It's all part of a joint effort by the state, city, Sacramento County, and private actors to curb homelessness.
“This is vision in action,” Steinberg said. “Look at this old property and look at what it is going to become.”
A never-used shopping center, some 70,000 square feet, built over a decade ago sits at 6780 Stockton Blvd. in Sacramento. That’s where WellSpace Health intends to house the Wellness Campus. The first piece of the project will be a 988 Crisis Community Hub. WellSpace already operates 988 services — a suicide and crisis hotline — for 31 California counties. That will be housed upstairs in one of the buildings. A 24-hour, seven-day-a-week drop-off crisis receiving facility will be on the ground floor.
Jonathan Porteus, CEO of WellSpace, said he wants that first piece of the larger center ready by summer.
The first part is estimated to cost around $25 million, Porteus said. The entire campus could cost $120 million, Ben Avey, chief public affairs officer with WellSpace, has said.
Adjacent to the old shopping center is empty land that will house the tiny homes, as well as WellSpace’s residential rehab, reentry and withdrawal management facilities — which amount to around 450 beds.
Another 175 tiny homes are slated for Cal Expo, where the state fair is held each year.
It’s a combined effort of local and state governments to provide care for people and revitalize an area that Porteus called, at times, “alarming.”
Hafsa Kaka, senior advisor on homelessness for Governor Gavin Newsom, called the Stockton Boulevard site an example of the work the governor’s office has done.
Newsom’s office on Tuesday announced it would make its first purchase of tiny homes by the end of the month. Kaka on Wednesday said the contract to buy the Sacramento tiny homes would be finalized this month.
The state will supply the homes, which will be operated by the county.
“We are not in the business of maintaining the status quo,” Kaka said.
She also pointed to a series of bills Newsom signed that she said will streamline governmental processes pertaining to housing.
One of those bills was Senate Bill 91 — written by Senator Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat — which removes from state law a sunset date of Jan. 1, 2025, for specific housing projects. Projects involving the conversion of a motel, hotel, residential hotel or hostel to supportive or transitional housing will be exempted from the California Environmental Quality Act.
The entire Wellness Campus will take years to complete and require public and public dollars. The tiny home portion, as well as WellSpace’s 988 and crisis receiving center, are expected to be the first parts.
The tiny homes are part of the safe stay program. The Stockton Boulevard site will be Sacramento County’s fourth safe stay spot, but its first in conjunction with the city.
The first site opened this year. Emily Halcon, director of the county’s Department of Homeless Services and Housing, said it’s part of a bigger approach of dealing with homelessness.
Safe stay communities provide temporary shelter for unhoused people. They’re safer and cleaner than living on the street. They also have services to steer people into permanent housing.
“We are at a point of crisis today, with so many folks suffering outside,” Halcon said.