HOMELESSNESS

Faith leaders urge Sacramento to stop towing vehicles used as shelter by homeless people

Friday, July 1, 2022 | Sacramento, CA

Andrew Nixon / CapRadio

Sister Gloria Wadud of Masjid Sabur addresses a press conference at Sacramento City Hall on homelessness in the region Thursday, June 30, 2022.

Sacramento faith leaders urged the City Council this week to end its policy of towing vehicles used as shelter by people experiencing homelessness, a practice the council voted to continue in December.

Leaders of more than 40 congregations signed a letter asking the council to stop the towing until the city can establish designated sites for unhoused people to park. The city has opened two “safe parking” areas over the past year, and plans to open more have stalled. 

The call from faith leaders comes days after the release of a countywide survey that found nearly 1,100 vehicles are used as shelter by unhoused residents. The 2022 Homeless Point-In-Time Count also found nearly half of all unsheltered adults had to relocate their tents, vehicles or makeshift shelters due to a recent request from law enforcement. Altogether it counted nearly 9,300 unhoused residents in the county, a 67% jump from three years ago.

During the first three weeks of June, Sacramento towed 161 vehicles, said city spokesperson Tim Swanson. That figure does not count vehicles towed by police. 

Swanson said the city’s code compliance team “does not determine how a vehicle is being used by its owner” when it decides to remove it. Citing a FAQ on the city’s response to homelessness, Swanson said people who are unhoused and use vehicles as shelter “are subject to the same traffic laws and parking regulations as are the owners and operators of all other vehicles.” 

Speaking at a press conference outside City Hall on Thursday, Sister Gloria Wadud of the Masjid As-Sabur mosque in Oak Park called the policy inhumane. After natural disasters leave thousands homeless, she noted, the government provides them with shelter immediately.

“Why is that not being done for our brothers and sisters sleeping on the street,” Wadud said. “Why is that not being done? What is the difference between them and them?”

Standing outside the minivan he calls home in North Sacramento this week, Michael Hogan said he’s just trying to get by. The 39-year-old said he lost his job as a truck driver during the pandemic. When unemployment ran out six months ago, he and his wife, Jennifer Stater, lost their apartment and moved into the van with their two dogs. 

Michael Hogan and Jennifer Stater have lived in their minivan with their two dogs in North Sacramento for about six months. The couple said they could not afford their apartment following a job loss and unemployment running out.Chris Nichols/CapRadio

The couple said they were able to remain in the same spot for months, but recently police and code enforcement officials have forced them to move every three days, uprooting the little stability they have. 

Outlawing the towing policy would help, Hogan said.   

“I mean they have all these empty lots everywhere. Why can’t you just say ‘Here, you guys go here for six months. That’s what we got.’ That’d help out so many people out here. It would,” he added.

The City Council in December voted 6-3 to reject a call by Mayor Darrell Steinberg to outlaw the towing practice. Steinberg had asked for a ban on towing if residents did not have a place to relocate and find shelter. There are approximately 1,100 shelter spaces citywide, though they are typically full on any given night. 

Last August, the council approved a comprehensive homelesseness strategy intended to add thousands of temporary shelter spaces — from tiny homes and respite centers to safe camping and parking sites — at 20 locations citywide. It was spearheaded by Steinberg with the goal of ensuring sites open in each council district. 

But after opening two parking sites in early 2021, it took the city nearly a year to open a single new outdoor homeless shelter, a camping site at Miller Regional Park. City staff and council members have said bureaucratic hurdles along with neighborhood opposition have bogged down progress. 

But as encampments spread further into residential areas, some neighborhood groups argue the city should retain its towing policy, regardless of whether safe parking sites have been established yet.

Dolores Sanchez said she’s sympathetic to the plight of unhoused people and helped homeless residents for more than a decade through volunteer work at her church. But she’s also advocated for the city to remove the growing collection of RVs, trailers and other vehicles used as shelter in her East Sacramento neighborhood. Sanchez claims they attract a larger group of people and illicit behavior. She added that she’s witnessed prositution, drug-dealing, fires and the dumping of trash at the sites. 

“Allowing people to just park anywhere they want is having an impact on taxpayers and renters and homeowners,” Sanchez said. “My quality of life, having lived here since 1988, has vastly changed and not for the better.” 

She encouraged the faith groups to open their parking lots and doors to unhoused residents as one solution. Many already open their doors as respite centers on the hottest and coldest days of the year.

In December, several business groups opposed Steinberg’s proposal to stop the towing practice, saying the growth of vehicle encampments has led to illegal dumping and car break-ins, making customers and employees feel unsafe. 

Speakers from the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and California Asian Chamber of Commerce all urged council members to vote “no” on the policy.

Robert Engle, who owns a property on Western Avenue near an encampment, was one of dozens of people who called into the City Council’s December hearing to oppose the proposal.

“The invasion of these homeless in our area is a crisis,” Engle said at the hearing. “They bring in squalor. They bring in contamination. They are not tax-paying residents of Sacramento. They are transient, so the consideration that they are somehow constituents is ridiculous.”

In a written statement, Steinberg said he will continue to push for all levels of government to be “legally obligated to provide shelter, housing, and mental health care for those in desperate need, and that people have the same legal obligation to accept that.” 

Mary Lynne Vellinga, Steinberg’s chief-of-staff, said there are no current plans to bring his proposal to end the towing practice back to the council.

Sacramento faith leaders urge City Council to vote to stop towing homeless vehicles

BY THERESA CLIFT

UPDATED JULY 01, 2022 11:00 AM

Homeless father Harold Hamilton said the city of Sacramento towed his family’s 2002 Buick LeSabre on June 19 — Father’s Day. “It felt disrespectful, like they were trying to emasculate me on Father’s Day and make me look like a horrible dad,” Hamilton said. He works at O’Reilly Auto Parts, but does not have the $3,000 to get the vehicle back, and is raising money for a new one, he said. The tow is one of hundreds that have occurred in the six months since the council voted to continue towing vehicles that are parked on a street for more than 72 hours, even if they belong to a homeless person with nowhere else to go. TOP VIDEOS Continue watching 2022 Emmy Awards nominations announced after the ad × More than 200 people affiliated with 43 Sacramento area congregations protested that policy on Thursday, sending a letter to Sacramento City Council members that called the sweeps inhumane. “We believe that forcing people to move, and to have their vehicles impounded, without providing safe relocation alternatives, is neither effective nor humane,” the letter read. Pastor Alan Jones of St. Mark’s Methodist in Arden-Arcade, who signed the letter, said he believes the council members are good people, but the decision to continue towing vehicles was wrong. “Sweeps are evil, they are injustice, they are oppression,” Jones said during a press conference outside City Hall Thursday. “When good people end up abusing significant portion of the population in their care, there is something terribly sick going on.” The council by a 6-3 vote in December supported towing, rejecting a proposal by Mayor Darrell Steinberg. Business leaders supported the policy, saying towing vehicles is an important tool that’s needed in some situations. They say some of the people who stay in the vehicles scare off customers, threaten employees’ safety, steal items and defecate near the door. Get unlimited digital access Subscribe now for just $2 for 2 months. CLAIM OFFER “The city should have all lawful tools available to protect the safety and well being of our community,” Amanda Blackwood, president and CEO of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber, said Thursday. “At times, towing a vehicle, as is legally allowable, is necessary and appropriate to protect public health and safety.” CHANGE COMING TO SACRAMENTO COUNCIL The council is comprised of the same members as it was in December. Three new members will be sworn in this year, all replacing members who voted to keep towing, but not until December. Pastor Amy Kienzle, of St. John’s Lutheran Church in midtown, said waiting until the summer ends would be too late. So far this month, temperatures hit triple-digits on 11 days, according to the National Weather Service, she pointed out. Vehicles, while an eyesore, often provide air conditioning or at least block the beating sun, she said. In 2020, the most recent year available, two unhoused people died with heat stroke as one of multiple causes. “Why would you take away people’s shelter when it’s hot?” said Kienzle after leading a press conference Thursday outside City Hall. “I don’t think we can wait through a summer when we’re already seeing so many days over 100.” Kienzle said the group now plans to focus pressure on the members who rejected it the first time — Angelique Ashby, Sean Loloee, Jeff Harris, Jay Schenirer, Eric Guerra and Rick Jennings. ‘THE TIMING WAS CRUEL’ During the first three weeks of June, the city’s code enforcement department towed 161 vehicles, not counting those towed by police, according to weekly reports council members receive. On May 25, as temperatures climbed to hit 103, dozens of police officers, code enforcement officers and tow trucks arrived at a vacant dirt lot in Old North Sacramento to clear a camp. Over a dozen homeless men and women dripped with sweat as they scrambled to move their RVs, vehicles and tents. The city towed 11 vehicles. “The timing was cruel,” Kienzle said, adding that the sweep prompted the leaders to decide it was time to present their letter. The May 25 sweep was the latest in a string of similar actions in North Sacramento. In December, the city towed 18 vehicles in a North Sacramento business park, prompting the mayor to bring the item to the council later that month. In February, the city towed 13 homeless vehicles from another North Sacramento street, including one belonging to Harold Hamilton’s father in law. “I will continue to fight for the proposition that all levels of government should be legally obligated to provide shelter, housing, and mental health care for those in desperate need, and that people have the same legal obligation to accept that help,” Steinberg said in a statement Thursday. “Rights and obligations, compassion and public safety must always go together.” The letter urged the city to open the 20 sites in its $100 million homeless siting plan it approved in August. So far the city has not opened any sites in the plan, though several are moving forward. A count in February found there are an estimated 9,278 homeless people in Sacramento County on any given night — more than San Francisco — and that up to 20,000 people will experience homelessness at some point this year. This story was originally published July 1, 2022 5:25 AM.

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