SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The City of Sacramento has just announced that the Miller Park 'Safe Ground' site is expected to reopen soon but with travel trailers instead of tents for people experiencing homelessness.
"The city just came to an agreement with the county of Sacramento to take one of the first steps in implementing our partnership agreement from late 2022," said Steinberg. "We're going to reopen Miller Park temporarily."
According to the city, there will be 15 large travel trailers placed on the site. The trailers were previously used at Cal Expo for quarantine housing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABC10's Alex Bell, host of "To The Point with Alex Bell," sat down with both Mayor Steinberg and Councilmember Katie Valenzuela just before the announcement. Both, respectively, talking about what this announcement means for the city's unhoused.
"This Miller Park breakthrough will allow us to bring 40 to 50 people from the streets into the trailers at a site that we own and can control," said Steinberg. "Once we are able to open one of these larger sites that that we are working on, then we won't use Miller Park for the long term. But for now, it gives us this chance to get a head start on this partnership agreement and to really start cleaning up the W-X corridor in a humane way."
Valenzuela added that she feels the trailers are an upgrade from the tents previously on the site.
"I think that in the end, we need every tool we can get in our disposal," said Valenzuela. "Right now, when you're dealing with the level of crisis we're dealing with and the amount of human suffering, every tool in our disposal needs to be utilized. So to use a site that's worked well to work with a provider that's working well with a model that seems to be working well, I'm really excited to see it reopening."
In early 2022, a row of tents was placed at Sacramento's Miller Park to offer a lifeline to people experiencing homelessness in the area.
Despite debate within the community, the city approved putting in a “Safe Ground” shelter site at Miller Park, which was a popular spot for the lowrider community and others.
The site was meant to provide a place for some of the unhoused residents who lived along Downtown's W and X streets. It can accommodate nearly 80 people. It also had basic necessities like toilets, bathrooms, showers and electricity. It was supposed to be staffed 24 hours a day by people who can help those living at the site transition to permanent housing.
But then came the New Year's Eve storm.
The New Year's Eve storm that passed caused the site to shut down, and people had to be relocated. After the storms passed, the plan was to reopen the site.
Back in January, Sacramento agreed that the city manager's office would, in the most simple terms, grant more than $3 million to continue operations at the Safe Ground site.
However, things went in a different direction. The city manager's office decided to hit pause on the project until Tuesday's announcement.
Meanwhile, the city says Sacramento County will continue to provide mental health care and resources at the site.
