FOLSOM, Calif. — Nonprofits providing homelessness services in Folsom in general wish Sacramento County was collaborating more with them and the city to provide assistance.
Sacramento County is well-established as a homelessness resource, but what it’s doing in Folsom isn’t enough, according to Jon Ingraham, a director at Christian nonprofit Powerhouse Ministries on Market Street.
“I would like to see the city work with us or the county, specifically trying to get the county out here to do more,” Ingraham said.
City and community leaders meet monthly as part of the Folsom Alliance for the Unhoused (FAFTU) to discuss homelessness solutions and services, and Ingraham said a county clinician appeared at this meeting as a resource when needed but doesn’t attend anymore.
“(The Folsom Police Department) had made a request for a clinician from the County Mobile Crisis Support Team to share about the work they do in conjunction with law enforcement,” said Janna Haynes, a county spokeswoman. “County did have a clinician present at those meetings, but haven’t received any similar requests in a while.”
Ingraham said Sacramento County’s Homeless Engagement and Response Team (HEART) is also present in Folsom, but he doesn’t see adequate engagement for it to be effective.
“They’re in Folsom. I believe it’s every other week for one and a half hours or two hours,” he said. “That's our county-funded program.”
HEART deploys countywide, and the frequency and duration of deployments are dependent on the number of people in any given area, how many engage, and how many touches it takes to get them linked to services, Haynes said.
“HEART provided a clinician at Folsom Library from August 2023 to April 2024 to do outreach and linkages,” Haynes said. “That clinician is (currently) out on leave, but the Folsom Library and Folsom PD continues to provide referrals for clients as needed, directly to HEART.”
Sacramento County could fund more programs, one nonprofit says
Liz Ekenstedt is the president of Homeless Assistance Resource Team (HART) of Folsom, an all-volunteer nonprofit that offers seven transitional housing units year-round and a shelter in the winter. She’s looking into hiring someone and paying them a salary so HART may qualify for county funds, she said.
“We don’t have county funds because we’re not structured to receive them,” Ekenstedt told ABC10. “Counties aren't going to give a lot of taxpayer dollars to an all-volunteer organization.”
Haynes said an organization’s all-volunteer status alone does not exclude folks from receiving county funding for their programs.
“However, each procurement opportunity that is advertised will typically outline the scope of the project and also the minimum criteria needed to successfully execute the service or program, for instance having financial controls (or) maintenance of appropriate licenses,” she said. “The applicant entity will have to ensure they meet the eligibility criteria when submitting a proposal.”
What services is Sacramento County capable of?
Homeless services countywide include shelter resources and prevention services currently embedded within the Coordinated Access System, a program looking to institute consistent and uniform case assessment. These are available through dialing 211 Sacramento or through an individual’s eligibility, Haynes said.
Residents of Folsom can access resources within Continuum of Care, like transitional housing and permanent supportive housing, she said. The Sacramento County Department of Homeless Services and Housing (DHSH) also presented to Folsom City Council late 2023 ways it works to address homelessness and has met with leaders to advance ideas.
“The director of DHSH has met multiple times with Folsom city leadership on potential projects and to share the work of DHSH,” she said.
While not in Folsom, Sacramento County partnered with City Net, a California nonprofit, in August 2023 to build 100 units as part of its temporary “Safe Stay” shelter at 8144 Florin Road. City Net operates the site.
When asked what it would take for the county to partner with a Folsom-based nonprofit to build a site like the one on Florin Road within or nearby to Folsom city limits, Haynes listed an operator and engagement as requirements.
“We would encourage all providers in our community to apply for procurement opportunities for future Safe Stay sites,” she said. “Safe Stay communities sites can be complicated and require a viable location, funding and an operator as well as engagement with the neighborhood and good neighbor assurances.”
She said land use and siting decisions for new shelters or housing typically is the responsibility of the jurisdiction, but the county can and does partner with cities to identify areas of need.
Why are there increased homeless in Folsom?
Folsom’s estimated unsheltered homelessness numbers increased sixfold in the latest biannual point-in-time count conducted within the county as part of a federal mandate to qualify for funding.
There are about 133 unsheltered homeless nightly within the city in 2024, the count estimated. There were about 20 nightly in 2022.
Jeanne Shuman, founder of Jake’s Journey Home, a 211-responding nonprofit servicing Sacramento, Placer and El Dorado counties, told ABC10 in April homeless may migrate to the Folsom area because county programs are full.
“It starts out in the county level, and their services get saturated…it's so saturated with people there, so they move,” Shuman said. “They come out to Citrus Heights and Fair Oaks, and they make their way down to Orangevale. Then, Folsom is the end of the light rail line, so we get a lot of people like that.”
Haynes said Shuman’s statement is not one the county could verify, but the county’s behavioral health team takes referrals from Jake’s Journey Home on a regular basis.
“My dream is that the county, in general, with the cities will learn to collaborate,” Shuman said. “They need to be responsible. They're paid to do these things. We are not. We're all-volunteer and all-donation led. They need to be responsible for that human, that life that they've said, ‘Come on in. We're going to help you,’ and have a seamless process from beginning to end; from beginning to job; from beginning to housing. It's like having a doctor for life."
