SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. — A homeless man became Sacramento County's first hypothermia-related death of the season in November, officials said.
The Sacramento County Coroner's Office identified the man as 74-year-old Morris Jobe. He was found unresponsive at a homeless camp along the American River Parkway, at 1501 Northgate Boulevard, on Nov. 17.
He was taken to Sutter Medical Center where he was ultimately pronounced dead the next day.
Officials said the primary cause of death was hypothermia and the secondary cause was methamphetamine. The lowest temperature recorded at Sacramento Executive Airport on the morning of Nov. 17 was 35 degrees. Another location in Sacramento where the National Weather Service measures temperatures shows the low there was 39 degrees.
Jobe's death has people asking whether the city and county are doing enough to protect those experiencing homelessness as we head into increasingly colder temperatures.
In order to gauge that, it's important to see how the city and county have responded to cold-weather events in recent years.
Back in late January 2021, several people experiencing homelessness died during an intense winter storm. During a Jan. 26 Sacramento City Council meeting, Mayor Darrell Steinberg ended the meeting with heated words. (That can be viewed at 3:59:13 in this recording of the meeting.)
"There is a huge storm out here. People are going to die tonight!" he exclaimed. "We can't get a God**mn warming center more than one night because the county has rules? I'm sick of this! Stop talking about anything but what it is going to take to bring more people inside in larger numbers."
Steinberg was referring to Sacramento County's threshold at the time for opening overnight shelters: needing to see overnight temperatures at 32 degrees or colder for at least three days of the immediate forecast. At the time of the Jan. 2021 storm, those conditions had not been met and the emergency overnight shelters were not open.
So later that year in October, ahead of another big storm, Sacramento opened the lobby of its City Hall - for the first time ever - as a temporary overnight shelter.
At the time, Sacramento City Councilmember Katie Valenzuela told ABC10, "This is a shift in practice both due to community outcry and due to what we saw last winter…We know this is necessary to keep people safe."
She wants to see City Hall opened again. It's something she asked of city leaders at last week's council meeting, on Nov. 29.
"I'd like to request that we consider opening City Hall lobby just for the next few days because I am very worried about the rain and cold," she said. "We've done that previously and it seemed to have worked well."
But City Hall's lobby remains closed overnight. City Spokesperson Tim Swanson told ABC10, "The city is continuing to monitor the National Weather Service’s forecast and will extend and expand warming-center operations as needed.”
Since Mayor Steinberg's heated words in January 2021, both the city and the county have adopted more flexible criteria for opening overnight cold-weather shelters.
As Sacramento County spokesperson Janna Haynes explained:
The following criteria will trigger a weather-related response (outside of an emergency by the Office of Emergency Services):
• Nighttime lows of 37 degrees or lower for two or more days within a five-day span; or
• Rain for two or more consecutive days (forecast 60% or more); or
• One day or night of rain combined with nighttime lows of 32 degrees or lower
Each governing can also opt to open a shelter even if the weather conditions don't quite meet these criteria.
Currently, the city has two overnight cold-weather shelters open. They've been operating since Nov. 28 and are scheduled to remain open until at least Dec. 8. One is the Outreach and Engagement Center at 3615 Auburn Boulevard. Sac RT is offering free rides to and from that shelter. The other is the North Fifth Street Shelter at 700 North Fifth Street.
Between the two, there are 70 beds, and Swanson said they have not hit capacity in the week they've been open.
Sacramento County has opened the lobby of its Department of Human Assistance Office as a walk-in overnight shelter — that's at 1725 28th Street. A growing number of people are using that option, in addition to the county's motel voucher program and North A Emergency Shelter - both of which are referral-only.
On the 28th Street location's first night (Nov. 30), six people stayed overnight. By the night of Sunday, Dec. 4, 37 people were staying overnight.
"I'm a little worried about folks in the central city having trouble getting to the other locations," Valenzuela said at last Tuesday's meeting.
She said she wants to see more winter shelter options for the unhoused community in the downtown core, but for now - City Hall remains closed overnight.
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