SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A Sacramento city representative says the city's homeless are turning down offers to relocate to the Miller Park encampment site.
This comes days after the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office filed a lawsuit against the city alleging they aren't enforcing homeless encampment sweeps.
As of Friday, 25 spaces are available at Miller Park, with the number subject to change. There are a total of 60 tents, and 17 trailers and pallet homes there.
While outreach workers currently don't formally record the reasons people decline shelter and encampment, they plan to start documenting the reasons to see if adjustments can be made to better accommodate peoples' needs.
According to spokesperson Tim Swanson, the city's Department of Community Response (DCR) surveyed an encampment of about two dozen people near Broadway in Upper Land Park. Despite six weeks of visits, no one there accepted the offer to move to the city-sanctioned site.
Just last month, the Sacramento Fire Department also joined the city's homeless response and Assistant Fire Chief Brian Pedro is leading the newly-established Incident Management Team.
Pedro said Tuesday he plans to bring in staff from the DCR, code enforcement, police, park rangers, public works, animal care and Sacramento County Behavioral Health Services.
“Basically, [we are] using our citywide homeless protocol and putting it into a command structure with a chain of command so we can have a more organized response,” he said.
Swanson said outreach staff are finding many homeless residents aren't interested in moving to Miller Park.
"Overcoming distrust in government is a major factor when performing outreach and offering services. It can take multiple offers before people feel comfortable accepting," he told ABC10. "For that reason, outreach staff from DCR go to great length to build trust and rapport with people."
But some homeless residents may not even be in a position to accept the specific offer.
"Some people prefer being in certain places or areas of the city where they feel most comfortable and have access to things they want, be it certain food or services or relationships with certain people," said Swanson. "Miller Park may not be one of those areas."
Pedro said city staff receive 120 calls per day regarding homeless encampments and they currently have the capacity to close 74 of those calls per day.
As of Sept. 19, about 2,150 calls remain pending and the average response time to a 311 call was 16 days.
“As we build out the teams and get more teams in the field, we will see this number going down,” said Pedro. “Right now, we are working with the teams we have and trying to keep up the best we can.”
