Sacramento measure greenlighting more shelters, clearing of encampments heads to November ballot

A measure that would both allow the City of Sacramento to provide more shelters for the homeless but also be allowed to break up homeless encampments will be left for voters to approve or deny in November. The Sacramento City Council in a 7-2 vote during a special meeting Tuesday night approved the Emergency Shelter and Enforcement Act of 2022. This measure was first brought up for discussion in April and has since gone through some amendments. One of those changes is how the measure will gauge how many shelters it can provide. A previous version of the measure would base the percentage of shelters required to be built to be based on Sacramento County's homeless population based on its latest official head county. Tuesday night's amendment made it so that it would instead be based on the city's homeless population, resulting in a smaller number of shelters that would need to be provided.