Another bracing article from the California Globe.
An excerpt.
“Sacramento’s homeless drug-addicted, mentally-ill, criminal vagrant population have clearly shown they can’t govern or take care of themselves. They have been allowed to camp, squat and roam unrestrained in the Sacramento region. They are disrupting daily business life in Sacramento’s downtown, as well as the residential neighborhoods in and around the city. And city officials and the mayor have done little to prevent and stop this.
“This daily harassment led Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho to file a lawsuit against the City of Sacramento in September for failing to abate the homeless crisis in the Capitol city. DA Ho said Sacramento’s homeless crisis has exploded by more than 250% in just 7 years.
“The DA’s lawsuit was filed in tandem with a civil lawsuit by Attorney Ognian Gavrilov, on behalf of Sacramento business owners and city residents, to “allow the people to have a voice.” The two lawsuits will now be consolidated because they are “nearly identical.”
“Both Da Ho and Attorney Gavrilov said the city has created a public nuisance by allowing homeless camps to spread into residential neighborhoods, and for failing to clear sidewalks and areas around public buildings.
“Following DA Ho’s lawsuit announcement, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg accused the District Attorney of politicizing the homeless issue. DA Ho told the Globe that his lawsuit isn’t personal or political. “Public safety is my only concern,” Ho said. “I can’t raise taxes or assign housing to be built,” DA Ho said. And he reiterated that public safety is his purview as District Attorney.
“Both attorneys said they intend to take their lawsuits to trial and depose Sacramento city officials and Mayor Darrell Steinberg. However, they just sent a demand letter to City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood and wrote that her plan to represent the city in both lawsuits is “alarming and outrageous,” because she is “a material witness in both actions,” The Sacramento Bee reported.
“Ho described the city as collapsing into chaos and said Sacramento’s homeless crisis has become an “erosion of every day life.”
“Gavrilov said Sacramento Mayor Steinberg is trying to politicize something that is not a political issue, and calls this “The Steinberg Decree.”
“He’s making human tragedy and human suffering a political issue,” Gavrilov said. He added that there are “other real good council members who can show us they will do the right thing. They are with us for a solution, and not going to want a ‘perfect’ solution.”
“Sacramento is dying, Attorney Gavrilov’s lawsuit says:
“Darrell Steinberg, the City’s Mayor, is the executioner. The failure to address the ubiquitous spread of homelessness throughout the City is Steinberg’s poison.”
“The Steinberg Decree has transformed this once bucolic tree-lined city into a rotting cesspool of decay and despair. Far from exuding the prestige which accompanies being the nerve center of a massive global economy, the streets and neighborhoods of Sacramento resemble the urban decay that blight the world’s poorest developing nations.”
“Since Steinberg took office in 2016, the City’s homeless population has increased more than 250 percent. This unprecedented surge in homelessness is the direct result of a mayoral decree (the “Steinberg Decree”) which prohibits police and other City officials from clearing dangerous homeless encampments that clutter the sidewalks and pollute local neighborhoods.”
Parkway Blog 