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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) — A temporary safe camping site for people experiencing homelessness in Sacramento is being opened near Miller Regional Park, the city announced Wednesday in a press release.
The new camping site is located in a small section of the “Peninsula” parking lot at 2701 Marina Drive and will have 60 tents to accommodate approximately 80 unhoused residents. The new site is expected to help unhoused residents who are in Southside Park in downtown or other central Downtown Sacramento areas.
Sacramento currently has a safeground site at W and X streets in midtown, which the city said is “almost entirely phased out.” According to the press release, the W/X site helped nearly 200 unhoused residents to transition into stable housing. The site is projected to open in early February.
The press release says the Miller Park site will be used to transition the remaining 10 guests at the W/X operation. The Miller Park site will also provide guests with new tents, access to bathrooms, showers and garbage collection. The guests will also have access to 24-hour staff who will connect them to health services and get access to programs for long-term housing.
In the press release, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said the W/X site had “proved to be an effective bridge for transitioning many into shelter or permanent housing.”
Steinberg also mentioned the new safe ground site in a tweet on Wednesday.
“Our new 60-tent safe ground camping site at Miller Park will bring in people now camping along the W/X and help get them housed,” Steinberg tweeted. “Our first safe ground helped nearly 200 people transition to more stable housing. Thank you.”
In the press release, Steinberg thanked Sacramento City Councilmember Katie Valenzuela for standing up “crucial facilities in her district.” Valenzuela represents District 4 where the campsite will be held.
Bridgette Dean, Director for the Department of Community Response, also thanked Valenzuela in the press release, saying the councilmember is committed to making the Miller Park safe ground and other sites “available to address the needs” of the city’s unhoused residents.
“I’m excited to work with the Department of Community Response to begin welcoming guests to the site,” Valenzuela said in a statement. “Miller Park is uniquely suited to this task. We’re taking lessons learned from our experiences at W/X and approaching this new site in a way that will function efficiently, safely, and provide mutual benefits to our unhoused neighbors and the surrounding community.”
The announcement of the new site comes a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced $45 million in Project Homekey grants for Los Angeles and Sacramento, which will provide 170 combined units in the two cities.
The Sacramento Homekey grant is for $23.9 million to convert the downtown Best Western Sutter Hotel into Central Sacramento Studios, a transformative project slated to have 92 units of permanent housing for unhoused Sacramentans.
That project is expected to wrap up in the fall of 2022.
The Governor’s Office Instagram account posted a video on Tuesday of Newsom visiting the Best Western site where he’s seen walking around the motel and looking at a room.
Along with the Project Homekey-funded plan, the Miller Park safe ground is the third project the city announced in the last month regarding addressing Sacramento’s homeless population.
The other project is converting a vacant land of 102 acres in South Sacramento for multiple uses including affordable housing. The site, which stands at the southern portion of the Sacramento Job Corps Site, will be used as a safe parking site until its conversion.
The city bought the vacant land for $12.3 million from the federal government.
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