Community pleads with City of Sacramento not to sweep Camp Resolution homeless site
SACRAMENTO — "Help us, don't police us." That is the message from dozens of homeless community members who are asking not to be removed from a city parking lot that was originally intended to help them.
The site is called Camp Resolution, located at Colfax Street and Arden Way. It was originally funded by the City of Sacramento to be a safe site for the unhoused to live in their vehicles.
Wednesday, it is scheduled to be swept as those who live there are no longer allowed to be there.
Supporters of the site took over Tuesday night's meeting of the Sacramento City Council meeting with their plea, with nearly two hours of passionate public comment.
The message was loud and clear: those who live at Camp Resolution are asking to be left alone, saying that this is their home and that promises from the city to improve the place meant to be a safe site for the homeless have all been empty as they're now being forced to leave.
Camp resolution is called "home" by around 50 unhoused community members. A family, complete with a cook.
"I've just got the chicken boiling right now with onion and bell pepper," said a Camp Resolution resident, stirring a pot of soup for his unhoused neighbors.
They are now fighting eviction notices to vacate the property are posted across the camp.
"We are a community, we built this and there is no reason we shouldn't be able to stay here. We were promised it, and they let us down. They spent our money to do it and then what do we get out of it? Nothing," said Deborah Casillas, a Camp Resolution resident.
The fenced-in parking lot was originally approved by the City of Sacramento, with renovations funded by taxpayers, to be a safe site for the unhoused to camp in vehicles. Many have lived there for more than a year and have been swept from the site earlier this year. They chose to return.
"Stop making us a bunch of promises if you are not going to keep them. Don't come out here and tell us one thing and then turn around and do something totally different," said Tamitha Myler, a Camp Resolution resident.
Myler works two jobs and says anyone can find themselves one paycheck away from being homeless.
"They are gonna kick us out to the street where we can't be? Then what? They're gonna put us in jail, what's that gonna do?" Myler asks. "Let us be here where we are safe until you can figure out a housing situation, let us be safe."
That message, asking to stay and for more affordable housing, was taken to Sacramento's City Council Tuesday night, where more than 50 passionate community members spoke at the podium for nearly two hours.
"The truth is they've been robbed over and over and over again. The city has not made vital reinvestments that are needed in the service or the housing and neither has the county," said Mackenzie Wilson, an advocate for the unhoused.
A glimmer of hope for Camp Resolution came from councilmember Katie Valenzuela Tuesday night. She made a motion asking fellow councilmembers to vote on halting the sweep.
"I don't think anyone is served by moving these folks back to the sidewalks or other locations around the city," said Valenzuela.
The motion was seconded by Councilmember Mai Vang. However, as this was not an agenda item at Tuesday's meeting, no such vote to stop the sweep could take place. Councilmembers did, however, vote unanimously to ask that the city manager take it under advisement to not clear the camp on Wednesday.
The decision remains in the hand of the city manager and is unclear as of Tuesday night.
The city says it needs the unhoused to leave the site because of documented soil contamination, which includes benzene.
Assistant City Manager Mario Lara said in a statement the residents at Camp Resolution are "violating the terms set by the state Water Board, and they are in potential danger from the toxic chemicals in the soil, especially people in tents. The City is liable if people are allowed to stay there in violation..."
Still, a petition grows 700 signatures strong asking the city to stop Wednesday's sweep.
"To show them that people are watching, the entire community is seeing what they are doing and they want camp resolution to be supported," said Wilson of the petition that they gave to each councilmember Tuesday night.