A look at the first year of Sacramento's specialized team to tackle homelessness
SACRAMENTO -- Sacramento's Incident Management Team (IMT) launched one year ago and the director of the Department of Community Outreach calls the specialized team's results "significant."
The IMT has representatives from multiple departments within the city including Sacramento police, Sacramento Fire, the city manager's office, and code enforcement. The goal when the team was established was to "ensure all of the City's available resources are being utilized and leveraged in the best manner possible for response to the homelessness crisis."
Since it's inception last year, the City of Sacramento released data from the group's work:
- Responded to more than 41,000 calls for service.
- Created more than 12,000 engagements with people experiencing homelessness to help connect them with services.
- Obtained compliance more than 4,800 times with city laws.
- Removed approximately 10 million pounds of trash.
"The IMT takes a compassionate enforcement approach. We aren't going to reduce homelessness with just offering social services or with just providing enforcement. We need a balanced approach to meet the needs of all our community," Brian Pedro, the director of the Department of Community Outreach, said in a statement.
Other data provided by the city shows that from August 2023 to August 2024, Sacramento police saw an 8% decrease in calls they responded to that were related to homelessness. In the central city, that number was even higher at a 19% decrease, which was a benefit of the IMT, as the police department was able to respond to other calls for service from the community "more quickly and efficiently," according to Pedro.
"It is primarily an enforcement mechanism and it was built out to enforce what the city passed. It's called the homeless response protocol, and that is a plan that escalates to enforcement based on neighbor complaints rather than being prompted by voluntary requests for service from unhoused people," said Nikki Jones, the director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness.
Jones said the measurement of success on calls closed and not people in housing is where she disagrees with the success of the IMT.
Jones added, "This has not been good for the people living outside and for folks. They're feeling really beaten down. You know, someone recently said to me, 'It feels like they just want us to keep moving until we die.' "