Sacramento City-County Task Force Forms To Remove Homeless From Levee
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Homeless people are digging into the levees in Sacramento, putting 100,000 homes at risk of flood.
The damage is clear all the way down on the levee by Northgate Boulevard.
Someone has literally cut stairs right into the levee, and it leads right up here to a homeless encampment down below.
ALSO: Homeless People Damaging Flood Levees, Putting Thousands Of Sacramento Homes In Danger
The number of encampments across the levee is growing.
Levee monitors are finding the damage is being intentionally caused by homeless people carving out campsites on the American River
"We just need some immediate help to get there to do our job to protect the community," says General Manager of RD1000 Kevin King.
He can't do his job to protect the thousands that depend on a functioning levee.
"We need help from an authority that can come in and physically remove the encampments that are preventing us from monitoring and maintaining the levee," says King.
Levee districts have no authority to move homeless, so it's up to the police to clear out the camps, which isn't happening.
This is in city Councilmember Jeff Harris's district.
He points to a recent federal court ruling made enforcing the city's anti-camping ordinance difficult.
"It's been musical chair cultures for a long time, Marissa," says Harris. "There are certain rules by which we can move homeless camps."
But there is a way around that rule- that's when these encampments become a public safety issue which Harris says this is.
"If a homeless camper is doing an activity that threatens the Public Safety that should give us the right and the impetus to move that camper along," says Harris.
Again Harris tells us now the City and County will work together to create a task force to move the homeless here.
Leaders with RD1000 want this movement to happen immediately so they can get in, inspect the levee, fix what needs to be fixed.