Sacramento to spend $400,000 to clean up human feces and garbage created by the homeless

by DCG

 

Progressive-run west coast cities have become a magnet for the homeless. The demorats encourage illegal and disgusting behaviors by not enforcing laws. The bureaucrats do nothing to actually solve their homeless problems; they just react to the situations they helped create.

See the following:

• Liberal utopia of California: Homeless crisis declared in state’s capital
• Liberal utopia of San Francisco: Feces, needles and drugs, oh my!
• Tourists shocked by what they see on San Francisco streets
• Liberal utopia of San Francisco hires staff to clean up feces off their streets
• Homeless people defecating on LA streets fuels horror hepatitis outbreak
• Seattle woman out for a run attacked by homeless man, wants city to “do something productive”
• Rape, strangulation and assault: Three attacks by homeless people in Seattle in less than a month
• Scared in Seattle: Citizens terrorized by the homeless & sidewalks turned into toilets
• Seattle, you have a problem: Council, police & animal control ignore woman’s pleas for help; 3 dogs from illegal RV encampment maul her & her dog
• Seattle Police refused to remove homeless from construction site before they caused $1.3 million fire damage

California State University prepared a 2017 “Homeless in Sacramento County” and reported the following statistics:

• Since 2015 estimated real growth in nightly homeless increased approximately 30%.
• There has been more pronounced growth among homeless who are unsheltered and sleeping outdoors (from 1,111 to 2,052; or 85% increase).
• A 50% increase in the number of homeless veterans since 2015.
• Chronically homeless are more likely to suffer from PTSD than the most unsheltered homeless group (54% compared to 46%), and more likely to have a mental condition of any type (64% compared to 57%).

The city spent over $3,000,000 in 2016 to address homelessness. Of course the homeless situation has gotten worse. With an increase in the amount of homeless comes more human feces and garbage hence the need to spend more taxpayer dollars to clean up city streets.

From Sacramento Bee: The city of Sacramento will soon hire its first employees dedicated solely to picking up trash at homeless encampments.

The City Council approved Tuesday spending $400,000 to fund the new trash collection crew, as well as several new pieces of trash disposal equipment, including a Gator-style utility vehicle to clean up human waste, a city staff report said.

The crews will dispose of trash that police and organizations collect citywide as well as trash the Downtown Street Teams collect downtown and in the River District, said Jerome Council, a city public works official.

The Downtown Street Teams, composed of volunteers who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, are currently cleaning up outside the city’s homeless shelter on Railroad Drive in North Sacramento, said Emily Halcon, coordinator of the city’s homeless services. Two more teams will launch this winter using state funds received by the city, she said.

Councilman Larry Carr said he wanted the teams to pick up trash in all areas of the city, causing him to abstain from the vote, Carr said. The motion passed 6-0 Tuesday, with Councilman Eric Guerra absent.

“If we’re going to clean up one place, we should clean up everywhere in the city, not just downtown and the River District,” Carr said. “We put the priorities on these two areas to the detriment of other areas of the city.”

More than 200 homeless people were recently camping outside Providence Place Apartments in South Sacramento, for example, Carr said.

More funding would be needed to expand the teams citywide, Halcon said.

Steinberg said the Tuesday’s action was “very significant.”

“It is not an all or nothing approach here,” Steinberg said. “It’s not just help the people on the streets, but ignore the impact of homelessness. There are times when enforcement is, in fact, appropriate and certainly cleanup and addressing the impact of homelessness on the neighbors and on the businesses is absolutely essential.”

Steinberg said he plans to bring a “larger funding strategy and larger siting strategy” for the city to open more low-barrier triage shelters similar to the one on Railroad Drive, which has 200 beds and is set to close at year’s end.

DCG