This is definitely not the kind of publicity Sacramento wants or needs, but the city’s homeless crisis continues to draw national attention. The latest spotlight comes from Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, whose crews recently filmed homeless people in public places around the community. Here’s a transcript on the May 13 broadcast.
Lucky for Marsha Spell, she likes “living on the edge.” That is why 10 years ago, she packed up everything she owned and drove from her former home in Southern California to Sacramento to take a job as executive director of Family Promise. The nonprofit organization helps homeless families achieve lasting independence through a 90-day mentoring program.
“Honestly, it’s a God thing,” says Spell, who now lives in Placerville but hails from Tennessee. “I think this is where I was supposed to be. It wasn’t planned. I just followed where I was led. I’ve always wanted to help people—I’m a try-to-fix-it person—and people always seem to call me. Maybe it’s the Southern accent.”
Inside Publications received an unprecedented response to last month’s Publisher’s Desk by Cecily Hastings which discussed the Sacramento homeless problem and the documentary “Seattle Is Dying.” The following letters reflect the urgency and anguish felt by our readers. The letters are edited for space.
As a wife and working mom whose family lives in Land Park, I am thankful Cecily Hastings shed light on the drugs and homeless problems in our city with her column, “Is Sacramento Dying?”
It’s clear our city, county and state leaders are not willing to do anything but exacerbate the situation.
The roots of the crisis are not homelessness itself, but drugs. Sacramento has a drug crisis, not a homeless crisis. We have people whose addictions have caused mental illness. They can’t make decisions for themselves. So they live on the street.
It’s a clever maneuver to help solve a problem that has bedeviled Sacramento politicians for decades.
Struggling to make good on a 2016 campaign promise to end the scourge of homelessness, Mayor Darrell Steinberg has widened the field and press-ganged the Sacramento City Council into action.
From Pocket to North Natomas, Steinberg wants to spread the homeless pain.
“I have asked my eight colleagues on the City Council to all commit to providing at least a minimum of 100 additional beds for triage shelters for the homeless in each of their districts,” Steinberg said at a City Hall press conference.
