Sacramento Homeless blog

In a section of his blog Hannity's America , the far-rightwing media pundit Sean Hannity of Fox News channel had something to say about Tent City today. The section in his post was called "Tent City Tricks." Here are his remarks: Liberals love to talk about homelessness, you know, because new crops of homeless people require new forms of government intervention. Recently, Sacramento's tent city, which is home to a large homeless population, has attracted a lot of media attention. Oprah, for example, sent a correspondent to tent city in order to "humanize the recession," and suggested that tent city sprang up as the American economy tanked and Americans were forced out of their homes. But apparently, the facts suggest otherwise. According to a Sacramento homeless activist, the homeless have camped there for decades, and while media outlets peddled the idea that families were driven from their homes, the reality is that, "90 percent of encampment residen...

Tangential thought #1: Wisdom from Doubt In the movie Doubt , both the main characters, who battle throughout the film, are rather heroic and rather terrible. In each case the character's salvation rests on his/her ability to doubt. In both cases, the jury [and that might be a jury of One, if you're sure about God, btw] is out on how proper and righteous each is. If, as a viewer of the film, you make it through, paying proper attention, you are uncertain how to assess the movie and the nature of its characters. And if you think deeply about the movie, you have to wonder about those judgments in your own life you are uncannily certain of. Is there room for doubt? If it says Libby, Libby, Libby on the label, label, label I do wonder if Sister Libby of Loaves & Fishes is quite mad, incapable of seeing herself as Hypocrisy Manifested. In this mode of seeing her, she is dangerous to the well-being of homeless people in Sacramento, if not so very much in the short term, certainly...

According to the eviction notices Tent City residents are getting today, their instructions are to move to shelter – the one at Overflow [aka, Winter shelter at Cal Expo ]. But there's no room or next to no room at Overflow! The 154 beds that pre-existed the April 9 expansion have always been taken, or nearly all taken, since Overflow opened on Nov 24. Sometimes those beds were overbooked with men sleeping on couches in the movie room. The expansion added just fifty more beds. The great majority of those were taken by Tent City immigrants on April 9, leaving just a few – maybe six – that were assigned to the "regular" population of Overflow sheltered. Update: According to a Bee story on 4/14 , quoting VOA V.P. Christie Holderegger, fewer than half of the fifty new beds had been taken thus far by former-Tent City people. I got confirmation that the Bee story is correct, SacHo's "great majority" is wrong. My bad. Here's the text of the eviction notice ...

Photo from VOA webspace showing opening day of the Winter Shelter for 2008-09. The tentative opening date for the expanded area of Overflow [aka, Winter Shelter] is set for April 13, according to a Volunteers of America [VOA] media release. VOA operates the shelter at Cal Expo under contract with Sacramento County. We are told that five modular units have now been erected behind the main building of the shelter, to create needed additional space. This new space will provide an area to place "as many as 50 additional beds for men and women," increasing the shelter capacity which today stands at 104 bunk-bed spaces for men and 52 bunk-bed slots for women and children. The cost of extending the period in which Overflow is open, three months beyond its normal Mar. 31 close, is being borne by the City of Sacramento. As part of the city's effort to provide places to sleep to the growing number of homeless people in the city and county, and in light of the determination that the...