SACRAMENTO — Hotly contested plans for a low-barrier homeless shelter in the Meadowview area have been altered so that the proposed facility will only house women and children.
Community advocates formerly against the original plan due to safety concerns are lauding Sacramento’s mayor for making the changes.
“To listen to all of that and come back and say, ‘Let’s go for the most vulnerable of our population.’ We talk a lot about loving children, caring about children but can we put them first?” said RoLanda Wilkins, the founder and director of Earth Mama Healing Inc. “It is not OK to be homeless with your children. That is unsafe.”
With winter coming, the updated proposal is one of three Mayor Darrell Steinberg intends to ask city council to support Tuesday night.
Another would put a low-barrier shelter open to both men and women near Alhambra Boulevard and Broadway.
While Steinberg said at Monday’s press conference that he feels confident the Alhambra site will get full council support, he thinks the representative from the Meadowview area will still fight this alternate plan.
“I know Council Member Carr will still oppose that. It will be up to my colleagues to listen and to make a good sound decision,” Steinberg said. “People have told me to slow down, I get it everywhere. As the mayor of the city, I can’t do it. Not when the numbers are 2,847 chronically unsheltered homeless people in the city.”
FOX40 reached out to Councilman Larry Carr for comment about the changes the mayor announced but has not heard back.
