EAST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) — Sacramento is currently looking for a replacement temporary homeless shelter for the Capitol Park Hotel shelter downtown.
One Sacramento City Council member said a Motel 6 on Alhambra Boulevard should become the city’s next major homeless shelter.
The area is currently impacted by a sizable homeless population, and businesses say it’s affecting them.
The Motel 6 is apparently available for a possible lease by the city and its nearly 100 rooms are hard to pass up.
“We’re spending a lot of time with police doing business walks. The businesses are having to hire private security. So we got a problem,” City Council Member Jeff Harris said.
Harris said the Motel 6 would get homeless people, their tents and belongings off the streets, but there is some resistance to the idea.
Area resident Mark Thomas said he isn’t entirely sold.
“I’m concerned that it’s rather close to residential areas. Crime just seems to go hand-in-hand with where they move,” Thomas said.
Resident Helene Meyer said she’s already wary of panhandlers in her neighborhood.
“They’re all concentrated so you might have five people asking for money where normally would be one,” Meyer said.
The Motel 6 shelter would replace the capitol Park Hotel shelter which is due to change hands next year.
The Volunteers of America staff encourages the homeless who get services there to stay inside.
“It’s helped with the illicit activities on K Street. I believe we can do the same on Alhambra so that there’s no negative impacts. In fact, a positive effect on the corridor,” Harris said.
Resident Elise Barger said keeping the homeless occupied in the shelter with job training or other services would make it worthwhile.
“I definitely think it makes good sense,” Barger said.
But the shelters don’t get everyone off the streets.
“Homeless shelters, they’re more like halfway houses than anything else. Why they don’t like to stay there is because it feels like they’re in jail,” a homeless person said.
“Taking them, then, a little of the streets and taking them to an actual place residence, that would be a plus,” Thomas said.
Currently, the Motel 6 shelter is not a done deal. The owner would have to agree to lease it to the city.
If it happens, It would be put into service fall of next year, and there would be more public input before it happens.
