If a new site does open, it would likely be at one of the sites in the document the city released in 2021, which listed several vacant North Sacramento city-owned properties.

The plan included a city-owned property at Eleanor and Traction avenues, and another at Lexington Street and Dixieanne Avenue. Both lots are within two miles of Camp Resolution and remain vacant. It would cost the city between $400,000 and $1.6 million to prepare either site to park trailers on, Public Works Director Ryan Moore told the City Council in 2022.

Given the looming projected $58 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1, the council might not approve that expense.

Shoun Thao, who’s temporarily serving as the council member for the district until Dec. 10, said he has asked the city for data on the success of Camp Resolution, including data on the number of people who got into housing after spending time there. After he receives the data, he will decide if he wants to explore opening a new safe parking site in the district, he said.

Camp Resolution is unique because it is self-governed, meaning instead of a costly contractor, it’s run by the homeless people who live there. That means there are no day to day operating costs to the city, unlike the shelter at X Street and Alhambra Boulevard, which costs the city about $10 million a year. Camp Resolution has a strong community feeling, where family dinners and poetry nights are frequent and large art pieces line the fencing that surrounds it, including one that reads, “COME MEET YOUR NEIGHBORS.”

The camp was also created in a unique way. When Mayor Darrell Steinberg in 2021 released a list of potential shelter sites, it included the lot, where a tent encampment had sprung up.

Upon learning the site was a homeless shelter option, homeless people, many of whom were women, formed a movement to occupy the site. The city threatened them with police eviction but later agreed to let them stay put. The city later provided 33 trailers, which lack air conditioning and heat but do provide a locking door and roof.

Several people have been living at the site the whole time it’s been open, over a year, and still have not been able to move into permanent housing.

“The original lease said it was going to be renewed in perpetuity until people got housing,” said Merin, who’s also a high-profile civil rights attorney. “So we’re looking at that. Why didn’t they get housing?”

Several Camp Resolution residents, including its leaders, declined comment for this story until the Sacramento Homeless Union, which represents them, issues a news release. The union plans to do issue a statement soon, attorney Anthony Prince said.

The city earlier this year opened a large North Sacramento homeless shelter on Roseville Road, but like all the city’s roughly 1,300 shelter beds, it’s typically full on any given night. There are over 2,600 people on the waiting list for a shelter bed, and an additional 666 families, according to a recent city report.

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