A door to a small, cabin-like home that closes and locks. Showers and restrooms onsite. A place for partners and pets. And air-conditioning to survive the sweltering summer heat.
These are some of the amenities at Sacramento County’s first “Safe Stay Community” at Florin and Power Inn roads in South Sacramento.
The 100-unit tiny home village will open its doors to unhoused residents within days, offering them temporary shelter — and hope for a safer, more stable future. On Monday, County officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony, marking the project’s completion after months of delays and cost-overruns.
“This has been too long in the making, but it’s here,” Sacramento County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy said at the celebration, before detailing some of the delays that pushed back the project’s opening by about a year.
“What we’re doing here today is we’re going to provide housing in a dignified, safe, secure environment for people in need,” Kennedy added.
The project is the County’s first attempt to open an outdoor homeless village with private sleeping quarters instead of a traditional indoor congregate shelter where people sleep in the same room on cots or bunk beds in a dorm-style setting. Unhoused residents often reject offers to stay at those shelters due to concerns about safety and sanitation.
The interior of a sleeping cabin at the Safe Stay Community on Florin Rd. on Monday, Aug. 14, 2023.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
City Net employees in the breakfast area at the Safe Stay Community in Florin Rd, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio“When they feel safer and more secure, they’re willing and able to engage in the services — the critical services they need to help end their homelessness,” Emily Halcon, the County’s Director of Homeless Services, said on Monday, standing amid the rows of small aluminum homes.
She said those services will include mental health and substance use treatment, case management, help securing IDs and documents needed to apply for housing, plus meals, showers, bathrooms and 24-7 security.
Officials described the village as a “stepping stone” to permanent housing, but the shelter itself won’t be there forever. The County has a two-year lease on the site with an option to extend it three additional years.
Halcon said it will make a difference both for its guests and the surrounding community. “It’ll reduce the impact on the streets,” she said. “People who are sleeping outside on the streets right around here, will want to come inside and will no longer be sleeping in the parks and the doorsteps of businesses.”
Emily Halcon, Sacramento County Director of Dept. of Homeless Services and Housing at the Safe Stay Community on Florin Rd. Monday, Aug. 14, 2023.Andrew Nixon / CapRadioLong path to project’s completion
For a time last year, it seemed like the tiny home village might never move forward. In April 2022, residents and business owners who live and work near the site packed the County Board of Supervisors chambers to oppose the plans, which had been announced weeks earlier. Their concerns over safety and a lack of information about the project led the board to delay its vote. Three months later, in June 2022, the board eventually approved the Safe Stay Community with more stringent security measures.
Still, the delay meant the project would open at the end of November 2022 at the earliest. Then the County’s contractor CityNet proposed design changes, multiple contractors backed out of work and the County experienced material delays all as the 100 tiny homes sat unused at the site.
Costs mounted as the County was forced to pay an additional $500,000 for a private security firm to guard the rows of empty and locked sleeping cabins, a County spokesperson said in March.
In keeping with the project’s difficult path to completion, Kennedy, the county supervisor, struggled on Monday to successfully shear the large red ceremonial ribbon as County officials and media watched nearby.
After fumbling for a moment with the oversized scissors, Kennedy paused and then he tried again. This time he cut right through.
“I told you it was hard,” the supervisor quipped.
Sacramento County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy delivers a speech at the Safe Stay Community on Florin Rd. Aug. 14, 2023.Andrew Nixon / CapRadioContact CapRadio reporter Chris Nichols at [email protected]
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