Following up on threats he made last month, Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho on Tuesday filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Sacramento because it has "allowed, created and enabled a public safety crisis" by not enforcing its homelessness laws.
In response, city officials called Ho’s lawsuit “a distraction” from the work needed to solve homelessness and vowed to defend their record in court.
The move marks a major escalation in the feud between Ho and the city over how to effectively provide shelter and services to Sacramento’s vast homeless population while protecting quality of life for everyone who lives, visits or works in the city.
“What we are doing is simply holding the city accountable by the same laws they enforce on us,” Ho said at the press conference, standing in front of large TV monitors that ran aerial video footage of Sacramento’s sprawling encampments.
Ho said the safety of his employees downtown and other workers at and near the Sacramento Superior Court is in jeopardy because the city has failed to keep the area safe. That’s despite letters Ho sent the city in June and a notice he sent the city on Aug. 7 threatening legal action if it did not enforce its homeless encampment laws.
“Since then, things have only gotten worse,” Ho said Tuesday. “Another court reporter was assaulted. Another DA employee was threatened. And just last night at 3 o’clock in the morning there was some bushes right outside the courthouse that were set on fire by an unhoused individual.”
“We are stuck in this never-ending groundhog loop where nothing gets better,” the district attorney added.
Ho said his office will serve the city with the lawsuit this afternoon and would then make a link to the document publicly available. He added that he was committed to taking the case to trial and would request emails, memos and text messages from city officials and interview them under oath about why more hasn’t been done to follow the city’s laws.
He said the suit does not go after Sacramento County, which city officials have repeatedly called out for not doing more to address the crisis, given its substantially larger budget and role providing social services.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who called Ho’s threats “a political stunt” in August, again criticized the DA’s actions on Tuesday.
“Frankly, we have no time for the District Attorney’s performative distraction from the hard work we all need to do together to solve this complex social problem plaguing urban centers throughout the state and nation,” Steinberg said in a written statement. “The city needs real partnership from the region’s leaders, not politics and lawsuits.”
City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood added, also in a written statement: “The City has attempted to work with the District Attorney multiple times in recent months, stating that collaboration is the best path forward. However, it sadly appears the DA would rather point fingers and cast blame than partner to achieve meaningful solutions for our community. The City looks forward to responding to the DA’s claims in court.”
Earlier this month, Alcala Wood responded to Ho’s most recent letter to the city, correcting what she said were his mistaken claims.
Last year, the Sacramento City Council passed several homeless enforcement measures, including a law that makes it illegal to block sidewalks while also banning encampments within 500 feet of schools. Voters also passed Measure O last November, which bans encampments on public property under certain conditions.
The city, however, has rarely cited any individuals under these new laws and instead has asked police and code enforcement to seek voluntary compliance. Ho says that approach renders the city’s laws meaningless and allows the public safety crisis to fester.
A third party may soon enter the legal fight. The Sacramento Homeless Union said in a statement on Tuesday it intends to file a motion and complaint for intervention in the case, saying “both the City and the DA are complicit in the ongoing persecution of the unhoused and we will continue to take on both sides to protect the interests of our members.”
The legal battle comes as Sacramento County’s homeless population has soared in recent years. It reached a record 9,300 people in 2022, up 67% from three years earlier, according to the 2022 Homeless Point-In-Time Count. The same report counted more than 1,600 tents and 1,100 vehicles being used for shelter. Those totals were nearly five times larger than in 2019.
Contact CapRadio reporter Chris Nichols at [email protected].
Follow us for more stories like this
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.
Donate Today
