City Proposes Housing Homeless In Large Tents At Light Rail Station

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Sacramento city leaders are looking at new ways to create housing for the homeless, and it could include setting up large tents at a local light rail station.

The light rail station at Florin Road could be the newest location to house Sacramento's homeless. Mayor Darrell Steinberg has called on all eight city council members to identify locations in their districts to house the homeless so no one neighborhood is overly impacted.

The Florin location was suggested by councilmember Jay Schenirer.

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Under the proposal, Regional Transit, which owns the 21-acre property, would lease a portion of the parking lot to the city for up to two years. Tents would be set up and be able to accommodate up to 100 people, but not everybody is happy about the idea.

Dat Duong can see the station from his front yard and said he is concerned about security.

"There's a lot of problems here already, a lot of people walk by day and night, if they put the tent here it's going to be more worse," Duong said.

Homeless coordinators say the site will be monitored by security and extra public works crews could be added to clean up the trash.

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"We are serving a very vulnerable population with a lot of challenges and we know there are some very real impacts on the communities that host shelters like this," said Sacramento City Homeless Coordinator Emily Halcon.

The goal is to have shelters across the city to accommodate up to 1,000 people over the next two years. Cal Expo and the Meadowview Corporation Yard are two other sites under consideration for neighborhood shelters.

A public meeting is being held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at Burbank High School to discuss the proposal.