Safe parking facility for homeless will be located at Sacramento Regional Transit light rail station

Safe parking facility for homeless will be located at Sacramento Regional Transit light rail station

Henry Li, general manager and CEO of the Sacramento Regional Transit District, said Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg reached out to him last summer about using the property, and he immediately agreed to work to obtain approval from the transit board.
May 24, 2022

Source: Sacramento Mayor's Office

A new safe parking facility for 70 vehicles and 100 guests is poised to open in the coming months in the parking lot of the Sacramento Regional Transit light rail station on Roseville Road after the city of Sacramento finalized an agreement with the agency.

The Roseville Road safe parking site will be the second such vehicle facility operated by the city. Guests will be provided with food, water, bathrooms, showers and individual assessments and comprehensive case management.

Henry Li, general manager and CEO of the Sacramento Regional Transit, said Mayor Darrell Steinberg reached out to him last summer about using the property, and he immediately agreed to work to obtain approval from the transit board. It took some time to negotiate the particulars of the complicated arrangement, which also requires the approval of Caltrans, the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration.

Li said he expects approval from the agencies in time for the facility to open in late summer.

“We are probably one of the very few transit agencies in the country that have been actively working with the local community to be an integral part of helping the region address the homelessness crisis,” Li said. “We really want to do something to help mitigate this situation.

The service provider hired by the city to run the facility will contract for on-site security. The transit board also adopted the city’s critical infrastructure ordinance, which allows it to establish a buffer zone of 25 feet around the facility where no camping will be permitted.

More than a year ago, Sacramento Regional Transit also created an in-house social service practitioner position and program to connect individuals living along the agency's right-of-way and transit facilities with regional services. Ten spots at the Roseville Road safe parking site will be reserved for referrals from the agency's social service practitioner.

Speaking at a May 9 meeting of the transit board, Mayor Steinberg praised the efforts of the transit agency as “heroic” and thanked Li, City Manager Howard Chan, City Attorney Susana Alcala-Wood and staff of both agencies for working through the issues.

“The product is worth the wait in my opinion because it establishes an important precedent that you are us and we are you, even though we are separate governing bodies,” Mayor Steinberg said.

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