Sacramento homeless shelters will likely have fewer staff due to budget deficit

Mathew Miranda, The Sacramento Bee on Apr 25, 2025

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento City Council will likely approve trimming homeless shelter provider contracts next week, leading to reduced staffing and decreased service at four of the city’s sites.

This vote will come Tuesday afternoon, minutes before the council begins a homelessness-focused workshop to discuss the city’s approaches to the issue. The contracts are on the consent calendar, a practice typically reserved for non-controversial agenda items that don’t require much discussion.

Reworking these deals are among the city’s strategies to close its $44 million budget deficit. The interim city manager will release her proposed budget Wednesday.

The new contracts total nearly $10 million and allow the city to continue operation at four existing homeless shelters through 2026. The shelters — Emergency Bridge Housing shelter, Meadowview Navigation Center, X Street Navigation Center and Roseville Road shelter — will lose 18 staff members under the reworked deals.

“We would have preferred not to have lost these positions,” said Stephen Watters, executive director for First Step Communities, a Sacramento-based nonprofit overseeing services at two of the shelters. “We want to give the optimum service. We have to be realistic about the fact that the city has a severe deficit.”

The shortfall has led the Department of Community Response to “maximize efficiencies” as it engages in contract negotiations, said city spokesperson Julie Hall in an email statement on Thursday.

Negotiations with shelter operators over the last few months have saved the city about $7.5 million. Hall acknowledged the new contracts will “affect service levels,” including third-party security and support staff.

Watters said 11 employees will be lost at Emergency Bridge Housing and Roseville Road shelters. The majority of those are what he called “shelter monitors,” staff who complete wellness checks, work security, conduct clean up and set up meals.

“They’re kind of a jack-of-all-trades,” Watters said.

Three of the 11 employees are case managers. These workers create individualized plans for homeless individuals to “stabilize their lives,” including finding employment and permanent housing.

“Obviously, there’s going to be a little less effort or time given to the clients because of the loss of case managers, but I think we maintained a level that we can still get the job done,” Watters said.

As of this week, Sacramento had an estimated $44 million budget deficit for the upcoming fiscal year. The city learned in February that it would receive less state funding for homeless services than expected because of fewer homeless people recorded in the county’s Point-in-Time Count, a biennial survey of sheltered and unsheltered people.

The Meadowview Navigation Center and X Street Navigation Center will experience a budget reduction leading to seven less staff members, said Ana Bankert, vice president of development and marketing for Volunteers of America Northern California & Northern Nevada. The organization oversees services at these shelters. She did not specify how many employees would be lost at each location.

Bankert said the reductions will affect housing services and limit the ability to provide financial support such as application fees, security deposits and rental assistance.

“All of which help individuals transition more quickly into self-sustaining housing,” Bankert said in an email statement. “These changes require us to reassess how we allocate resources, but our commitment to supporting shelter residents remains steadfast.”

Following the consent calendar vote, the council will hold a long-awaited workshop centered around homelessness. Mayor Kevin McCarty, who promised to have a homelessness-related item on each agenda while in office during his campaign, announced the workshop last month.

The presenter for workshop will be Brian Pedro, director for DCR, who has recently proposed new and unconventional strategies for addressing the city’s homelessness crisis, such as charging a small fee for some services. Another approach may be the “development of interim housing micro-communities featuring ultra-affordable, efficient housing serving targeted and specialized populations,” according to a Thursday staff report.

The city funds 18 shelter sites with a 1,375 total bed capacity at an annual operating cost of $34.5 million, according to the staff report. This does not include maintenance costs of existing shelter facilities.

Next Tuesday’s council meeting begins at 2 p.m.

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