Camp limbo: Large, roving homeless community faces uncertain future in South Sacramento

“May” didn’t know whether to clean or pack, so she did both, collecting her belongings near a bush in the disheveled lot that had become a way station for more than a dozen homeless people. Five days earlier, police visited the makeshift encampment, just off a busy thoroughfare in south Sacramento, and told the 19 people here what other cops had said times and places before: They’d have to move along, or face arrest.

Once again, a large homeless encampment found itself in an anxious race against time, only no one knows how much is left.

(Because they’re trying to avoid drawing complaints to authorities, SN&R agreed not to name the individuals or disclose their exact location.)

This group has been through this before. About two miles away in unincorporated territory, approximately 45 people, many of Southeast Asian descent, lived in a village of tents on a massive scab of hard, abandoned earth.

The camp existed for years, but complaints to the sheriff’s department resulted in a July 26 operation that scattered its occupants from the property. The largest group migrated across the border in city territory, resettling in a vacant lot beside an automotive shop. But the lot is visible from the street, and drew unwanted attention almost immediately.

On August 24, city police officers notified the camp that its occupants would have to leave. That kicked off a frantic few days in which two activists called, texted and emailed Sacramento Steps Forward, pleading with the region’s lead homeless agency to provide the people with an alternative to re-relocating or being cited for violating city laws against “unlawful camping” and storing property on private lands. By multiple accounts, Steps Forward responded, though not without some early stumbles.

The next day didn’t go great, for instance. It took until around 4:30 p.m. that Thursday before two Steps Forward navigators visited the camp, and one occupant said the navigators offered them services they had already accepted: help obtaining identification and MediCal. Emergency housing wasn’t yet a possibility.

“So we’re back to square one again,” the young woman texted SN&R. She had recently returned to the camp after a stay in the hospital, but has since departed and hasn’t responded to texts.

Shortly after navigators left, police arrived again, posting an official vacate notice on a fence post in the camp. But officers post-dated the neon green notice by more than 24 hours to buy the occupants an additional day to clear out. And even that deadline hasn’t been enforced, though the camp’s occupants know they’re on borrowed time.

“Any day it could happen,” one of the men, “Ed,” told SN&R on Monday about the prospect of a forced eviction.

Ed says officers told them to avoid doing anything that would get police called to the location—don’t let trash accumulate, don’t get caught going to the bathroom, no fires or public arguments. In other words, they’ve got to walk a tightrope, living in plain sight without leaving any trace of their existence.

Ed says he understands where the police are coming from. “It could be just one call. Enough paperwork piles up about a place, they got to do something about it,” he said. “We got to keep a low profile at least.”

Meanwhile, Steps Forward is continuing to work with the group.

Navigators visited the site on Friday and Monday, according to Shirley K. Smith, a principal consultant with SKS Communications, a public relations firm that handles Steps Forward’s media requests.

In an email, Smith said navigators were working to remove barriers that would prevent the camp’s occupants from accessing community resources, like needing identification to apply for general assistance and housing placement. Smith noted “a language barrier and some cultural sensitivities” that proved “a road block” with some clients, but said a culturally appropriate community group was helping soften those issues.

Smith said that nearly half of the 19 clients “may qualify for and be offered emergency housing options within the next few days.” Navigators were still assessing the other half.

Some of them say they don’t want to be split up into shelters, that they’d rather stick together. But they also had positive things to say about Steps Forward navigators. On Monday evening, the mood at the camp was cautiously optimistic—and antsy.

May says she doesn’t plan on being homeless the rest of her life. Once she obtains an ID, she wants to find a job, work her way back indoors. “Homeless is not what I’m looking for the rest of my life,” she said.

That story is common here. In the meantime, no one can say whether the tightknit camp will be allowed to remain as its occupants navigate an unfamiliar process. Outlaws by their mere existence, they find themselves in a precarious detente that could end at any time.

“At the moment, we’re just on edge. At any moment, we can fall,” May reflected. She asks if the city and county will ever allow a tent city for people like her, with no other place to go. “So my words [are], ‘Would there be hope?’”

No, says her neighbor.

“Never,” Ed said. “And that’s the truth. And you know it.”

Maybe. But it made her bow her head and cry anyway.