Housing First is a disaster. I saw Sacramento's homeless chaos firsthand

America’s homelessness situation is routinely framed arsenic a lodging crisis.

It is not.

It is simply a situation calved from the illness of accountability astatine each level of the system. Nowhere are the consequences of that illness much disposable than successful California — and particularly successful its superior city, Sacramento.

In 2016, California became the lone authorities successful the federation to formally follow the national government’s Housing First mandate arsenic its sole taxpayer-funded attack to homelessness, directing billions successful authorities and national dollars toward subsidized-for-life apartments with nary accountability for sobriety, treatment, oregon enactment — ever.

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Sacramento County followed successful 2017, embracing the housing-only model, contempt repeated warnings from frontline providers that lodging unsocial would ne'er adequately code the addiction, intelligence illness, trauma oregon behavioral wellness challenges that truthful often travel homelessness.

Those warnings proved tragically accurate.

The occupation was ne'er simply homelessness and the solution was ne'er simply apartments.

Under this mandate, homelessness roseate astir 35% nationally. In California, it surged 40%. In Sacramento County, the stateless colonisation much than doubled.

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But adjacent much alarming than the numbers was what nine progressively learned to tolerate: quality deterioration, biology destruction, exploding encampments and escalating nationalist disorder, each portion accountability and expectations were systematically stripped from the strategy itself.

That’s due to the fact that the occupation was ne'er simply homelessness, and the solution was ne'er simply apartments.

Waterways, parks and sidewalks did not go wastelands due to the fact that of a deficiency of housing. They were devastated by a argumentation model that systematically removed recovery, restoration and accountability from the halfway of homelessness policy.

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What followed was wholly predictable: tens of thousands of needles and buying carts strewn crossed rivers, canals and nationalist spaces arsenic encampments became government-sanctioned waiting rooms for imperishable lodging that often ne'er comes.

As susceptible quality beings are near idle for years without attraction oregon purpose, societal decay takes basal — and what should daze the nationalist conscience becomes normalized.

 Most heartbreaking of each was our clip walking Sacramento’s streets, wherever we saw quality beings visibly deteriorate physically, mentally and spiritually portion passersby hardly looked up — nary shock, nary outrage, nary gasp.

This is what we saw successful Sacramento past week, arsenic a workfellow and I spent 1 time determination moving with the River City Waterway Alliance — a unpaid radical made up mostly of retirees who person softly go 1 of the past lines of defence protecting Sacramento’s waterways from biology collapse. We spent different time moving with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s HOT Team, which removed an estimated 5,000 pounds of discarded from a canal that the squad had afloat cleared conscionable 1 period earlier.

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One decision became intolerable to escape: America’s homelessness situation is, astatine its core, a situation of zero accountability — and Sacramento is the telltale motion of what happens erstwhile accountability collapses, ideology replaces outcomes, and leaders garbage to face the consequences of their ain policies.

An aerial presumption of the California State Capitol connected February 01, 2023 successful Sacramento, California. (Justin Sullivan/Justin Sullivan)

Realities successful Sacramento unsocial overgarment a staggering picture:

Over the past 3 years, Alliance volunteers removed astir 4 cardinal pounds of discarded from Sacramento waterways — including 29,000 needles, 19,000 buying carts and much than 70,000 batteries.

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Meanwhile, the decease complaint among the stateless colonisation much than doubled implicit that aforesaid period.

In 1 year, Sacramento County’s Sheriff’s HOT Team visited astir 4,600 camps, closed implicit 1,300 of them, and cleared 3 cardinal pounds of trash from stateless encampments.

Yet arsenic volunteers and instrumentality enforcement conflict to incorporate the fallout, Sacramento’s stateless colonisation grew by different 13% past twelvemonth unsocial — an further 1,000 individuals — further compounding a situation the portion was already failing to support gait with.

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The deterioration is accelerating acold faster than it tin beryllium contained, and the sheer standard of the demolition is astir intolerable to comprehend unless you witnesser it firsthand.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom looks connected during a measure signing lawsuit related to redrawing the state’s legislature maps connected Aug. 21, 2025, successful Sacramento, California.  (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

But astir heartbreaking of each was our clip walking Sacramento’s streets, wherever we saw quality beings visibly deteriorate physically, mentally and spiritually portion passersby hardly looked up — nary shock, nary outrage, nary gasp. In Sacramento, this level of suffering and societal breakdown is present tolerated.

Yet nary of this was inevitable.

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For years, volunteers with the River City Waterway Alliance begged section and authorities leaders to face the accelerating biology demolition unfolding crossed Sacramento’s waterways. At the precise aforesaid time, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed authorities that would person created a sober surviving lodging set-aside — contempt pleas from individuals struggling with addiction, frontline providers and mayors crossed California who warned the authorities desperately needed much recovery-focused options wrong its homelessness system.

To their credit, the metropolis and region are present responding. But repeated pleas to the governor, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Wildlife Conservation Board, and adjacent the Sacramento section of the Sierra Club — organizations with existent powerfulness and publically stated missions tied straight to these issues — were met with silence.

Crickets.

At the precise aforesaid time, the Sheriff’s HOT Team, which is actively containing the destruction, present faces the chopping artifact arsenic region leaders grapple with a $100 cardinal fund deficit.

That tells you everything you request to cognize astir the priorities of the existent strategy and the elected officials starring it.

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Today, Sacramento stands arsenic a informing to the remainder of the federation astir what happens erstwhile accountability is stripped away, erstwhile leaders garbage to face the consequences of their ain failed policies, and erstwhile voters proceed returning those aforesaid leaders to powerfulness adjacent arsenic quality suffering, biology destruction, nationalist upset and societal illness accelerate successful plain sight.

That is the existent crisis. Not simply homelessness. Not simply housing.

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It’s the illness of accountability itself.

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