Vanguard Sacramento Bureau Chief
SACRAMENTO, CA – In yet another brutal sweep of the unhoused population by the city and county of Sacramento in May of 2019 – as described by a legal observer – the county wiped out an otherwise empty street corner at Fruitridge and Stockton Blvd.
But, according to a story in the Sacramento Bee, the county has now written checks of $18,500 to three of the dozens evicted from the impromptu homeless camp.
The August 2023 settlement, just being made public, is a result of a federal lawsuit related to the action, at a property own by the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, although, said a legal observer, who owned and controlled the property at the time was in question – the city, county and SHRA were suspected.
Lucille Mendez, Palmer Overstreet and Betty “Bubbles” Rios split the $18,500 award, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California on behalf of the three by Legal Services of Northern California.
The court upheld seven of nine counts alleged by the plaintiffs, including a cause of action against a deputy, who – during the “clean up” – broke Rios’ arm. Rios was taken to the hospital and when Rios returned her belongings were gone, alleged the pleading.
“The people who lived there allege they lost most of their belongings, from tents and beds to clothes and medicine, because they did not have enough notice or time to remove or reclaim those belongings. They assert claims under the federal and California constitutions and California law against the County, the Sheriff’s Department, SHRA, and others,” acknowledged the court.
Wrote the Bee, the “publicly-owned lot had been vacant since 2010 when the San Juan Motel closed and was demolished. Rios had worked in the motel, and when it was demolished, so was her trailer, leaving her homeless. She was the unofficial mayor of the self-governed camp, where she lived for a decade, working with the other residents to come up with rules and building community.”
The camp is a model of sorts for Camp Resolution, which opened in 2022 and is slated to close this month, although legal efforts are underway to stop the city eviction by the Sacramento Homeless Union.
SHRA spent $186,000 to build a fence around the Fruitridge area property while people still lived there, explained the lawsuit, and after a heated confrontation with the unhoused, advocates and dozens of deputies on May 1, 2019, the homeless were kicked out.
Two people were arrested.
The court, before the settlement, upheld a claim by the unhoused plaintiffs that their property was confiscated and destroyed by the county, a common complaint by the homeless when they are raided.
“The County argues again it is not liable because the plaintiffs’ property was abandoned…but as discussed…the individual plaintiffs allege they were forced to leave their belongings behind under threat of violence, arrest, and prosecution,” the court wrote.
And, as the Bee notes, while the unhoused look for a place to live, the site is still vacant, although SHRA claims an apartment building will be built in a few years.
The unhoused who lived at the site said 145 people lived at the San Juan Motel camp, but now, many of them, the Bee writes are “living in tents on the sidewalks of Stockton Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare where pedestrians and bicyclists are hit by vehicles frequently. A man in March 2023 died after he was hit by a vehicle less than a mile from the site.
