By Crescenzo Vellucci
The Vanguard Sacramento Bureau Chief
SACRAMENTO, CA – City and county political power brokers here in California’s capital city took more potshots at each other Tuesday, but the targets of the legal wranglings—the nearly 10,000 homeless—chimed in they will not be “spectators or pawns.”
The fireworks began early Tuesday when Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho filed a lawsuit—a citizen group filed another—in Sacramento Superior Court, naming the city of Sacramento as a defendant because it allegedly hasn’t done enough to clean up homeless encampments and to protect Sacramento landowners and businesses.
Ho—who has attempted to intervene over the past few months in the unhoused controversy, including apparently encouraging the city to ignore a federal judge—said the city of Sacramento has suffered a “collapse into chaos.”
In large part, Ho continued his complaints from August when he claimed the homeless made it difficult for prosecutors to get to the courthouse, which is kitty corner to the DA’s office. He said the city refused to enforce local laws by arresting offenders.
“We will not be spectators or pawns in this fraudulent lawsuit,” said the Sacramento Homeless Union later Tuesday, promising it would “file a Motion to Intervene” in the legal affair.
“The real target of DA Ho’s fraudulent lawsuit is not the City of Sacramento: The real targets are the thousands of unhoused residents of this city who are in the cross-hairs of both sides,” said the union, noting state law permits “a nonparty to intervene in the action or proceeding if the person has an interest in the matter in litigation, or in the success of either of the parties, or an interest against both.”
The union is no fan of Ho—it filed an official complaint with the State Bar over Ho’s alleged involvement in pressuring the city to ignore a federal court order in August banning the sweeping of the unhoused because to do so could injure or kill the homeless during hot summer temperatures.
“Both the City and the D.A. are complicit in the ongoing persecution of the unhoused and we will continue to take on both sides to protect the interests of our members. Accordingly, the Homeless Union, as soon as practicable, will be filing a Motion and Complaint for Intervention in the Superior Court,” according to a statement issue by union President Crystal Sanchez and chief counsel Anthony Prince.
The union also warned, “As eviction moratoriums end and thousands more continue to lose their housing, the number of homeless persons will continue to grow…neither DA Ho’s meritless lawsuit nor the City’s policy of clearing encampments can or will solve the problem…we intend to intervene in this lawsuit, not just for the unhoused, but for all Sacramentans who may soon find themselves without a place to live.”
Ho said in an interview Tuesday, “All I’m asking is the city do its job,” adding, “enough is enough” and claiming his lawsuit is the “first of its kind in the nation, and insisted in a news conference and an interview with The Sacramento Bee that he was “forced into the move to ensure public safety.”
The 36-page lawsuit charges Sacramento is a city in a “descent into decay and this utter collapse into chaos” that is unsafe for both housed residents and the homeless.
The suit portends to care about the homeless—a contention the Sacramento Homeless Union may disagree with—by stating, “The unhoused deserve to feel and be safe. Among the chronically homeless, those who have been unhoused for over a year, 9 out of 10 women have been victims of sexual assault.”
The suit adds, “During the recent heat wave in the summer of 2023, unhoused people were seen walking on the sizzling sidewalk barefoot. During the cold winter months of 2022, unhoused people were seen wrapped in blankets standing in the pouring rain.”
Ho maintained in the pleading, “It’s not compassionate to let someone die in the sweltering summer sun or freeze to death in the cold winter night. It’s not compassionate to allow unsafe conditions to fester so badly that a 14-year-old boy cannot ride his bike to school or a group of little girls can’t play soccer on a field littered with needles.”
The district attorney again claimed his goal was not to arrest the homeless, noting, “There is no intention, no desire for my office at all to criminalize those that are homeless or put them in jail. Those that are suffering from mental health and drug addiction, we want treatment, we want services. But there has to be a means to encourage that and require it.”
Sacramento outgoing mayor Darrell Steinberg disagreed with Ho’s legal filings, responding in a statement, “No local government in the Sacramento region has done more to address the crisis on our streets: 1,200 new emergency beds, ordinances to protect sidewalks, schools and other sensitive sites; a legally binding partnership with the county; thousands of new affordable housing units-to name a few.”
The mayor criticized Ho’s lawsuit, arguing “the D.A.’s lawsuit will not clear a single sidewalk nor get a single person off the streets. We are working day and night to enforce our laws and provide relief to our community while avoiding the futile trap of just moving people endlessly from one block to the next.”
He added that “we have no time for the District Attorney’s performative distraction from the hard work we all need to do together to solve this complex social problem plaguing urban centers throughout the state and nation. The city needs real partnership from the region’s leaders, not politics and lawsuits. Let’s just do the work.”
City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood, in a statement, said that “it sadly appears the DA would rather point fingers and cast blame than partner to achieve meaningful solutions for our community. The City looks forward to responding to the DA’s claims in court.”
The other suit, filed by a citizen group, charged, “Sadly, the city is dying. Darrell Steinberg, the city’s mayor, is the executioner. The failure to address the ubiquitous spread of homelessness throughout the City is Steinberg’s poison. The Steinberg Decree has transformed this once bucolic tree-lined city into a rotting cesspool of decay and despair.”
And, Ho did land some punches, including a charge that “City Hall allows camping on City Hall property at night, but they don’t allow it during the day. I ask the city to extend the same protection they give to themselves to the rest of us,” he said.
Like the homeless union, Ho also called for more better-run and operated safe ground camping places.
“For the time being, my office will not be filing criminal charges based upon evidentiary and strategic reasons,” Ho said, adding, “We are going to take this to trial,” Ho said. “We will be calling 400 to 500 witnesses who will be testifying about the city’s actions and inaction.”
