The text below is Supervisor Rich Desmond's statement about Senator Ashby's proposed bill to form a joint powers agreement to oversee handling of low income housing and homelessness within Sacramento County. He issued this statement in his August 2025 Newsletter sent to his constituents. In it he says he will be attending the proposed October 2025 meeting of the county, the cities within the county, and homeless service providers. As we have indicated, the residents of unincorporated communities in the county will not have a seat at the table at that meeting - we must rely on the County to speak for us. If  anyone in our community has ideas or concerns about low income housing and homelessness, they should communicate them to Supervisor Desmond.

Here is his statement:

          "COORDINATION FROM THE GROUND UP, NOT TOP DOWN

You may have read about a recent effort by Senator Angelique Ashby to require Sacramento County and the five largest cities in the County to restructure their homelessness efforts and pool resources to create a new government homelessness entity.  Although I was directly involved in the ground-breaking partnership agreement between the County and City of Sacramento in 2022 to coordinate and improve our response to homelessness, and I support formal coordination across all jurisdictional boundaries in the County, a mandate by the Legislature is not the way to do it.  I am a firm believer that local communities should control what happens within their boundaries.  Senator Ashby’s legislation, SB 802, would undermine our ability to determine solutions that meet our needs.

Homelessness is an incredibly complex issue, and jurisdictions throughout the County have taken different approaches to solve it.  But this is a problem that crosses government boundaries, and the response by a city, or the County in unincorporated areas, often impacts surrounding cities and neighborhoods.  The cities and the County need to do a much better job communicating with each other, providing resources within their jurisdictions, and establishing clear standards for street-level homelessness efforts.  In other words, coordination. 

The County/City of Sacramento partnership agreement established a model for coordination that clearly identifies roles and responsibilities for homelessness response.  It is an agreement we can build upon for a countywide approach that addresses how jurisdictions share information, how they address shelter and housing needs, how the County provides behavioral health and other social service supports, and how law enforcement addresses criminal behavior relating to encampments while accessing services.  Discussions among elected officials about these issues are already happening, and County staff are actively communicating with staff from the cities of Sacramento, Rancho Cordova, Elk Grove, Folsom, Citrus Heights, Galt, and Isleton on a framework that will formally involve representatives from each jurisdiction on a new model for coordination.  In October, I will join my fellow Supervisors and the Sacramento City Council at a joint, formal public meeting with mayors from the other cities in the County to discuss our collective response to homeless.  The meeting will feature a discussion about County social services and behavioral health supports, shelter and housing resources, law enforcement response and access to emergency supports, data sharing, and a formal structure that requires ongoing and meaningful participation by all the jurisdictions in the County to chart a new path forward Sacramento.   

When I ran for office in 2020, one of my biggest priorities was to improve the relationship between the County and City of Sacramento and better coordinate our approach to homelessness, the biggest issues facing almost every local government in the State of California.  We made tremendous progress with the creation of the County/City partnership agreement.  In the unincorporated parts of the County, especially in District 3, we have made progress expanding shelter, housing and social services capacity while supporting and empowering the Sheriff’s Office to enforce the law and remove encampments that are detrimental to out businesses and neighborhoods.  I will keep working to take this balanced approach in the unincorporated communities, combined with better coordination and communication across jurisdictions, to all our neighboring cities."