The City of Sacramento is all atwitter over a proposal to let unhoused senior citizens live in a 40-unit Steiny Home (so named after their biggest proponent, a former Mayor of the City of Sacramento) village in Natomas. More than once, the Bee's opinion page has opined on the subject. A city council member who "had a strip in mind" for the facility has since complained she was blindsided by it. A former member of the city council who is now a State Senator (and self-declared homeless solution solver) is "deeply concerned" about it. 

We wonder what's the big deal. Steiny Home villages are already in use here - the County has one on Stockton Blvd. The City of Sacramento has one on Roseville Road adjacent to our community.   A significant difference, of course, is that the Natomas facility is set amidst residents who are City of Sacramento voters, whereas the one adjacent to our unincorporated community is far away from City of Sacramento voters. Residents of the Natomas facility will be free to wander around nearby where City of Sacramento voters live, recreate and shop. Residents of the facility adjacent to our community are free to wander around nearby where we live, recreate and shop. The Natomas facility is walled off from adjacent residences in a setting largely devoid of litter and debris. The facility adjacent to our community is surrounded by metal fencing and barbed wire, as is commonly - though not extensively - used to define property in the area, which has abundant litter and debris. The Natomas facility is intended to have 40 tiny homes for "well-behaved" seniors. The facility adjacent to our community has 100 Steiny homes and is currently being expanded to a total of 235 Steiny homes for any homeless people being relocated from elsewhere in the City of Sacramento. In other words, City of Sacramento and Natomas, hold our beer!

We DO, however, give credit to the City of Sacramento for having community meetings about the Natomas facility and for discussing it at city council meetings. Since Arden Arcade is just another invisible part of the County's vast unincorporated UnCity, the concepts of deliberate community awareness and discourse are foreign to us.