Sacramento Housing Alliance (SHA) has spent over a year investigating the best mechanisms for Sacramento to end and prevent homelessness. Our April 2016 working paper on ending homelessness recommended expanding revenue to local jurisdictions’ housing trust funds, the established sources of funding for creating and preserving affordable homes. Building on that recommendation, today we release that research as a white paper entitled, “Enhance and Expand the Housing Trust Funds in the City and County of Sacramento.” Concurrent with this release, SHA is working with elected officials; service providers; and community and faith-based organizations to do a deeper dive into our findings to determine the best solutions for our region.

Key findings detailed in the white paper include:

  • Sacramento City and County have already demonstrated leadership in putting the necessary housing trust funds into place and should demonstrate renewed leadership by increasing the investment to mirror the scale of the challenge.
  • With steadfast commitment to principals and proven solutions, Sacramento can explore what has been successful in other areas of the state, including general obligation bonds, fees, and competitive funding opportunities.
  • Until more affordable housing is built, subsidized, and preserved, Sacramento’s residents, families, and local governments will face the mounting costs and consequences of homelessness.

“As we face a nationwide housing crisis, there is a broadening realization that housing impacts all aspects of our lives, from our physical and mental health to our economic stability,” say Veronica Beaty, SHA’s Policy Director and the report’s primary author. “To meet the growing need, and in the absence of adequate federal and state support, both cities and counties from across the nation, have successfully tried new and innovative approaches to ending homelessness and providing homes. SHA’s research shows how well some of these solutions would work in Sacramento; we just need the political will and resourcing to do so.”

Affordable homes are the foundation for a healthy, equitable, and sustainable community, and the lack of homes negatively impacts all Sacramentans, particularly low-wage workers, older adults, people with disabilities, families with children, and communities of color. Unless more affordable homes are built, subsidized, and preserved, mounting individual, family, public, and social costs and consequences are inevitable.

For the full report, click here.

Following the release of the release of this report, SHA commissioned BAE Economics to estimate the potential revenue from the most promising funding mechanisms identified by our research.  Their report looks at 7 potential mechanisms, including general obligation bonds and recurring revenue sources, that could be adopted by the City of Sacramento and/or Sacramento County to provide a permanent source of affordable housing funds. For the full BAE report, click here.