By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer
Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho has threatened to file criminal charges against the city over a safe camping shelter in North Sacramento known as “Camp Resolution,” alleging the site is a health risk.
The city leased 2225 Colfax St. to Safe Ground Sacramento Inc., a nonprofit that has agreed to help the site’s current residents transition to a self-governing “safe parking shelter.” When the agreement was reached in March, the issue of toxic chemicals seemingly was resolved. Unhoused people in campers and RVs would be allowed to park there. Ho alleges there are now people living in tents on the ground, exposing themselves to hazardous underground chemicals.
The district attorney states in his letter that exposing the unhoused to toxic chemicals at Camp Resolution is a public safety hazard to the surrounding community of Del Paso Heights and that it violates Measure O which is designed to regulate illegal encampments.
“Public safety for everyone, including the unhoused, is the core mandate of the district attorney. I have consistently advocated for additional ‘safe ground’ shelter space, but it is dangerous and shameful to knowingly expose the unhoused to cancer-causing chemicals on a toxic dump site under the guise of ‘housing’ them,” Ho told The OBSERVER. “Before filing criminal charges for nuisance, the law requires us to provide notice and allow the offending parties to abate this dangerous condition.”
Attorney Mark Merin, executive director for Safe Ground Sacramento, questioned Ho’s commitment to the safety of the unhoused. “I think it’s disingenuous to say he is concerned for the welfare of homeless people who happen to be sleeping on a city lot because sometime in the past it was used as a maintenance yard and there may be harmful chemicals [in trace amounts],” he said.
Camp Resolution previously was part of the city’s Comprehensive Siting Plan as a potential location for sleeping cabins, but the site is subject to land-use conditions governed by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board due to soil contamination, which limits use of the site to safe parking.
After a group of individuals experiencing homelessness began residing at the site this past fall, the city’s Department of Community Response conducted numerous outreach engagements and provided notice of the water board’s restrictions.
Safe Ground Sacramento then contacted the city and proposed the operation of a “self-governing” site that would be compliant with the water board’s and city’s conditions.
Ho said he has served the city and Merin with notice. “Now, my office will carefully monitor whether the city and Safe Ground Sacramento will stop exposing the unhoused to Sacramento’s version of Camp Lejeune,” he said.
Ho clarified that this criminal investigation is separate from the pending civil lawsuit filed against the city in September.
Anthony Prince, attorney for the Sacramento Homeless Union, which represents the residents who occupy more than 30 city-sponsored RVs at Camp Resolution, said Ho is playing a deadly game of politics and deception with his threat to criminally prosecute the city, Safe Ground Sacramento and, possibly, officers of the Sacramento Homeless Union who are themselves homeless.
In a response to Ho obtained by The OBSERVER, Prince called the DA’s nine-page letter dated Nov. 14 “replete with distortions and false statements,” among them that camp residents are exposed to trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, both of which are carcinogens. He said that a letter to the city from the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board dated Jan. 13 said the board’s laboratory did not detect either chemical in outdoor air samples.
Prince said it must be remembered that Camp Resolution was formed by homeless women fed up with being pushed from one street corner to the next while facing brutal winters, deadly summers, sexual assault, vigilante violence and sweeps that robbed them of the few possessions they needed to survive.
“These are the dangers that the homeless face every day – dangers that took the lives of some 200 unhoused Sacramentans last year,” Prince said. “Where has Thien Ho been all this time? Where was this official who one day rails against ‘homeless criminals’ the next day becoming the ‘champion’ of the unhoused, playing all sides and every side so long as it advances his political career?”
Prince also said Ho’s letter ignores that most Camp Resolution residents are in trailers they either own or that were supplied by the city and that sit four feet off the ground in full compliance with the requirements set forth by the water board to not “enclose the area under the vehicles in a manner that prevents or limits air flow between the ground and the bottom of the vehicle or trailer.”
“If Thien Ho thinks his distortions and threats are going to frighten the Sacramento Homeless Union, he better think again,” Prince said. “His phony concern for the homeless is a fraud and he is a disgrace to the office that he holds.”
“For our part, we will continue to fight for housing and the rights of the unhoused. In some cases we work with the city; in other cases, we find ourselves in opposition. On Camp Resolution, we have had a little of both, but, overall, we have addressed and resolved issues and will continue to do so.”
Merin wondered where the district attorney wants the people living at Camp Resolution to go.
“Where is your positive solution? If you want to be a public official and take responsibility for actually creating an improved environment, then do something positive,” Merin said.
Tim Swanson, spokesperson for the city, said it had received Ho’s letter and is in the process of evaluating its contents.