New Safe Parking site at Roseville Road SacRT station will help people living in vehicles

May 24, 2022
SacRT Articles

A new safe parking facility for 70 vehicles and 100 guests is poised to open in the coming months in the parking lot of the light rail station on Roseville Road after the City of Sacramento finalized an agreement with the Sacramento Regional Transit Agency.

The Roseville Road safe parking will be the second such vehicle facility operated by the City, which also runs one on South Front Street in Sacramento. Guests will be provided with food, water, bathrooms, showers and individual assessments and comprehensive case management to help them move toward more stable and sustainable housing.

Henry Li, General Manager and CEO of the Sacramento Regional Transit District, said Mayor Darrell Steinberg reached out to him last summer about using the property, and he immediately agreed to work to obtain approval from the SacRT board. It took some time to negotiate the particulars of the complicated arrangement, which also requires the approval of Caltrans, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Transit Administration.

The service provider hired by the City to run the facility will contract for security on site. The SacRT board also adopted the City’s critical infrastructure ordinance, which allows it to establish a buffer zone of 25 feet around the facility where no camping will be permitted.

RT continues to work with the City on the potential to stand up additional safe parking sites in the parking lots of the Florin Road and Franklin Boulevard light rail stations. More than a year ago, SacRT also created an in-house Social Service Practitioner position and program to connect individuals living along SacRT’s right-of-way and transit facilities with regional services. The program has won recognition for its innovative services and ability to be replicated. Ten spots at the Roseville Road safe parking site will be reserved for referrals from SacRT’s social service practitioner. Speaking at a May 9 meeting of the SacRT board, Mayor Steinberg praised the efforts of the transit agency as “heroic” and thanked Li, City Manager Howard Chan, City Attorney Susana Alcala-Wood and staff of both agencies for working through the issues. “The product is worth the wait in my opinion because it establishes an important precedent that you are us and we are you, even though we are separate governing bodies,” Mayor Steinberg said.

This blog post is from the City of Sacramento Mayor’s Office of Pubic Engagement page and has been posted by SacRT with the City’s permission. View the original post here: https://engagesac.org/blog-civic-engagement/2022/5/23/new-safe-parking-site-at-roseville-road-rt-station-will-help-people-living-in-vehicles