People’s Budget Sacramento
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peoplesbudgetsac.bsky.social
People’s Budget Sacramento
@peoplesbudgetsac.bsky.social
160 followers 11 following 21 posts
The People of Sacramento deciding how to spend our tax money. Inspired by People's Budget Los Angeles.

https://linktr.ee/peoplesbudgetsac
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peoplesbudgetsac.bsky.social
Had an amazing day at @sac_dsa ’s #TDOV Trans Day of Visibility event. Followed by @queersportz ’s Queaster, kicking off the summer of Queer Picnics. ❤️
April 1, 2024 at 7:38 PM
peoplesbudgetsac.bsky.social
Today’s ballot drop has @flojaune.bsky.social ‘s lead increase to 6,000 over her next competitor. We love to see purple.
March 16, 2024 at 9:16 AM
peoplesbudgetsac.bsky.social
It is the same way women feel when men talk about and make decisions about our reproductive health and don't include us. Imagine what it is like to live life in the hardest conditions and people treat you like you're a problem for being poor and sick -- and they introduce costly and ineffective policies like daytime camping bans so they simply don't have to see you. So no, I'm not being "soft on homelessness." I'm being a human with a soul on homelessness. I'm being a data-driven epidemiologist on homelessness. I'm imagining what I would need and want if I was in their shoes. I'm talking to my friends who are experiencing homelessness or on the brink of it right now about how this feels and what they need. I'm setting goals for our city --- a city where 30,000 people do the Run to Feed the Hungry each year -- so that we can all play a role in the solution. And most importantly, I'm inviting you to join me. ryzt900 If anyone hasn't read this response PLEASE DO. I can't vote in the
March 2, 2024 at 5:23 AM
peoplesbudgetsac.bsky.social
Our very own amazing mayoral candidate Dr. Flo Cofer succinctly and completely laying out the reasons for the way many view homelessness and the ways efforts have not been evidence based and the ways it can be adequately addressed by following the evidence and leading with empathy.
VerenValtaan Are you concerned that the perception that you are "soft" on homelessness is going to cost you this mayoral race? For example, you've mentioned that you are against sweeping homeless camps. Residents are dealing with picking up used syringes during their kids' soccer games, having their property and personal safety threatened, getting assaulted, etc etc, while the mayor's office, county and state play hot potato with people's #1 issue. How much patience are you expecting from the city of Sacramento on this sense of lack of public safety? flojaune OP thank you for asking this question! I'm combining my responses here because you both asked similar things. I hope that's okay. I am not soft on homelessness. What I am is more concerned with effectiveness than misperceptions. I am grateful for the long form space to dispell several. Our housing crisis is caused by at least 13 different factors. Homelessness is as complex and the causes as multifaceted as the people experie 1) The overwhelming majority of people with mental health and substance use issues are housed. Why am I mentioning that? Because mental health and substance use have a bi-directional arrow with homelessness. They may increase the risk of homelessness, but the experience of homelessness also creates and exacerbates mental health and substance use issues. We need only too look at the pandemic to begin to understand this. As soon as stay-at-home policies were passed -- and we were all scared for our lives and many for our livelihoods -- the sales of alcohol skyrocketed. When we are stressed we turn to substances and our mental health suffers. 2) Sacramento county went from 2500 people experiencing homelessness in 2013 to 3900 in 2019 to 9278 in 2022. And 57% of people experiencing homelessness have at least one chronic health condition. 3) We need plans that work. Not performances and theatrics. We currently sweep people from block-to-block -- when we want to while swearing we don't I am not saying it is okay for people to sleep on our porches, drop needles in our parks, or expose themselves in front of our schools. I'm saying just because white men are the most likely demographic to shoot up public places, doesn't mean we should pass policies banning all white men from public spaces. In the same way that just because someone experiencing homelessness commits a crime doesn't mean we pass a ban on all people experiencing homelessness. Especially when we know that people experiencing homelessness are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. I'm saying that there is a much more cost-effective and solution-driven way to a crisis being driven by poverty than putting people in the county jail for trespassing where they will stay for 24 hours to 10 days and then be released at 2am without so much as a transit pass. My immediate plan is to work with each neighborhood to identify sites and establish safe ground so we have a place where people and the It isn't either/or. It is both/and. We should do what works for all of us and makes our communities healthy, not what is expedient and harmful in the long run. As a public health professional, I have worked with people experiencing homelessness for years. What I have learned is this: I have yet to meet a person who is truly "service resistant." Even when people say no to an offer of services, it is always more complicated than that if we take time to understand. Just like NIMBYs are often more complicated than just saying no; there are valid fears and concerns behind their position that we can address if we listen. What I learn when I take time to establish trust and show respect is that behind the no is: They're frustrated, exasperated, sick, or distrustful. Frustrated because they've been on a list for years with not reprieve. Exasperated because what we have to offer is insufficient for their needs or hard to access. Too sick to move constantly -- or have processing issues that mak
March 2, 2024 at 5:23 AM
peoplesbudgetsac.bsky.social
In case you were under the mistaken impression that they cared about addressing the issue. This would do nothing to get folks housing and has everything to do with further harming our unhoused who are also “residents” (who Jennings and Guerra cynically reference as a rationale for the measure)…
December 2, 2023 at 10:47 PM
peoplesbudgetsac.bsky.social
“If you can jail us you can house us.”

Simple statement. And true. Housing is far cheaper than the costs associated with jailing.

Housing is more moral because it doesn’t compound traumas experienced by unhoused folks. Traumas that are often not their fault.

Traumas that come from generational…
If you can jail us you can house us.
August 31, 2023 at 3:54 AM