‘Buffer zones’ needed between homeless and schools, parents and two Sacramento leaders urge

Sacramento City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby is calling for an amendment to a newly-enacted ordinance that would keep homeless campers 500 feet away from city schools.

“Children should be safe in schools across Sacramento,” Ashby said at Tuesday news conference at McKinley Park with Sacramento City Councilman Jeff Harris and parents of school-age children who said students are at risk with the number of homeless people camping near schools.

The setting was in the shadow of Sutter Middle School where angry parents say they are concerned for their children’s safety as they walk to the junior high campus after recent incidents involving homeless people near the school.

“Nothing’s being done. Nothing. No safe passage has been provided for them,” said Tinisha Starbuck, whose 12-year-old daughters are both Sutter Middle School students. Husband, Ray, is one of several adult volunteers who shepherd students along G Street to the East Sacramento campus.

“We shouldn’t have to do that,” Starbuck said of the parental escorts. “They should be able to walk to school safely.”

Less than a week ago, an unhoused man was arrested by Sacramento police after he was seen shouting obscenities and making sexual gestures at students as they walked to Sutter Middle.

The man appeared Thursday to be intoxicated or he was demonstrating behaviors that indicated he was suffering from mental illness, said Al Goldberg, a spokesman for the Sacramento City Unified School District.

Principal Cristin Tahara sent a message to parents, informing them of the incident. She said school staff reported that the man, who appeared to be homeless, was yelling sexual comments at students near the Safeway grocery store just south of the campus.

Sacramento City Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, who represents the area, said on her Twitter account last week that she shared the concerns community members expressed.

“Having an unwell man screaming obscenities near children is not acceptable,” Valenzuela said in the social media post. “We need to drastically expand mental health services in (Sacramento County) immediately.”

The complaints come as the city grapples with a surge in homelessness. More than 9,000 people experience homelessness on any given night in Sacramento County, according to a recent count.

Next month, Sacramento voters will see a ballot measure that would allow officials to sweep more encampments and require the city to provide more shelter beds. In August, the council passed an ordinance allowing the city to clear tents from sidewalks if pedestrians can’t use them.

Ashby and Harris want city leaders to amend Sacramento’s critical infrastructure ordinance to include the 500-foot buffer zone around schools, day care centers and child care centers across the city. Ashby and Harris say they plan to bring the proposal to Sacramento City Council at its Oct. 11 meeting.

“Schools should be on the list, too. Our kids have enough to worry about. They had to worry about the pandemic, they have to worry about COVID. We have a national epidemic of gun violence,” said Ashby, who is running for a state senate seat in November against former Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. “We owe it to them and to their teachers every duty to keep them as safe as possible.”

Stephanie Crowe and her three children live near Sacramento’s Southside Park, just north of Broadway. She recounted how she and her family had been cursed, chased, followed and spat upon in encounters with homeless people over the years. She called the ordinance long overdue.

“It’s getting to the point where we have to do something,” Crowe said. “It’s not enough, but it’s a start. As parents, we’re saying, ‘There’s the line and we aren’t going to cross it anymore.”

City Councilman Harris, who represented the neighborhoods around McKinley Park and Sutter Middle School until redistricting this year, insisted the proposed amendment strikes a balance between providing services for the city’s unhoused and enforcement needed to keep residents safe.

“Homelessness is a difficult problem to solve but we’ve let the pendulum swing too far,” Harris said. “We need to expand the (buffer) zone around schools. It’s just common sense. This strategy is a very good one.”