Council approves consent package including SB1 transit planning grant and in‑house homelessness case management after contractor dissolution

West Sacramento City Council on Sept. 15 voted unanimously to approve consent items 4–11, a package that included an SB1 grant agreement for a transit-priority plan, an amendment and budget allocation related to the city’s homelessness emergency housing program, and a housing finance subordination for an affordable housing project.

The council approved Resolution 25-92, authorizing the city to enter a restricted grant agreement with the California Department of Transportation to receive SB1 funds to prepare a West Sacramento transit-priority plan. City staff said the project will support multimodal planning and include procurement of consultant teams; partners listed include VIA, Yolo Transit (Yolotd), SACRT and others who contributed support letters.

The council also approved a staff recommendation to reconfigure case-management services for the city’s Home Is emergency housing program after the nonprofit Downtown Streets Team (DST) informed the city it would cease those services effective Oct. 31. Staff said the sudden loss of DST’s case managers required a rapid transition to ensure continuity of services. “We find ourselves in a unique situation,” staff said; the city proposed hiring seven in-house case-manager (housing navigator) positions plus supervisory oversight absorbed by existing city managers to replace the two DST contracts.

Staff described the current DST case-management contracts as costing just over $800,000 annually and covering about seven case managers plus managers who together served roughly 90 individuals in the program; the in‑house model carries a slightly higher annual cost (about $900,000 in staff’s estimate) but would give city staff more direct control over case-management priorities and oversight. City staff said they would try to recruit existing DST case managers to apply for the new city positions and would expedite hiring through human resources.

Councilmember questions focused on continuity of services, recruitment and the operational trade-offs of absorbing supervision duties into existing staff. City staff said the proposed hires would be funded from the grants and program sources currently paying DST and that three temporary positions tied to Measure E cleanup work would continue to be paid from Measure E. The council approved a revision to the resolution to keep approximately $307,000 from Measure E on hand as a placeholder to cover unanticipated transition expenses if necessary rather than returning those funds to the Measure E fund balance immediately.

Other consent items included approval of the Parkside at Sycamore affordable housing transaction. City counsel explained that the subordination arrangement in the Parkside financing is standard practice for affordable housing financing — municipal loans commonly sit behind a senior mortgage — and described processes the city can follow if a developer or senior lender defaults. The city also approved a letter to the Superior Court responding to the grand jury report on homelessness and other routine consent items.

A roll-call vote recorded the consent approval: Ocala — Aye; Early — Aye; Orozco — Aye; Mayor Pro Tem Solpezio Hall — Aye; Mayor Guerrero — Aye.

Ending

Staff said hiring would proceed quickly, and council members asked staff to report back on recruitment, retention and any additional funding needs. Councilmembers and staff noted the need to preserve the community-building aspects DST provided and to explore best practices from other jurisdictions while recruiting for the in‑house positions.