NOT VERY CUTE: McCarty’s Ugly Record on Homelessness (and other topics)
By Bella Ahwal & Andy Bianchi
12/10/24
McCarty is sworn in as the 57th Mayor of Sacramento.
While he was still on the campaign trail, McCarty made promises to agendize homelessness at every City Council meeting - this will be important later.
Pictured here: Kevin McCarty on the day of his swearing in
12/17/24
McCarty is a NO vote on extending former City Manager Howard Chan’s contract by a year, despite stating previously that he supported the extension…off to a good start? Or just wanting to be on the winning side of his first major vote as Mayor?
01/7/25
With McCarty leading the Council, Leyne Milstein is appointed Interim City Manager in a 7-1 vote (Councilmember Dickinson abstaining and Councilmember Vang voting no). Prior to this role, Milstein was Assistant City Manager to Howard Chan.
02/18/25
McCarty votes with the majority of the Council (on the Truxel Bridge Concept and Feasibility Study) to invest in increasing car-dependent infrastructure. This project will result in negative impacts on the environment, high maintenance costs, and the high human cost of pedestrian and cyclist deaths.
02/25/25
Mayor McCarty requests an oral report (report presented at the February 25th City Council meeting) from the Sacramento Police Department (SPD) regarding Prop 36.
Pictured here: Kathy Lester, Chief of Police, presenting an oral report regarding Prop 36 at the February 25th Sac City Council meeting
While he STILL isn’t making good on his promise to agendize homelessness on every City Council agenda, McCarty IS able to set aside time in a Council meeting for the police to give a self report on their work since the implementation of Proposition 36. This proposition was an extremely harmful piece of legislation, passed in 2024, which further criminalizes our community members, and rolls back efforts to provide people with resources instead of caging them. During his campaign for Mayor, McCarty never advocated against Prop 36, and actually wrote some of the language for the bill while he was serving in the State Assembly.
This is also the meeting in which Mayor McCarty intended to introduce a change to Sacramento City Code, that would allow former police officers to serve on the Sacramento Community Police Review Commission, a significant conflict of interest that would interfere with the integrity of the Commission. In an underhanded move, McCarty initially places the item on the Consent Calendar of the meeting agenda, a section of the agenda that is supposed to comprise noncontroversial items that won’t require further discussion. Thankfully, this item is pulled from the agenda before it can be considered for approval.
03/04/25
The Department of Community Response presents a 6 month progress report to the City Coouncil on the collaboration between the City and County of Sacramento on addressing homelessness, which ends with Mayor McCarty FINALLY saying that he will agendize homelessness at a future meeting, with no details as to when that might be.
04/08/25
Mayor McCarty and Councilmember Pluckebaum are working together (never a good sign) on an initiative called Streamline Sacramento. Its stated goals are to streamline the process of development, incentivizing a greater supply of housing.
However, this is a pretty empty promise that is a little too friendly to developers and focuses more on profit margins than the need for more AFFORDABLE housing solutions.
Pictured here: Building that is being constructed as part of the Streamline Sacramento initiative
04/29/25
After Mayor McCarty ran on agendizing homelessness at EVERY. SINGLE. City Council meeting, he finally makes good on his promise! It only took him four months…At the meeting, different forms of shelter and long-term housing are considered, but more clarity is needed regarding how these housing options will run.
McCarty advocates for - and ultimately gives direction to move forward with - focusing the City’s efforts on creating and charging money for housing in the form of micro-communities. In summary, McCarty chooses to “address” the need for housing for our most vulnerable and income-insecure residents by charging them rent. He also suggests a workshop at a later date to discuss what the implementation of micro-communities will look like, which we have yet to see…
Pictured here: Example of a micro-community, this is the one on Power Inn Road and Florin
06/10/25
At the June 10th City Council meeting, the City’s $1.7 billion FY2025/2026 Budget is approved.
During this meeting McCarty admits to having no idea what the community’s definition of PUBLIC SAFETY is!
He says:
We [city council] did not negatively cut public safety - police and fire - which was the top priority I heard from the overwhelming majority of our city council and the community. ‘Don’t cut core services like public safety'
For reference, here’s what the City defines as public safety, as of 2020:
…the City establishes the definition of “public safety” to encompass the delivery of police, fire, emergency medical services, and citywide emergency management and expands that definition to include youth-centered prevention services offered by the City individually and in partnership with community-based organizations
The SPD’s 2025/26 budget has reached a record high of $254 million, an increase of $4m from last year’s budget of $250m. The budget did not include further investments in youth-centered prevention services.
McCarty’s comment is also in conflict with this statement from Councilmember Vang (who voted NO on the city’s 2025/26 budget) regarding a budget survey completed by community members:
“We went out to the community at large and we asked them, ‘if you had to cut something, what is the first thing you’d cut?’ and if you look at the survey results, you’ll see that the number 1 reduction option identified by the community that city staff went out to ask, was the police department and if you look at the lowest rank option, it was youth and parks and our enrichment program and community development”
Did McCarty forget about the City’s expanded definition of public safety when he voted for this inadequate budget that includes an even further bloated law enforcement budget? Or did he intentionally choose to address only the narrative that supports his investment in punishing people, rather than supporting them?
07/01/25
McCarty proposes an ordinance, which passes 6 to 3 , on 7/29/25 (with Councilmembers Vang, Kaplan & Maple voting no) which bans people from sitting or lying down (“sit/lie” ban) outside City Hall facilities at night. This ban used to apply only during the day. This is extremely predatory towards unhoused people, and only further criminalizes not having a place to go at night, instead of offering viable, safe alternatives.
Pictured here: Jessica Davila, an unhoused community member who sleeps outside of City Hall at night with her husband (image pulled from this CapRadio article)
08/13/25
The Sac Bee publishes an article with this atrocious statement from Mayor McCarty:
It may be an unpopular comment here, but I’m not always sold on prevention. … We can’t do everything…[w]e’re a reality check. The math doesn’t add up for us to have a little bit of everything
What’s that statement about? Well, it turns out that Sacramento City is scheduled to get just $16 million in funding for homelessness services - a 40% decrease from last year.
This loss in funding is the result of reductions to the money coming in from the state’s Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention grants. This funding cut is due to Sacramento’s supposed successes in reducing the number of people who are unhoused in this city. However, according to Sacramento Steps Forward, we’re in a months long trend of more people entering than exiting homelessness - just this June we saw a net increase of 504 people entering homelessness.
So naturally, the City’s solution is to cut the $2m in funding that had previously been allocated to prevention services.
Reality check for McCarty, the City has never invested in prevention in any meaningful way. It’s easy to be sold on something not working if you don’t try it.
He’s right that the math doesn’t add up though, it doesn’t make sense to continue punishing people for existing, not giving them options, and then complaining when he doesn’t see the results he wants.
The above quote from McCarty concludes with a statement about listening to constituents:
I think that we need to just double down and listen to what our constituents are saying
We assume that he means just the constituents who allowed him to barely squeak out a victory in the race for Mayor. Unhoused people are also your constituents, Mayor McCarty, and we can’t imagine a more clear statement of your values than that.
8/27/25
A Sac Bee article reports that Mayor McCarty approached Councilmember Vang - during the 7/1/25 Council meeting at which she voted NO on the Mayor’s proposed “sit/lie” ban - and said:
Next time, I’m going to make sure there are encampments around the (Sam and Bonnie) Pannell Community Center
This Center is in Councilmember Vang’s district.
According to the same article, Councilmember Vang said McCarty’s statements show a “growing pattern of behavior that, if unaddressed, creates a workplace culture that is hostile.”
The Mayor followed up with Councilmember Vang after his initial threat, saying:
Hey, I was only trying to be cute
It has also been pointed out that McCarty made no such comments to Councilmembers Maple and Kaplan, who also voted no on his proposal, choosing to target only Councilmember Vang.
Don’t worry though, our competent and ever-charming (sarcastic) Mayor apologized to Councilmember Vang.
…you’re not fooling anyone, Kevin.
Let’s quickly look at one other comment from McCarty (in the same 8/27 article), in which he states that he doesn’t think citations of unhoused people will increase significantly as a result of the newly expanded “sit/lie” ban.
Below are some statistics pulled from this Sac Bee article about citation increases since McCarty took office:
From mid-December to early July, 187 citations were given for violations of people sitting or lying down at City Hall at times that weren’t permitted
248 total violations were reported and 45% of those reports resulted in arrest
Enforcement of the ordinance intensified almost as soon as McCarty was sworn in
“By February, police cited more people than in all of 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024 combined, according to Police Department online data. Violations of the city code do not show up for 2022. These citations are subject to a misdemeanor and civil penalties ranging from $250 to $25,000.”
Why would this ordinance expansion not result in even more citations? Again, not fooling anyone.
Thank you for reading this short and absolutely NOT comprehensive retrospective. It’s important to track our Mayor’s actions, and for us to demand better from him, every chance we get.
