(upbeat guitar music) (upbeat guitar music continues) - Sacramento faces big decisions in its future.

Mayor Kevin McCarty joins us to discuss the state of the city and his plans for addressing Sacramento's major challenges and opportunities.

Mayor McCarty, it's been about a year since you've been in office and at that time, the big issue that seemed to be confronting Sacramento was homelessness.

What has happened and what's changed?

- Well, it has been a year, it's been a whirlwind being the 57th Mayor of Sacramento.

It's an exciting job.

I wake up every morning thinking, wow, this is a crazy job.

I can't believe that I did this.

But also I'm excited about the future.

You know, I think we are a city on the rise, going the right direction.

You're right.

Clearly the issue of the day in Sacramento and across California is the issue of homelessness.

It's the issue which, which made me decide to leave the legislature to run for Mayor, is looking for some different solutions.

I wasn't satisfied with what I saw in our neighborhoods, what I saw when our kids are walking home from middle school at the time.

And I just thought we needed to be smarter in our spending to address homelessness.

And I will say, unequivocally, that we have turned the corner and making a difference on homeless.

- You really think so?

- 100%.

- Okay.

- Lemme just give you two facts.

- Give us the evidence.

- Two facts.

And it's not just because of me.

I'll give credit to prior Mayor Darrell Steinberg.

The last census count of homeless had homeless down about 30% in the city of Sacramento from from 22 to roughly 23, 24 years.

So there are fewer people.

We're not done.

It's not like a mission accomplished, you know, banner like we saw in the Gulf War, (Scott laughing) but we have a long way to go.

We are enforcing these new laws on no encampments.

The Supreme Court said cities can enforce no camping rules, so you don't see these massive encampments under freeways and communities across Sacramento.

So I think the public has seen a difference as well.

And 30% decline doesn't mean it's over.

But in addition, the thing that I've worked on the last few months, last year now, is we've increased the number of beds by 500 in city of Sacramento.

So we are doing more, so homeless numbers are down, we're putting more beds on the street.

So we are serving more people, but we have a lot of work to do still.

- When you say more beds, are these more just sort of transitional beds, more permanent residence beds?

Give us kind of a sense of what that mix is.

- I think what we're focused on, and this is the biggest issue I wanna talk about today, Scott, is this focus on interim housing.

The permanent supportive housing, sounds great.

I love to have every homeless individual have an apartment with wraparound services, but that's between 500 grand and a million dollars per unit.

And I want to serve 80% of the homeless- - Hold on, per unit?

- Per unit, per unit.

And this made me run for this job at Maryland.

When I was in the legislature, I did the math.

I said, God, it would take a century to get everybody endorsed.

- How can it be that darn expensive per unit?

That's like, I mean, that's a higher-end home.

- Well- - In Sacramento, in, you know.

- Well, I'm gonna say something controversial.

I think sometimes there is this homeless industrial complex and we pad on all these programs and services to these units and we make the perfect, but the perfect is the enemy of the good.

- Timeout.

I gotta interrupt you.

Homeless industrial complex.

Okay, so this term's been used before.

And basically it says that there's a whole, that's usually used when there's a whole ecosystem of people who may think they're well-meaning.

But essentially all the consultants and agencies and everything kind of feed each other in this sort of mutually beneficial way.

And the part of the dollar that drops to the bottom line is like the 1 cent.

- Yeah.

- Are are you really saying that?

- I am, and I don't think these people are bad people, but let's say there's 100 homeless people in this area right here, and they build a perfect system with all the bells and whistles for five.

So those five people win the lottery.

I'm like, well, what about the 95 who get nothing?

- Right.

- So we're trying to shift and do more with sometimes less money.

And so that's the dynamic that we're pushing.

- What does that look like, though?

So tell me what that housing looks like.

The bottom line is, we're looking at doing interim housing tiny homes, which literally costs roughly $80,000 per unit.

The home is about $15,000.

Hooking up the plumbing, the HVAC system, water, the bathroom, the kitchen facilities there on site brings the unit cost up to about 80, 85,000 per unit.

That's way better than 500,000 to a million.

So what we're doing in Sacramento is realizing this is a way better approach to serve more people.

So that's one thing that we're doing.

The other thing we're doing, we're realizing these tiny homes are more effective for the individual as well.

The big congregate shelter locations, people don't do well in there.

And we ask homeless, "Where do you want to go?"

They're like, "I don't want to go there."

You know, loud, people have, you know, behavioral health issues.

They may have behavioral health issues, like you and I, Scott, we wanna go home at night and have a key, right, a door, security, store your stuff, you know, have a sense of normalcy.

So these tiny homes really answer the call to what homeless have asked for.

And they're much more cost effective versus the permanent supportive.

And they're actually cheaper than these big congregate units.

So that's the direction we're headed.

We've opened up two locations the last year on Stockton Boulevard and Roseville Road.

They're filled up to capacity, homeless individuals say, I want to go there.

This has really struck me, Scott, in my first few months as Mayor, I said, I wanna see city departments.

So I went and did police ride-alongs and fire department, animal services, parks, and this and that.

I went to some of our homeless locations and I went to this homeless site out here on Roseville Road behind Hagan Oaks golf course out there, for those of you that know Sacramento.

And there's a couple hundred tiny homes there, and they're pretty effective and successful.

And I saw a couple that was outside next to the fence with a little tarp over the fence.

And I was like, what are they doing out there?

And the people inside says, "They're waiting."

- [Scott] Really?

- They're waiting to get the call.

So they want to go in there and they had a chance to go to the congregate shelter where it's kind of like, think about a hurricane where everyone's there, a bunch of bunk beds and cots and so forth.

They don't want to go there.

They want normalcy like anybody else does, like you and I do.

So we realized, you know, this is more cost effective, it's better than congregate, and it has better outcomes for the homeless individuals.

We're doubling down on these.

- So tell me this, what's the goal then?

So let's say we got together two years from now, this very table, how many more of these units would you like to forecast that we have in place?

- Well, my goal is to get rid of unsheltered individuals who are sleeping in streets and parks and communities, you know?

- Sure.

- I would like to have permanent housing for everybody.

But getting people off the streets is priority number one.

So I'd like to open up, you know, a thousand more tiny homes throughout the city of Sacramento.

Right now our total inventory is a little under 2,000 we have for all of our homeless sites in Sacramento.

The county's a big part of it as well.

And we're stepping up.

Just this past month, we announced a big plan to expand these programs across Sacramento.

We picked four locations, one in North Natomas, one down in the Southland Park pocket area, we're identifying, one in South Sac, one in the central part of the city, needing to be everywhere throughout the city of Sacramento.

And people have said, not in my backyard.

- I was gonna say that sounds almost like a bigger achievement than actually building the beds- - Well- - Is getting neighborhoods to accept 'em.

- They're not.

- People talk really strong about getting rid of homelessness and dealing with the issue until it comes to their neighborhood.

- Yeah, well, I'll say that these locations that we've greenlit through the city manager, the rules in the city of Sacramento, they get to decide where these go as, I think a smart move prior to Mark Darrell Steinberg, because council members probably would vote no about the projects in their neighborhoods.

- Are you saying that not everyone is an absolute profile and purge on this issue?

(Scott laughing) - We'll move on.

But these are hard decisions and you know, I've talked to neighbors and when I was campaigning, knocking on thousands of doors, they say, "Yeah, fix homeless, put these tiny home locations."

"Where do you want 'em?"

"Oh, not here.

Put 'em in South Sacramento, put 'em somewhere else."

And I was like, "No, there's homeless all throughout the city of Sacramento."

So we unveiled eight locations a few weeks ago at city council.

Four for these tiny home sites.

You call 'em micro villages.

Two, for camping, for tents, we're gonna have a structured tent area people can camp, we're gonna have a place people can park their cars.

A safe parking location.

The tiny home locations we're zeroing in on seniors.

Those are gonna be the priority population that goes there.

It's a growing portion of our homeless population, unfortunately, so seniors under 50 will go to these locations.

We are saying that the individuals who are there would pay a program fee, essentially rent, which no more than 30% of their income, which is what people pay for affordable housing anyway when they leave the homeless shelter.

So these are voluntary locations where people can pay, you know, 30% of their SSI or what have you, to get a tiny home.

- Okay, so all that sounds great, but it's often been said that the city without the county is like one hand trying to clap.

And historically, there has not been necessarily great collaboration between the city and the county.

Where does that stand in achieving the plans and the vision that you've just laid out?

- Well, it's a new day in Sacramento.

We have new county and city leadership that wanna work on these things together.

And I concur we can't solve these issues on our own.

When I was a council member a decade or so ago, we spent $0 on homeless.

It was 100% the county, now the city is stepping up.

We're funding nearly 2,000 beds.

The county, much more than that.

Their budget for behavioral health, homelessness, addiction, social services is far greater than the city.

So they're the big player in there.

We are working together.

This new campus that we opened up, I talked about the tiny home site on Stockton Boulevard is a joint partnership with the city and the county.

We are trying to combine our resources, strength in numbers, and if you look at the solutions to these issues, they're focused on us working together.

- Okay.

You got a big city to run.

And the state of the city, it's about that time for your state of the city address.

Beyond homelessness, what are we going to hear about that is exciting and new and is gonna move this city forward?

- Well, the biggest issues we're focusing on the city right now are addressing homelessness.

And we need more money for that.

The federal government's budget is contracting the state, our city as well.

We need to address public safety, having more, you know, police officers to respond to calls throughout our community.

And we're in an era of declining revenues in our budget.

And so I don't want to make cuts to public safety or parks or police or fire programs.

I want to grow the economy.

So how do you do that?

You know, you get more business and activity in the city of Sacramento.

So we're really excited about, we're streamlining the billing department to make it easier to build housing, to open hotels, to open restaurants in the city of Sacramento.

But also we need to look at things, how we can, you know, bring more activity to the city of Sacramento.

More businesses.

- Like what?

- Well, we have this new Innovation UC Davis project that just launched here at Aggie Square.

You know, one thing that I'm excited about is professional sports, not just because I'm a sports fanatic and we like to cheer for our teams.

It's fun for the younger generation.

People wanna visit Sacramento, but it brings in money to the city.

We have a shot of having an MLS team in Sacramento with our new stadium that we're building in the rail yards.

And one thing that I'm zeroing in on it wasn't heavily, you know, put out in the media here in Sacramento.

It is nationwide, but Sacramento is in the mix for baseball forever for Major League baseball.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- Well actually that's interesting because I was talking to somebody a couple of weeks ago and they told me that the A's being here is really changing like who's coming into Sacramento during those games and it's proving the efficacy of the region in terms of being a draw for that.

We love the River Cats, but, you know, major league baseball's at a different level.

So tell us what's the plan?

- Well, the, A's are gonna go to Las Vegas.

- Of course, of course.

- They're already building the stadium so they're here for two or three more years.

The commissioner of Major League baseball has announced they want to expand, two teams.

One in the East Coast, one in the West Coast.

So all the sports pundits and people behind the scenes are saying it comes down to three cities.

Salt Lake City, Portland, and Sacramento.

- Really?

- So we're in the mix.

And you know what we have that none of those cities have?

A team today.

So what can we do support the A's even more the final two years here.

So the A's, they did right by Sacramento, they recently announced they're gonna have a Sacramento jersey on Saturday nights and a Sacramento hat 'cause they are here in Sacramento.

So thank you.

They have an exciting young team.

I'm a Giants fan, but I love these young A's players are gonna have the rookie of the year probably and the runner-up rookie of the year and two outstanding young players.

So it's an exciting team here, but we have a real shot.

If we can show, we can continue to grow our attendance and get more sponsors.

That's the big issue, sponsors.

- So how, okay, I want to ask you the tough question though, because that's over in West Sac right now.

Okay?

You're the Mayor of Sacramento.

- Yeah.

- So how does Sacramento and West Sac play nice in the sandbox and not ruin our chances and that new expansion team ends up important?

- Well, you mentioned something earlier is that people coming in from Chicago, from Boston, from St.

Louis to see the team here, Kansas City, they don't know Yolo County versus Sacramento.

They see a beautiful bridge over the river and think it's all one Sacramento.

Most of the people that come here for a baseball weekend stay in the city of Sacramento, eat in the city of Sacramento.

That's the reality.

And so, you know, this rising tide is gonna help both the city of West Sac and Sac.

I know prior Mayors wanted it to be in Sacramento.

I don't have any qualms about that.

If the stadium forever is in West Sac, that's great.

Look, we have a chance to put Sacramento on the map, more professional sports, which I think is cool, great for us.

But it's not about being just a sports town.

It's about what does that do to bring in more revenue so we can do more homeless programs, grow our police force, you know, make sure we fund more youth programs through our parks and recreation departments.

So this baseball push that I'm doing isn't just because I'm a baseball guy.

This is gonna help the city of Sacramento grow and you know, we need to think about how we can grow our economy.

So that's one thing that I'm excited about.

- All right, I wanna talk to you about your previous life.

Okay?

And bring it into Sacramento.

You're the Mayor of Sacramento.

You don't have any direct control over education, K through 12 in particular in the city of Sacramento.

But you have a very storied history in education in the state legislature, your former life.

What is your involvement or sort of plan for helping Sacramento raise its abysmal performance, particularly for our kids that are in public school, many of our schools, in terms of preparing them to be part of the workforce for the future that, you know, hopefully is generated by the plans and programs you're putting into place now.

- Well there there's two things that I'm focused on there and thanks for reminding me about my work at the state and education.

I'm proud that I wrote the laws on universal preschool access, free pre-K for every Californian, universal afterschool programs.

And two of those programs that we're launching, we need partners to run those nonprofits to literally get state money sometimes to offer programs for kids after school.

So the City of Sacramento doesn't run our school system.

- No.

- But we serve the same families and thousands of families participate every year in our city-run afterschool programs and youth programs.

And so I'm a big supporter of those.

There was some good news in our budget this year, even though we had to make $16 million in cuts and eliminate some positions, we doubled money for our youth programs and we awarded dozens of grants to nonprofits that work with our younger people to help them in all aspects of life, not just during the school hours.

And that's paid for, you may say, where's that money coming from in the deficit?

A few years ago the voters here passed a tax on cannabis sales in the city of Sacramento.

So that's now went into effect, Measure L, and we're doubling down on funding our youth programs because, you know, this generation is gonna make sure that, you know, they pay the bills for our retirement.

- Well that's true.

And I don't want to diminish the importance of those youth programs because, hugely important, and as a guy who was here before Prop 13 was passed, we used to have youth programs.

And so it's nice to hear about a restoration of doing things that are focused on youth and working out in the community.

But I want you to come back and put in on your old hat, as you know, as one of the leaders in education in the legislature, our achievement for our kids graduating, the English proficiency, the mathematical competency, all those sorts of things.

That competency is below standard.

What do you think that Sac City Unified and the other school districts need to do more or maybe things that they can do in partnership with the city to try and make our kids more ready to face what is becoming an increasingly scary economic and workforce climate?

- Well, I have this at home.

I have two teenagers in our public school system.

So I know that the struggles of young people these days and the challenges, especially coming out the pandemic.

And I do note that, you know, schools have kids for six to seven hours a day.

So three quarters of the day, our kids are not in school.

Hopefully they're at home and resting and you know, spending time with their family, but- - Doing their homework, - Doing their homework.

You know, I remind that to my kids on a daily basis.

But we have an opportunity to enrich and help families who can't afford afterschool programs like you and I put our kids in.

Like, look, I grew up in a single parent family here and my mom couldn't afford these programs.

It was subsidized programs that helped us, after school sports programs, and so the City of Sacramento has a role in helping these families by whether they're sports, enrichment, arts or culture, sometimes, you know, behavioral health issues.

Some of the programs we've funded through Measure L aren't just, you know, music and sports after school.

It's, you know- - Which are really important.

- Yeah, but it's like, counseling, other intervention programs, gang violence prevention, to help people succeed because these individuals are in our city and we're counting on their success.

You know, the cost of society for a high school dropout is $250,000 a year.

Those are costs to the taxpayer.

Not to mention those individuals don't help their family and pay the bills.

And so, you know, we need to make sure that we help young people succeed.

- All right, another initiative that I, I've heard tale of is that you wanna do something, talking about families, is getting more people into housing and home ownership.

What's this new idea that you've got that you're gonna be taking forward?

- Yeah, well, back to the homelessness issue, these tiny homes that the $83,000 solution, we're all in, so we could use more money to do more of these sites throughout the city of Sacramento, even though they're unpopular in certain neighborhoods.

But we're doing just that.

We also, I realized that, you know, during my first year as Mayor, looking at the homeless issue, there are a lot of renters who are one step away from getting in trouble behind on their rent and becoming homeless.

So we need to prevent people from slipping into homelessness in the streets.

And then the other issue that I focused on, you know, and learned about campaigning is just the struggles of home ownership.

How much it costs to buy a house here.

And I'm really concerned about this generation being able to buy a home and stay in Sacramento and not move to Austin or Salt Lake.

And so, you know, I'm thinking about those three issues.

More tiny homes, helping renters, first-time home buyer programs.

And so we're looking at putting a measure on the ballot in '26, which would adjust our transfer taxed for high volume sales in the city of Sacramento over a certain threshold, let's say a million dollars or more sales.

And that would generate about $10 million a year.

And we'd be able to look at helping hundreds of people buy a home for the first time.

Hundreds of people who are renters stay in their home and not face eviction.

And also build more tiny homes to get people off the street.

So we're gonna be going to the voters in 2026 and asking them to consider this proposal to help address three of the major issues facing Sacramento.

- Wow.

Down payment assistance.

Who would've ever thought of it?

- Yeah, it was a great idea that I think you worked on it in your prior life, and you know, I've talked to people in the real estate community and they say there are plenty of qualified buyers who are right there on the bubble and with a little bit of down payment assistance, we'll be able to help them get into home ownership.

And we know home ownership means so much, you know, especially for people without a lot of means.

It's the number one wealth producer in American history is home ownership.

It keeps people locked in their neighborhoods.

The pride of a neighborhood increases when someone's a homeowner and it's gonna keep people in Sacramento.

So win, win, win.

- I couldn't have said it better myself.

Thank you so much, Mayor McCarty, for coming on our show and I look forward to having you back on when you're ready to launch that initiative.

- Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

- Alright.

And that's our show.

Thanks to our guest and thanks to you for watching "Studio Sacramento."

I'm Scott Syphax, see you next time, right here on KVIE.

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