Q&A with Sac County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy on bill to centralize homelessness response

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors is opposed to a state Senate bill that would require the cities within the region and the county to form a new agency to address homelessness. 

In February of 2025, State Senator Anqelique Ashby introduced controversial legislation that would reform how Sacramento leaders work together on homelessness. Senator Ashby paused the bill after outcry from cities within the region a few months later, but the bill is now poised to go through the legislative process this fall. 

Her bill, SB 802, would require the cities and county to enter into what is called a Joint Powers Authority (JPA).The legislation would reform the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency and rename it the Sacramento Housing and Homelessness Agency. It is one of the latest attempts to figure out how the region can best work together to combat homelessness, a conversation that has spanned decades.

Over the last few months the county has publicly spoken out against the bill. In March, Sacramento County’s legal counsel analyzed the bill and asserted it is illegal.

CapRadio’s Local Government Reporter Riley Palmer spoke with District 2 Sacramento County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy to understand why the county opposes the bill, and what’s at stake. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Could you explain what SB802 is for listeners and then flesh out the county's position on the bill?

Senator Ashby has introduced Senate Bill 802, which would essentially create a Joint Powers Authority among the city of Sacramento, the county of Sacramento, and the suburban cities, to oversee homeless programs.

 The county is very concerned with the bill. I appreciate Senator Ashby's concern over homelessness. We all are, but it's really a simplistic approach to a very complicated problem.

 First of all, it's not legal. It violates contract law because you can't force parties to enter into an agreement that negates the agreement part.

What do you make of trying to force people to work together in that way?

 Not only is it against the law, but it's also not necessary to create another JPA, another level of bureaucracy. In my opinion, added bureaucracy and added layers of government never means efficiency.

That's what this would do. So not only is it wrong from that standpoint, but it also does not accomplish what it is I think that the senator wants to accomplish, and that’s to pool resources in order to be more efficient. 

What it does is it takes resources that we’re currently putting toward homeless programs and it bifurcates them because you can't just take state and federal money and give it to another organization and say go spend it.

 For example, let's say that if we have community block development (CDBG) grant money that would go into this new organization. Currently we're using CDBG money in my district to help build more affordable housing. We would lose the ability to do that by giving it to this organization. We would no longer have that funding available for things like in-fill development, affordable housing and that type of thing.

At the heart of this issue or SB802, what it's trying to do is create a productive way for cities and counties to work together to address homelessness. In your view, given what we just talked about, what would then be like a happy middle ground in between what Senator Ashby is proposing and the board’s opinion on it?

 I represent half of the city of Sacramento, so I have a very close working relationship with all of the city council members and the mayor. That is not lacking. 

We have the county city partnership agreement on homelessness, which has been extremely successful. Now, the senator has been quoted as saying that it has produced nothing. I take high offense at that because that's simply not the case. 

 I think we need to continue doing what we're doing. Nobody thought that homelessness was going to be a one and done thing. It's going to be something that we're gonna be dealing with for generations. So I think that the working relationship that the city and the county have, which is probably 80% of your homeless population, is in the county of Sacramento between the city and the county. 

The suburban cities have a much smaller homeless population than the city of Sacramento and the unincorporated part of the county. I think that we should focus where the problem lies, and the problem lies in the city of Sacramento and the unincorporated parts of Sacramento County, and by continuing to work together, by continuing to build upon the partnership agreement, we can address those issues in a way that's more targeted and makes more sense, it's more efficient. Bringing in all of the suburban cities when they have no interest in even doing it. I don't know where that gets us. 

What’s at stake for the county if this were to pass?

 What's at stake would be less local control. What's at stake would be less dollars available to solve the problem. It would be a fragmented system, which is ironic because I think her intention was to make it less fragmented, but it actually does the complete opposite. We would be dealing with a problem that is so complex in a simplistic manner that would, in my opinion, slow down the progress that we're just now starting to see.

Read and listen to Sen. Angelique Ashby explain SB802 and why she wrote the bill here.