Sacramento resident Alex Enright never imagined he would find himself homeless on the corner of J and 16th streets five years ago.
The Stockton native, 24 at the time, was trying to navigate his post-graduate life after studying communications at Arizona State University. His ambitions led him to create an app he called UREPP to notify parents when their child is going to step up to the plate during Little League games.
His endeavor showed promise. But a fraught business partnership with family friends left Enright with little money to his name and couch surfing. Then Enright’s life hit a breaking point at the end of 2019 after a physical fight with his brother.
“My brother put me in an Uber and put me up in a hotel room in downtown Sacramento. I didn’t think it was real,” he said. “ I was standing on the street corner. It was 2 o'clock at night from on J and 16th Street, and I didn't believe any of it was real.”
All Enright had was a backpack full of essentials, and he believed that his time on the street would be short lived.
“ I always thought my life is gonna change tomorrow. There's no way that I'm homeless,” he said. “I spent that first night, I didn't even sleep at all. I basically just stood there on the street corner for 10 hours.”
That night turned into half a decade. Getting a stable job became second to Enright’s daily struggle to remain safe and survive the outdoors, an ordeal thousands of people face each day and night on Sacramento’s streets.
Most recently, the city of Sacramento has invested more into trying to get people off the streets and into some form of housing. It opened a safe campsite in the River District last month and plans to build several tiny home villages after identifying sites last November.
But progress for those on Sacramento’s streets is often slow and halting, even when shelter and services are available. So was the case for Enright.
His time outside was a mixed bag. He made allies, came face to face with mental illness including his own, and leaned heavily on churches for food and shelter.
“Within like the first two weeks, someone handed me a street sheet with all the resources in Sacramento,” he said. “That was kind of a lifeline because I was just going to the churches to eat, the churches played such a big role in my time outside.”
Enright used services like Midtown HART, a faith-based organization that sets up respite centers throughout the Sacramento region including four in Midtown. The centers offer food, charging stations, help securing bus passes and a break from the outside.
Corey Cooper is the head of Midtown HART and remembers meeting Enright four years ago.
“He would keep to himself. I would say hello to him and, and try to talk to him when I could,” Cooper said. “He seemed kinda quiet and reserved and a little bit guarded most of the time.”
Cooper said he made attempts over the years to chat with Enright but he didn’t seem receptive to it until he was.
“You can’t force it. He had to be ready,” Cooper said. “It makes you realize what he was experiencing and see that we cared and that we were there for him. And then once he was ready, he really started to break through.”
It was that same care and patience that ultimately got Enright, now 34, into permanent supportive housing.
Towards the end of Enright’s time unhoused, he had gotten his routine down. He’d wake up on his usual bench in Capitol Park and wait for a Mercy Housing bike peddler to drop off a cup of black coffee.
After that, two outreach workers from Telecare ARISE would come to the park everyday and offer to help Enright get into housing, but he was so entrenched in his daily routine he was reluctant to accept.
“They would show up every week, every week, every week. I would say, I'm just fine. I'm just fine,” Enright said. “It took about a year for me to finally accept help.”
The outreach workers helped Enright get documents he had lost on the street long ago, such as an ID and a bank card. In June of 2025, he moved into the former Capitol Park Hotel on 9th Street in downtown Sacramento. The building now serves as permanent supportive housing for those exiting homelessness.
“It’s a studio. I started painting, I started drawing, I started doing all these creative projects in my room,” he said. “My room is just filled with art, and that was just all therapy in the beginning.”
Enright’s room also includes a whiteboard where he’s written down his goals. Over the course of the year, he said he’s slowly knocked items off that list – one of those being to get a stable job. Enright works as a custodian at a local gym and also does database entry work.
Enright credits where he’s at today, sitting outside Sacramento City Hall as opposed to camping there overnight, to the outreach workers and volunteers who consistently showed up for him and made him feel seen.
“ I think one of the hardest things for me was being completely invisible and sitting on the bench knowing that I feel like I have a lot of value to add to the world,” Enright said.
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