The Abridged version:
- Yolo County is preparing to sell a property in West Sacramento that once served as transitional housing for mental health clients.
- The move comes years after neighbors pushed back against the facility and successfully halted operations there.
- The money generated by the sale will be used to bolster the county’s behavioral health programs.
Halfway down a quiet residential street in West Sacramento, a single-family home owned by Yolo County sits empty.
Purchased by the Yolo County Housing Authority nearly two decades ago, the property was meant to provide temporary housing with supportive services for mental health clients. It did so for years, serving as one of West Sacramento’s transitional programs funded by the Mental Health Services Act.
But in 2019, a guest of one of the tenants at the property caused enough damage to the home that residents had to move out for repairs.
After that, neighbors, some of whom didn’t know how the property was being used, began expressing opposition to its placement.
Efforts at outreach and engagement failed, and the county eventually conceded.
“They shut it down,” said Paris Clay, who lives across the street.
Now, officials are taking steps to sell the house and use the proceeds to support other behavioral health programs.
“The West Sac facility has not really worked out,” Supervisor Oscar Villegas said during a late June board meeting.
Neighborhood opposition
Clay said the Southport neighborhood, known locally as Pheasant Hollow, is pretty well settled. Many on the block have lived there for years, raising kids who walk to school past tidy gardens on clean sidewalks.
The house across the street from his mostly flew under the radar with his neighbors.
“They wasn’t aware of what that was,” he said.
But some started having negative interactions with residents.
Clay said that one of his kids was followed home by a resident, unsettling both.
“It rattled me a little bit,” he said.
After the residents moved out for repairs, the county held a meeting with neighbors to discuss the property and its ongoing use as a transitional housing facility. Clay and others spoke out against it.
Now that they knew what the property was being used for, neighbors were “not going for it this time around,” he said.
After that, the house mostly sat empty, with someone coming by periodically to mow the lawn and trim the hedges.
It stayed like that for years, Clay said.
Selling the property
Supervisors voted last month to authorize the county’s purchase of the property in West Sacramento from the Yolo County Housing Authority for just over $38,000. Now that the home is officially back in county hands, it can be sold for more.
“The intent is to sell the property and try to find a location that is more suitable for the mental health needs that were described this morning,” said Villegas, referring to a public commenter who spoke of the need for behavioral health resources in Yolo County.
Officials said the county will use the money from the sale for other behavioral health programs in West Sacramento. But not at the property in Pheasant Hollow.
“At this time, the County does not plan to operate another program at the property,” said Will Arnold, spokesperson for Yolo County.
Daniel Hennessy is a reporter covering Yolo County for Abridged by PBS KVIE. He joined Abridged through the California Local News Fellowship.