If you follow our blog you know we don’t relish the downbeat stories. We love our community, our people, our neighborhoods, our businesses, and the natural world around us. It is painful to have to kick off the new year with yet another story about the County dropping the ball, the media confusing the public about our area, and the continuing neglect of the neck of the woods in which we live. KCRA3’s story on the local news this evening has given us no choice. The story tells of an empty commercial property on Howe Avenue that has become a large homeless shelter. The property owner has been cited several times. The Sheriff’s people have been there so often they might as well get their mail there. The squatters can’t access the social services they admit they need. KCRA’s story falsely claims the building as a blight on the City of Sacramento, though it should be obvious that, because the site is in Sacramento County’s unincorporated UnCity, it is a curse upon us here in invisible Arden Arcade. Will there be a fix anytime soon? Probably not. Homelessness isn’t going away, it is running amok while our dear leaders blame others for the problem instead of allocating funds for actual housing and social service delivery. The property owners “hope” to get permits this month (dream on…) to begin transforming the site into — wait for it — MORE RETAIL! Yeah, that’s the ticket, more “your name here” vacant strip mall space that could eventually devolve into a haven for the homeless.

How much more of this do we have to tolerate? How much longer do we have to wait until we get our own mayor and city council to face up to these kinds of problems? Is our lack of “the vision thing” fated to continue indefinitely? Will the media ever stop conflating our community with the City of Sacramento? Oy! Welcome to 2020, friends.