August 25 @ 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Homelessness Webinar: Case Study: A Capital City’s Approach to Unsheltered Homelessness
In the wake of Martin v. City of Boise (9th. Cir. 2019), and the effects of the pandemic, Sacramento, California like many communities, experienced an overwhelming homelessness crisis that depleted public resources and overwhelmed business and neighborhood corridors. The recent Point in Time Count demonstrated that the Sacramento region experienced a 67% increase in its unhoused population since 2019. This webinar will explore the efforts employed by the City of Sacramento to mitigate the adverse effects of public encampments, address lawsuits brought by both homeless advocates and affected businesses, all while undertaking multiple efforts to shelter the unhoused. These efforts included actions by the Sacramento City Council to enact ordinances aimed to protect the city’s critical infrastructure, establish a new city department to provide a social-service-oriented response to noncriminal calls for services, and develop a comprehensive siting plan to shelter the unhoused in partnership with community organizations and individuals. The City Council has also placed a measure on the November ballot to accelerate increased shelter capacity and prescribe conditions subject to enforcement. The speakers will address each of these and other approaches and strategies taken not only to reduce the effects, but also to reduce and ultimately resolve unsheltered homelessness.
Speaker: Susana Alcala Wood, Aaron Israel, Gustavo Martinez & Beau Parkhurst
Susana Alcala Wood was appointed as Sacramento’s City Attorney on March 19, 2018, where she is the principal legal counsel to the Sacramento City Council, and oversees a large department of lawyers, paralegals and support staff. An attorney specializing in Municipal law, Susana has worked for multiple cities throughout California serving in various capacities, including as the Modesto City Attorney from 2006-2013 While at Modesto, Susana guided the City Council and Staff through their shift historic shift from general elections to by-district elections,
Susana also previously worked as a Deputy City Attorney for City of Stockton from January 1993 – April 2001 and for the City of El Monte from December 1991 to December 1992. In both offices she was responsible to advising multiple departments including Code Enforcement, Fire, Library, and Police. She worked with city staff on addressing and eliminating blight, deteriorated and dangerous housing, and all nuisance conditions including quality of life issues, drug, red-light, and gang activity. Susana began her work with the City of El Monte in 1988 while still in law school where she clerked for the City Attorney for three years. Upon passing the California Bar exam in 1991, she was appointed as a Deputy City Attorney.
Ms. Wood served as a member and as the Chair of the League of California Cities, City Attorney’s Department Legal Advocacy Committee, City Attorney’s Department Municipal Law Handbook Committee, and has served in various training and speaking capacities to organizations and public agencies throughout the state on the topics of Local Government Law as well as Code Enforcement.
Ms. Wood received her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy-Ethics and Public Policy in 1987 and received her Juris Doctorate from Whittier College, School of Law – Los Angeles, California in May 1991. She has been married to her best friend for almost 25 years and together they have raised two amazing humans – Sam and Madison who are going to change the world.
In addition to the assignment described below, as the police advisor, Gustavo L. Martinez oversees the legal work provided to the Chief of Police that includes preparing, drafting, and reviewing agreements, ordinances, resolutions, general orders, and other legal documents and instruments on behalf of the Police Department.
Mr. Martinez joined the Sacramento City Attorney’s Office in 1997 as a Deputy City Attorney. He was promoted in 2003 to the position of Supervising Deputy City Attorney. He is currently assigned as the Supervisor of the Community Advocacy and Public Safety Division.
Mr. Martinez has practiced municipal law for 25 years. He began his career in the Advisory Division where he prosecuted code enforcement cases, trained code enforcement officers, and drafted legislation to broaden and strengthen the City’s ability to address code violations. He then moved to the Litigation Section where he defended and prosecuted a variety of civil cases including torts, civil rights, employment, and breach of contract. He also tried multiple jury and bench trials. In his most recent assignment, Mr. Martinez is charged with supervising seven attorneys that provide legal advice to the Community Development Department (CDD) and the Police Department. This work includes overseeing the criminal prosecution of all City code infractions and misdemeanors, partnering with Problem-Oriented Policing teams to combat criminal and social nuisance activity, and working with the Justice for Neighbors program to address the City’s worst-of-the-worst nuisances and security threats to the City’s neighborhoods.
Mr. Martinez is active in local charitable and professional groups having served as a board member of the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; currently serving as a board member of the Mexican Cultural Center of Northern California; and is a present member of the Cruz Reynoso Lawyers Association, St. Thomas More Society, and the California District Attorney’s Association. Mr. Martinez graduated from California State University, Chico in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. He earned his law degree from the Santa Clara University, School of Law in 1994.
Aaron M. Israel is a deputy city attorney in the Office of the City Attorney for the City of Sacramento, Community Advocacy and Public Safety Division. Serving in a general counsel capacity to the Police Department, Aaron provides a breadth of advisory and transactional services. Indeed, he prepares advisements regarding judicial and legislative pronouncements, contractual agreements, legal opinions, and proposed ordinances, and he reviews and advises upon departmental policies, responses to requests for public records, and staff reports to the City Council, its commissions and committees.
Aaron has also advised the Department of Community Response, which offers an alternative to calls for service that do not require the presence of law enforcement. Among other bodies of law, he has developed extensive knowledge of the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and their application to legal matters involving persons experiencing homelessness. Aaron previously served as a term graduate law clerk and attorney in the Office of the County Counsel for the County of Alameda.
Aaron earned his Juris Doctor with a certificate in public service law from the University of California, Davis, School of Law, and was admitted to The Order of Barristers. During law school, Aaron served as a law clerk in the Office of the City Attorney for the City of Sacramento, and as judicial extern to the Honorable Troy L. Nunley, United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was awarded the Chancellor’s Service Award. Aaron serves on the board of the Public Law Section of the Sacramento County Bar Association.
Beau Parkhurst is a Senior Deputy City Attorney for the Sacramento City Attorney’s Office and has over 10 years of municipal law experience with focus on public safety and civil litigation. Beau currently advises the City’s Department of Community Response, which offers an alternative to calls for service that do not require the presence of law enforcement and oversees numerous programs that assist individuals experiencing homelessness. He is a graduate of University of California, Davis and the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law.