The city of Sacramento began citing and arresting far more homeless people during interactions with its homelessness “Incident Management Team” in January 2025 — six months after a Supreme Court decision ruled municipalities could punish residents for living outside, even if they had nowhere else to go.
The Incident Management Team, or IMT, is an interdisciplinary team overseen by the Department of Community Response, which focuses on services for homeless people. The IMT includes personnel from multiple departments and offices, including the Sacramento Police Department and Code Enforcement. The team largely responds to 311 calls about encampments.
In response to a Public Records Act request, Sacramento released the data that informs its IMT “dashboard,” where the city publishes weekly updates of how workers respond to homelessness. The records analyzed by The Sacramento Bee span 129 weeks, from Sept. 25, 2023 through the week of March 9 this year.
Criminalization of homelessness went up in January 2025
During the entire timeframe of nearly two and a half years, the IMT recorded an average of 21 citations or arrests per week. However, a noticeable shift occurred between December 2024 and January 2025. Between Sept. 25, 2023 and Jan. 5, 2025, the IMT was involved with an average of just six citations or arrests each week. From Jan. 6, 2025 through the week of March 9, 2026, that number increased sixfold to an average of 37 citations or arrests each week…