Tanika Williams picked up her phone on the playground while her 4-year-old scampered around in the wood chips behind her. Night was approaching, and if she didn’t find $68 for a motel room in the next few hours, she, her husband and the little girl would have to sleep on the street.
To her, this seemed like an emergency. She and her husband, Michael, had managed to scrape together the money for a motel for a few weeks. Now, they were down to pennies, with six days left until she got her paycheck. And so on the afternoon of March 9, she reached out to 211, where the city and county of Sacramento direct homeless people seeking services.
It was her second time calling that day. The recorded outgoing message warned her that no hotel vouchers were available through 211. When she spoke to an operator, that person said, “It looks like you’re on the waitlist for all family shelters.”…