Your generous donation makes a difference

Many of our neighbors are struggling with paying rent and putting food on the table. Our EnergyHELP program teams up with local nonprofits to help qualified customers pay their electric bill as well as access other essential services like food, clothing and job training. How does it work?

1. You choose the amount to donate each month.

2. You select one of our six trusted charity partners.

3. The charity partner connects with the recipient to pay their electric bill.

4. Thanks for helping keep the lights on!

If you’d like to be part of the EnergyHELP community, please scan the code below or visit smud.org/EnergyHELP. Together, we can bring some relief and hope to those who need it most. Even $5 can help a family in financial crisis.*

*Contributions are tax-deductible to the maximum amount allowed by law. Please consult your tax-advisor.

Learn more at smud.org/EnergyHELP

“The worst part of this situation is when we try to get help for these animals, nobody helps us. Nobody even gives us direction,” Tillotson said. Multiple calls to 311 and visits to Front Street Animal Shelter are ignored. Park rangers tell them it’s not their jurisdiction.

“It’s frustrating. I thought that’s what animal shelters did,” Tillotson said. “Guide us, give us direction. Help us help you—because basically we’re doing your job.”

Front Street Animal Shelter received $753,230 in COVID relief funding last year for a homeless outreach program. Front Street reports two registered veterinary technicians, an animal control officer and animal services coordinator go out on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The homeless outreach team “primarily responds to requests from owners, community members, case managers, other nonprofit organizations or when an animal control officer feels an owner could benefit from the program’s services,” says Ryan Hinderman, Front Street’s communications and customer service manager.

He says they visit known encampments and transitional shelters, spending most of their time north of the river.

Tillotson and Massaro, who are at the homeless camps seven days a week, have yet to see the program in action. “We have never seen an animal control person down there,” Massaro says.

Massaro asked the committee for a response to their pleas. Committee Chair Leah Christie Morris said the committee is a “listening body” that takes information to the City Council. “I don’t have any answer that things will be different tomorrow,” she told them.

Lynette Hall, the city’s community engagement manager, and her staff took notes at the meeting. Their task is to follow up on complaints presented by community members about Front Street Animal Shelter’s management.

Hall “said she would get hold of us to talk, but we haven’t heard a thing,” Tillotson says. “But we expected that. It’s not their priority.”

More than a month after presenting testimony of starving and abused dogs, Front Street was “still looking into this complaint,” Hinderman says. “While we do our best to respond, staffing challenges and the number of requests exceed our ability to respond to every request.”

Tillotson says, “Before I started doing this, I can honestly say I’d be that person advocating for a homeless person to have their animals. No more.

“For the animals, it’s not their choice. They should not have to live that way. It’s a whole different world for these animals. I cry myself to sleep and wake up with a pit in my stomach. What are we going to see today?”

Cathryn Rakich can be reached at crakich@surewest.net. Previous columns can be found and shared at InsideSacramento.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: @insidesacramento. n

It’s been 10 years since I wrote a book about the Kings. Now I can finally write an update.

The fact that my book survived a decade without becoming stale and outdated makes me happy, but I know the truth. Literary brilliance aside, the book stayed fresh because the Kings did absolutely nothing worth writing about between 2013 and 2022.

They moved into a new arena, played a bunch of games that ended in defeat, traded countless players whose names I can’t remember and