It has been seven months since Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty announced his plans to ramp up shelter production for the thousands of unhoused residents on local streets.

Despite council tensions, a legal battle in North Natomas and budgetary constraints, city officials say they are still working to get the initiatives off the ground.

McCarty laid out what he called his “six-point plan” to address homelessness at a September city council meeting last year. It includes strategies to increase shelter, reform the city’s emergency motel voucher program and establish a grant program for nonprofits to help build tiny homes.

The plans for additional shelter included:

• Three identified locations in council Districts 1, 5 and 8 for 40-unit, city-funded tiny home communities. They would focus on unhoused seniors 55 years and older. 
• One safe camping site in Sacramento’s River District with 100 spots.
• A safe parking site in District 6 for 60 to 80 vehicles. 
• State-funded tiny home communities in Districts 2 and 5.

McCarty, who was sworn in as Sacramento’s mayor in December of 2024, campaigned on the promise of addressing the city’s homelessness crisis. He maintained that boosting the city’s supply of tiny homes would be a cost-effective way to meet that promise. 

Complicating matters, the mayor and council have contended with a $66.2 million structural budget deficit during much of McCarty’s early tenure. The mayor told CapRadio in April that this means tough decisions will be made.

“We want to keep intact our resources for our homeless response. We’ve been successful in decreasing the number of unsheltered homeless,” McCarty said. “We’re not done.”

6360 25th Street in District 5 has been identified as a location for one of Mayor Kevin McCarty's micro-communities for unhoused seniors 55 and up.Ruth Finch/CapRadio

Before McCarty took office, the latest point-in-time count data from Sacramento County in 2024 showed homelessness dropped by 29%, a number disputed by advocates in the region who have said that unhoused numbers are increasing or staying the same. 

Homeless advocate and Sacramento State Professor of Social Work Arturo Baiocchi said he’s not opposed to adding more shelter, but is wary of controversial elements to the mayor’s plan, such as charging unhoused seniors 30% of their income to live in the tiny home communities. 

“They’re just not used to doing that,” he said. “It’s a big psychological jump for them.”

Baiocchi said last fall he is also worried about warehousing people, noting that social services and support are just as important as having somewhere to sleep. 

“?People are gonna be there for years,” he said in October. “You need to think about those tiny homes as little communities. Here's a community garden, here's a rec center. People still need some kind of support.”

City-funded tiny home communities 

McCarty’s plans call for three tiny home sites for unhoused seniors. They’ll be located as follows: 3511 Arena Blvd in North Natomas, 6360 25th St in South Sacramento and 2461 Gardendale Road in Meadowview. 

Brian Pedro, director of the city’s Department of Community Response, said the plans are going through the building department right now and the city is on schedule to break ground by mid to late spring of this year. 

“Likely the first one will be built, if we stay on schedule, spring of 2027,” he explained. “The first one is always the slowest and once you get rolling on it we pick up speed.”

Pedro said every tiny home cost the city around $17,000 to buy, but with amenities each will cost around $85,000. The overall price tag for each community is approximately $3 million to $4 million. 

The tiny homes are intended as interim housing, and tenants will pay 30% of their income. Plans call for each 120-square-foot tiny home to be temperature controlled and come with a bed and a desk. The sites will have shared bathrooms and kitchen areas. 

The city has maintained that the “micro-communities” are not considered emergency shelters and are meant for stable individuals on fixed incomes who aren’t able to get into affordable housing. 

Pedro told CapRadio that city officials are looking to find a location in District 7, which includes the Pocket and Greenhaven neighborhoods, but finding buildable land has proven challenging.

“?We're looking at various sites and trying to determine if any of them are usable and without extensive site preparation, driving the cost up,” Pedro said.

Conflict over District 1 site 

Not everyone is in support of the locations chosen for the mayor’s plan. Some constituents have formally opposed the District 1 tiny home location and filed a lawsuit to halt the site’s development on March 30.

The Advisory Council for Legal and Ethical Oversight, made up of Natomas residents, claims the location violates city code, will decrease property values, and does not comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

3511 Arena Blvd in District 1 has been identified as a tiny home community location for Mayor Kevin McCarty's six-point plan, though neighbors surrounding the site have filed a lawsuit to stop the project from going through.Ruth Finch/CapRadio

Rosalee Lehr lives at a mobile home park nearby and is one of plaintiffs. She told CapRadio that many at the park oppose the site.

“I have never seen as many for-sale signs as I have just recently here in my park,” Lehr said. These people have been here for years, and they’re wanting to move because of this whole homeless shelter business.”

District 1 Councilmember Lisa Kaplan, who is running for reelection, initially supported the site. Since then, Kaplan has sided with her constituents and has been vocal about opposing it.

In her Feb. 20 weekly newsletter, Kaplan said she would support her constituents if they decided to take action but declined to comment on the lawsuit. 

“The last remaining option I have in my power is to attempt to get a council vote to stop the construction of the micro-community,” Kaplan wrote. “That is unless someone in the community sues to stop its construction. I will stand beside you, if that lawsuit is filed.” 

Kaplan declined to comment on the lawsuit. Fellow Natomas councilmember Karina Talamantes confirmed with CapRadio that she does not support the site, which sits on the line between the two districts.

The two, along with Councilmember Jennings, have asked to repeal an ordinance that gives the city manager sole power to approve temporary homeless shelter contracts under $5 million.

Talamantes said in a written statement to CapRadio that the request will not appear on a city council agenda. 

“I still oppose the current location and hope that our Department of Community Response can be proactive on providing answers to the questions my community members may have,” Talamantes said. 

McCarty and Pedro told CapRadio they are unsure if the lawsuit will impact the development’s timeline. 

Safe Camping in the River District

While plans for the city-funded tiny home communities are still in the works, Sacramento broke ground in February on a safe campground in the River District with 100 spaces and expects to have the site open within the next month or so.

The fenced in campground– located at 291 Sequoia Pacific Blvd– will host tents under a metal canopy between two shipping containers to account for weather. The site will also have bathrooms, kennels for animals, on-site security, and case management services. 

Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum represents District 4. He said he supports the six point plan but outlined the district specific concerns. 

“Some are concerned about the concentration of services that we’re providing in the River District,” Pluckebaum said. “Others are welcoming the opportunity to provide people already there sleeping on the streets, a place to be that's not the street, more dignified, even though it's still tents under shade.”

Earlier this year, Pluckebaum introduced an ordinance at the city’s Law and Legislation Committee that would cap the number of shelter beds the district could offer, a measure he said was already in place prior to the safe campground plan.

“?About a year ago we lifted the cap on the amount of services that we could provide in the River District, in part to make space for that campground,” he explained.

Pluckebaum said the ordinance will come to the full city council towards the end of 2026. 

Safe Parking Site in District 6

City officials are still scouting a location for the safe parking site laid out in McCarty’s six-point plan, which will include 60 to 80 parking spaces for those living in RVs or cars. 

The site is intended to provide restrooms, trash collection and places to charge electronics. It will be staffed with outreach personnel to help connect people to services, according to the city. 

Pedro said the parking site will be more geared towards families and individuals in an area that is close to businesses and schools.

At the September council meeting, Pedro initially pointed to a location at 4625 Cosumnes River Blvd in South Sacramento. But in April a city spokesperson said they have chosen to move forward with a separate, undisclosed location.

“We do have a site we’re looking at in District 6. We don’t have any final confirmation,” Pedro said. “With all of this, we have that site and a backup to a back up because if anything falls through we want the ability to pivot.” 

District 6 City Councilmember Eric Guerra said there is no timeline yet for the safe parking site, but noted business owners support the idea and are helping find a location. 

“?They see it every day. There are people parking in front of their businesses and around industrial and manufacturing sites that are dangerous,” Guerra said. “They want to find a good solution moving forward.”

State funded tiny homes in Districts 2 and 5

Along with its city-funded initiatives, Sacramento is also seeking state money to help build permanent supportive housing. Two such examples include future tiny home communities on Rio Linda Blvd in District 2 and Mack Road in District 5.

Pedro explained that the tiny homes at these future communities will be twice as large as the  120-square-foot models at the other sites, and will come with a bathroom and kitchenette inside. The sites will also include long term supportive services.

2461 Gardendale Road in District 8 is slated to become a tiny home community as apart of Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty's six-point plan to address homelessness. The site would have 40 tiny home units for unhoused seniors 55 and up.Ruth Finch/CapRadio

According to Sacramento's Housing Element report on March 24, the city applied for state Homekey+ funding in May and June of last year. Pedro said officials are still waiting to hear back. 

“We have two applications in. We’re going back and forth right now, it’s a very extensive process,” he said. 

Pedro said costs for permanent supportive housing can range up to $600,000 a unit, whereas using a tiny home model will cut costs to around $200,000 a unit.

“Because it is permanent housing, you’re putting in roads, you’re putting in sidewalks,” Pedro said. “...There is no cheap way to do it.”

The state helps local governments across California through the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention grant program. The future of that program is uncertain but California awarded the Sacramento region $32 million on Wednesday.

Despite facing a challenging financial future and some community pushback, Sacramento officials maintain they will continue to make shelter and housing a priority in their city budget. 

OAKLAND, Calif. — Rosa María Carranza leaned forward to hold a 3-year-old’s back as the girl climbed a rock in the forested hills of northeast Oakland.

Dressed in hiking gear and beaded necklaces, Carranza, 67, maneuvered between trees and children on a sunny morning in December. “Hold on to that branch,” she said in Spanish. “You can do it, my love!”

Carranza, a child development professional who grew up swinging through trees and swimming in rivers in El Salvador, said she feels at home in the forest at the outdoor preschool she co-founded. She has worked with children and teens as a caregiver and educator for more than three decades, long enough to know when to lean in and when to step back to let her students find their own footing.

When she transitioned to working part-time last year, Carranza counted on getting Medicare and Social Security checks — benefits given to American workers and lawfully present immigrants when they retire, if they meet work history and age or disability requirements. She’s contributed tens of thousands of dollars into Medicare and Social Security over 24 years, according to her Social Security Administration earnings record, reviewed by El Tímpano and KFF Health News. But Carranza and an estimated 100,000 other lawfully present immigrants will soon be cut out of Medicare.

The GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed last July by President Donald Trump, barred certain categories of lawfully present immigrants — including temporary protected status holders, refugees, asylum-seekers, survivors of domestic violence, trafficking victims, and people with work visas — from Medicare.

Those already in the program, like Carranza, will be disenrolled by Jan. 4 — a move by Republican lawmakers to rein in Medicare spending, as they and Trump have argued that taxpayer dollars should not be used to pay for the health care of immigrants in the U.S. without authorization.

“The Democrats want Illegal Aliens, many of them VIOLENT CRIMINALS, to receive FREE Healthcare,” Trump posted on Truth Social two months after he signed the bill into law. “We cannot let this happen!”

However, the categories of immigrants now losing coverage do have legal status. Neither the White House nor the Department of Health and Human Services responded to a question about whether it was fair to disenroll legal residents from Medicare.

Immigrants without legal status were already ineligible for Medicare or most other federally funded public benefits.

Carranza is worried that she could also lose legal permission to live in the United States if the Trump administration ends temporary protected status for Salvadorans, as it sought to do during his first term.

If that happened, Carranza would lose legal residency, risking time in an immigration detention center or deportation.

“This is like a horror movie, a complete nightmare,” Carranza said. “This is not how I imagined getting old.”

‘Under Constant Attack’

Carranza left El Salvador in 1991 during a brutal civil war, leaving behind three young children, to earn money to send home to her family. She overstayed her visa until 2001, when she qualified for temporary protected status, after two earthquakes struck El Salvador, killing more than 1,100 people and displacing 1.3 million.

Temporary protected status, or TPS, was passed by Congress and signed into law by Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1990.

It allows people such as Carranza, from select nations undergoing armed conflict, civil war, and climate disasters, to live and work in the United States if being in their home country poses a risk.

Carranza missed her youngest daughter’s graduation from kindergarten and first medal-winning performance in track. She worked overnight shifts babysitting newborns and later substitute-taught in public schools in the San Francisco Bay Area to pay for her children’s schooling in El Salvador, and for her own classes at City College of San Francisco, where she earned a degree in child development.

And she cared for dozens of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds who gazed in awe as they uncovered little treasures buried in the redwood forest of the Oakland park where she co-founded Escuelita del Bosque, a Spanish immersion preschool that teaches children outdoors.

The trade-off was supposed to be a peaceful retirement. But Congress narrowed Medicare eligibility to citizens, lawful permanent residents, Cuban and Haitian nationals, and people covered under the Compacts of Free Association, agreements between the United States and Pacific island nations.

The move followed Trump’s efforts to bar some lawfully present immigrants from Medicaid, marketplace insurance subsidies, and social support services, such as food assistance, housing subsidies, and medical visits in federally funded health centers. Altogether, 1.4 million lawfully present immigrants were projected to lose health insurance, according to KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

A spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson, Taylor Haulsee, did not respond to requests for comment.

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said Republicans wanted to enact tax cuts and eliminate health insurance for immigrants because it wouldn’t upset their base.

“They don’t want to turn the United States into a welfare magnet,” he said. “And they resent the government for making them pay for a welfare state.”

While data on lawfully present immigrants is not available, immigrants without legal status paid $6.4 billion into Medicare and $25.7 billion into Social Security in 2022, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Medicare restrictions alone would reduce federal spending by $5.1 billion by 2034.

Health experts say eliminating coverage for immigrants with legal status is unprecedented.

“This is actually the first time that Congress has taken away Medicare from any group,” said Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at KFF. “This change is impacting immigrants who have lawful presence in the U.S., and many of whom have already worked and paid into the system for decades.”

As older adults like Carranza lose their Medicare coverage, clinicians anticipate that they will delay their care, leading to an increase in severely ill patients, especially in hospital emergency rooms.

Seniors can become sick suddenly and quickly, and they are more vulnerable to cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and high blood pressure, especially if they put off routine care, said Theresa Cheng, an emergency physician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and assistant clinical professor of emergency medicine at the University of California-San Francisco.

“It’s quite easy for them to fall off the cliff,” Cheng said.

Carranza hikes and considers herself healthy, but she acknowledges that she is aging and starting to struggle to keep up with the kids in the forest.

Late last year she was diagnosed with high blood pressure, and in January she woke up with a tight chest and went to urgent care because it had spiked to dangerous levels. A few weeks later, she tripped on a curb while walking and fell to the ground. She woke up the next day with a swollen foot. A doctor at the local hospital told her she had arthritis.

These were scary moments, she said, but she was grateful to have to pay only $10 for the urgent care visit and $5 to see her primary care doctor. However, that will change when she loses Medicare by early next year.

The stress of knowing she will lose health insurance coverage, and potentially her legal status, all while masked federal agents are detaining immigrants like her across the country, has taken a toll on her mental health, she said. She is searching for a therapist and acupuncture services to treat her insomnia and anxiety — and the feeling that she is “under constant attack.”

Nowhere To Turn

In California, home to the largest number of immigrant seniors, Carranza could have enrolled in state-sponsored insurance, but this year the state froze enrollment for adults 19 and older who are a TPS holder, in the U.S. without authorization, or an asylum-seeker. Other states with Democratic governors such as Illinois and Minnesota have also scaled back their health programs for immigrants amid budget pressures.

In January, California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a state budget that would not backfill federal health care cuts to about 200,000 lawfully present immigrants, noting the $1.1 billion annual price tag and state budget shortfalls.

“Given these fiscal pressures, the administration cannot backfill for this change in federal policy,” California Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer said.

But some Democratic lawmakers and consumer advocates say the state should step in. State Assembly member Mia Bonta, who chairs the Assembly’s health committee, said she is working on a legislative budget solution to bring immigrants who will lose health coverage, including older adults, into Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid.

The East Bay Democrat is especially concerned for people like Carranza, “who have lived here for decades and contributed into this economy, who have given into our cultural fabric and into our communities and who built families and lives and who are now wanting to be able to retire with dignity and live with dignity and have the health care that they need.”

A Sign of the Future

Last April, Carranza got a glimpse of what losing her health coverage and retirement benefits could look like, after the Social Security Administration sent her a letter informing her that she no longer qualified for retirement benefits because she was not lawfully present in the U.S. — even though she was. Then Medicare stopped payments to her health plan, which disenrolled her as a result.

As a TPS holder with a work permit, she knew a mistake had been made. Yet, without her check, Carranza didn’t have money to pay her rent for a month. She worked off her rent by babysitting her landlords’ children. Last May, the office of U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon, an Oakland Democrat, helped Carranza recover her retirement benefits, but it took months for her to get her health insurance back.

The experience left her reeling.

“It’s like getting slapped on the face after more than 30 years working for the system here,” Carranza said. “And in return, this is what we have now.”

She lies awake at night imagining the future: here, where she’s spent half her life, without health insurance and possibly Social Security benefits; or in El Salvador, where two of her three children remain. Her daughter, a green-card holder who lives in Texas, hopes to become a citizen so she can petition for permanent residency for Carranza, but the process can take years. Then there’s the possibility she fears most: indefinite detention or deportation.

On a recent morning in her basement studio in Oakland, Carranza pulled a box from the back of her closet. In it was a thick stack of identification cards that included old driver’s licenses, her Social Security card, and dozens of work IDs issued by the federal government.

“My life is in that box,” she said.

This article was produced in collaboration with El Tímpano, a civic media organization serving and covering the Bay Area’s Latino and Mayan immigrant communities.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Morning Briefing.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

By CHRISTOPHER WEBER, Associated Press

Two months after the deadliest avalanche in modern California history, an analysis by leading U.S. experts is questioning the decisions by the guides to lead such a large group through dangerous terrain amid avalanche warnings.

The backcountry skiers were traveling in a tightly packed line, when the tour leaders with Blackbird Mountain Guides should have spaced them out to reduce the risk, according to the report prepared by the Sierra Avalanche Center and published Saturday on the National Avalanche Center site.

“Exposing only one person at a time to avalanche terrain is an accepted best practice for backcountry travel,” the report said. “Analysis of past avalanche accidents has indicated that larger group sizes (4 or more people) have higher chances of being caught in avalanches.”

Nine backcountry skiers were killed by the avalanche Feb. 17 in California’s Sierra Nevada when a massive wall of snow plunged down a slope near Lake Tahoe. Six others survived.

The report also noted that several members of the group wore avalanche air bag backpacks, but none of the lifesaving equipment deployed during the tragedy.

Guide company says more facts to come

Blackbird said Monday that an investigation is ongoing.

“The report does not reflect the full scope of what transpired and does not include all of the facts and information currently under review,” the company said in an email. “We are cooperating fully with authorities and will share more when it is appropriate and based on verified and confirmed findings.”

The report said the group of 15 was traveling through the potential path of an avalanche near Castle Peak following a period of intense snowfall when a slide was likely.

The avalanche center has no enforcement powers. Its reports typically provide safety guidance.

The Nevada County Sheriff’s Office is conducting a criminal investigation and state workplace regulators are investigating the company's decisions leading up to the avalanche.

The avalanche struck on the last day of the skiers’ three-day tour, when the group decided to end the trip early and leave huts where they had slept to avoid another impending snowstorm.

The avalanche center said in its report that it relied heavily on the accounts of two skiers, Jim Hamilton and Anton Auzans, who survived and talked to the New York Times about what they witnessed. Both skiers said they had taken basic avalanche safety classes and had only been on a handful of backcountry skiing trips before that fateful day.

Both men said the guides met behind closed doors and it was unclear if they knew about the warning that a human-caused avalanche was very likely before heading out from the huts, which they noted had internet service. The men told the Times that the women’s and men’s groups were combined that morning with four guides.

Before the last mile-long climb, Hamilton struggled to get his boot in his binding and fell behind. Thirteen skiers, mostly women, were bunched together behind guides as they crossed avalanche terrain. Auzans was just behind them when the avalanche hit, the newspaper reported. He was swept away but managed to dig himself out. Moments later, Hamilton and a guide reached them and scrambled to try to unbury people.

The center noted the other survivors may have different details and information that may give a more complete picture if they ever choose to share their stories. Among the dead were three veteran guides and six women who were part of a close-knit group of eight friends — all experienced backcountry skiers.

Jess Weaver, a spokesperson for the group of female friends on the trip, said the survivors and the families of those who died are not doing interviews at this time. Another skier who survived has not spoken publicly.

Did they break a ‘golden rule’?

Avalanche expert Dale Atkins said the group broke the “golden rule” of spreading out in an avalanche zone. But Atkins added that keeping the group together outside the avalanche zone made sense, given the poor visibility that day and the risk of people getting lost.

“Did they mess up? A lot of people will say, ‘Yes,’” said Atkins, who has been involved in mountain rescues and avalanche forecasting and research in Colorado for five decades,. “I’m not so sure about that. You want to keep the group together. But you don’t keep the group together on an avalanche slope. I suspect the guides in the group didn’t realize they were in an avalanche path.”

Atkins had similar comments about the decision to ski out during the storm: In hindsight, the skiers should have stayed put until the danger lessened. Yet in the moment, the guides might have thought that getting out of the mountains quickly made sense, he said.

“A lot of armchair quarterbacks, if they were in the middle of the storm out there, they might have made a similar decision,” he said. “Tragically for these people and their families, there’s no do over.”

___

Associated Press journalists Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, and Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.

By ANNIE MA, AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department said Monday it has terminated agreements with five school districts and a college aimed at upholding protections for transgender students, backing away from requirements negotiated by previous administrations that took a different interpretation of civil rights.

The decision removes the federal obligations for the schools to keep up measures such as faculty training on abiding by a students' preferred name and pronouns and allowing students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

One of the school systems, Delaware Valley School District in rural eastern Pennsylvania, received notice of the change from the Trump administration in February and has since voted to roll back its antidiscrimination protections for transgender students. Another district, Sacramento City Unified, said Monday it "remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”

The other affected districts are Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District and Taft College in California.

Under the Biden and Obama administrations, the department interpreted Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education, to include protections for transgender and gay students.

The Trump administration has penalized schools that have made efforts to accommodate students based on their gender identity. It has filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies permitting transgender students to participate in interscholastic sports, and opened civil rights investigations into schools and universities over their policies on transgender students.

Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said the action reflects the administration’s efforts to keep transgender students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.

“Today, the Trump Administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior Administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.

Rescinding civil rights agreements is an unusual step, but one the Trump administration has taken before on education issues. Last year, the Education Department terminated one agreement involving books removed from a school library in Georgia, and another targeting harsh discipline and unequal education opportunities for Native students in the Rapid City Area School District in South Dakota.

The rescission of the agreements would mean a step back from protecting vulnerable students in schools, said Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center.

“This is part of the Trump administration’s assault on education and assault on those who are most vulnerable to experiencing discrimination and harassment, including trans students,” Patel said. “They’ve made their intention very clear in wanting to erase protections for trans people.”

Taft College, a community college in California’s Central Valley, settled a case in 2023 with the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights after a student accused faculty of discrimination that included refusing to use the student’s preferred pronouns. The college agreed to faculty training on Title IX and a revision of college policies to clarify that refusal to use a person’s preferred name and pronoun could constitute harassment.

The agreement with Sacramento City Unified School District stemmed from a complaint brought in 2022 by a student after a teacher refused to use preferred pronouns or to place the student, who identified as male, in a boys’ group for a class activity. The 2024 resolution agreement mandated training for employees on civil rights law, sexual harassment and how to handle formal complaints.

Under a settlement the Delaware Valley School District reached with the Obama administration, the district was required to permit students to use bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity.

In February, the Trump administration sent the district a letter saying it was rescinding the settlement. The administration went further, requiring the district to roll back antidiscrimination protections for transgender students.

The school board voted in late March to change its transgender student policies to abide by the Trump administration’s demands.

Since the day he returned to the White House more than a year ago, Trump and his administration have aimed at the rights of transgender people in several ways — and not just in schools.

He has tried to end participation of transgender women and girls in women’s and girls' sports competitions and has sued states that don’t comply. He’s also blocked transgender and nonbinary people from choosing the sex markers on passports. His administration has also tried to stop those under 19 from receiving gender-affirming medical care.

Associated Press writers Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco, Moriah Balingit in Washington and Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

Megan Wygant first moved to Sacramento in 2016, and within 48 hours of her coming to town, moving truck in tow, she had an interview for a job as the executive director of the E. Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts, also known as the CLARA.

She had initially started looking for a job in the area as she got out of business school. Her partner had a permanent position lined up in Sacramento, and she was moving with him.

Wygant said that when she first applied, she mostly thought her position at the CLARA was going to be “a gap job,” and that it had to do with property management.

“About a week later, I get an email thanking me for my application to be the executive director of the E. Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts and asking me to pick an interview slot,” Wygant said. “I had to take the very last interview slot they had because we were driving across the country and I wasn’t arriving until that last day of interviews.”

She got the job. That was in 2016, and after 10 years of doing much more than just property management, Wygant is still heading up the CLARA.

The building that houses the CLARA was built in 1921 as Fremont Primary School on the corner of 24th and N streets. It transitioned to an adult school in 1980, and then due to budgetary pressure, was closed in 2012. 

When it closed, several neighbors were looking to find a home for performing arts groups in Sacramento, including the Sacramento Ballet. They’ve been a driving force for the CLARA since its inception. 

Sara Slocum started out at the Sacramento Ballet working at the box office in the fall after the CLARA opened. Working out of an old building, she said in the early days, the elements sometimes got the better of the now 100+ year old building.

“A storm would come in and it’d be raining inside almost,” Slocum said. “We’d have to put garbage cans wherever we found a leak.”

Ten years later, Slocum’s now the general manager at the Sacramento Ballet. Slocum said that Wygant was instrumental in getting the project off its feet, securing funding for renovations -  and a new roof.

According to Slocum, the CLARA has always been about collaboration, and a lot of times, that’s small things, even lending a microwave when another organization housed at CLARA’s went out. 

But sometimes, they’ve been able to collaborate artistically as well. She recalls one collaboration with Capital Stage where they brought Hamlet into their ballet studio.

“They brought a couple actors to our studio,” Slocum said. “We invited some of our patrons and donors and they were able to do a scene from Hamlet, and then we would do the same scene with a ballet.”

At CLARA, you can also find rehearsal and education studios for the McKeever School of Irish Dance, Capital Stage, Sacramento Preparatory Music Academy and Southside Unlimited.

Dakota Medina has been teaching at the CLARA for five years through Southside Unlimited, a Sacramento program for helping people with disabilities gain independence and become successful. He runs their music studio out of CLARA.

Medina said that being with the CLARA helps Southside Unlimited’s mission to integrate people with disabilities into the community.

“The CLARA organization invites us all the time into group activities with the whole organization,” Medina said. “They really curate a space where all of these organizations can collaborate.”

The CLARA’s own arts education programming includes teaching artist residencies, Arts Up Front workshops and their Performing Arts Summer Camp.

In the course of running the CLARA for 10 years, Wygant said it’s been a learning experience. She hadn’t had a job as an executive director before, and trying to harbor a cohesive performance art community has its challenges. She had to learn how to set boundaries, how to navigate assumptions and most importantly, how to lead.

She said that a Ted Lasso quote really resonated with her.

“Be curious, not judgemental,” Wygant said. “We really try at CLARA to focus on the importance of curiosity both as a practice, as an artistic practice, but also as a leadership practice.”

While she’d been to Sacramento before, when moving to Sacramento and living in the city properly, she found a unique scene of artists in Sacramento. Wygant said she found a nexus of middle class performing artists here who have been able to live and work as professional artists as their primary profession.

“You’re used to this vision of a starving artist who gets shipped in from New York, lives in actor housing for a couple of months and then bounces,” Wygant said. “One of my favorite things to realize early on was that Sacramento invested enough in the arts that artists had living wages and were able to live a good life.”

Wygant said that some of that has changed, housing prices have climbed, and Sacramento maybe isn’t as affordable as it used to be. Moving forward, she wants to see the CLARA host more classes to help adult artists become teaching artists, and help them make a living from their art. 

“The big thing that we’ve leaned on has always been about helping adult artists build the skills to be successful in a classroom setting,” Wygant said. “Teaching artists are actually in very short supply, and that is a path for stabilizing income for an artist in our community.”

Dancers pulled from the crowd take a bow after their performance at CLARA’s 10th birthday party on Saturday, April 4th 2026.Ruth Finch/CapRadio

While the CLARA has focused a lot on art education for children, they also want to push into educating adults who aren’t professional artists.

“We’ve sort of acknowledged that adults deserve time to play and create as well, and that starts with the parents at summer camp who, as they’re picking up their kids, they're like, ‘Man, I wish there was like an adult summer camp,’” Wygant said. “Then we’re like, but why not? Why can’t we play? Why can’t we have fun?”

They’ll be piloting four adult classes starting in May, including a clowning class. 

“Having CLARA activated during the school, during the working day with arts programming is a really exciting vision for me,” Wygant said. “I love the idea of our halls being filled with adults, finding community, finding creative purpose, finding fun and joy because of our institution.”

She said that a lot of people assume that CLARA is just a building, that they see names on doors and they assume that they know what’s happening behind those doors.

“I would really invite people to come explore, walk through the halls, have a coffee, drop in our office, ask me about the giraffe that’s in our office because there’s a story behind that,” Wygant said. “It’s like, just come talk to us about it. There’s a lot here. There’s more than you know.”