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Lisa Bates, the leader of a local nonprofit at the center of the region’s efforts to address homelessness, announced Thursday that she will leave her job June 5.
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Bates has spent seven years as the CEO of Sacramento Steps Forward, which runs the local U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Continuum of Care, a body tasked with working to end homelessness.
“My decision did not come lightly as this work has been deeply meaningful to me,” wrote Bates, who didn’t respond to an interview request. “I leave with deep appreciation for this community, and with genuine confidence in what lies ahead.”
Trent Simmons, who joined Sacramento Steps Forward in 2022 and has served as its chief program officer since early 2025, has been named by the nonprofit’s board to serve as interim CEO. Board member Evan Schmidt, who is also CEO of the regional nonprofit civic leadership organization Valley Vision, said the board approved Simmons’ appointment at a meeting Thursday and that Bates had been planning her succession for a year.
“I think it had everything to do with her life and where she’s trying to go and was definitely well-prepared for,” Schmidt said.
Leadership at Sacramento Steps Forward
Bates had served as CEO since February 2019, according to her LinkedIn profile. She had previously worked in leadership roles for the California Department of Housing and Community Development, or HCD, and as deputy executive director of the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, or SHRA.
Sacramento City Councilman Roger Dickinson said Thursday that he’d worked with Bates while she was at HCD and that he had good thoughts regarding her leadership.
“Lisa has, in my experience, always brought passion for the subject of housing and trying to assist those who are homeless,” Dickinson said.
He continued, “She’s smart and committed and, I think, always in search of the best outcome possible to both expand the supply of housing and services for those in need and helping people who are on the street find shelter and conditions that will help them return to productive life.”
Schmidt also praised Bates’ work.
“I think Lisa’s a really thoughtful and strategic leader,” Schmidt said. “It’s a hard job, absolutely, so I think that it has been taxing. But I think that she’s done a great job.”
Bates didn’t provide a reason for her departure, though the announcement came just over a week after results of the latest biennial Point-in-Time count, a HUD-mandated effort which Sacramento Steps Forward administers, showed a 13% rise in homelessness in the county compared to 2024. Sacramento County Executive David Villanueva said recently that he thought the 2024 count had been “artificially low.”
Simmons served as Sacramento Steps Forward’s data and analytics director for almost two years before becoming chief program officer and had commented recently to media about the results of the Point-in-Time count.
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“He’s been stepping into leadership in a lot of different ways, including kind of being the front voice on some of the issues,” Schmidt said.
Possible changes for homeless response
Bates’ impending resignation comes while change has been brewing at both the local and federal level around homelessness.
Since last summer, city and county leaders have been discussing the possibility of creating a more unified government response to homelessness. One option is the creation of a joint powers authority between the county and local cities. Dickinson said that this effort “has been to try to bring the continuum of care more closely into alignment with what the city and the county are doing.”
As part of this effort, city and county leaders held an all-day joint meeting in October at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria in downtown Sacramento.
The Sacramento City Council approved a framework for a countywide JPA in April, but must now convince the county and other cities to join the effort.
On Wednesday, Dickinson and other council members had a joint meeting with the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors where they received a status update from consultants about SHRA.
“I think this is really an inflection point for how we collectively address homelessness in the county,” Supervisor Rich Desmond said from the dais on Wednesday.
The federal government has also been attempting to change how it distributes continuum of care funds. California prevailed in a recent legal fight against the Trump Administration, which wanted to limit how much continuum of care money could be spent on permanent housing.
HUD Secretary Scott Turner has also faced questions in recent days from the U.S. Senate over budget plans that would “effectively eliminate” continuum of care funding, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Ron Javor, who was staff counsel and deputy director of HCD, said that Bates was a resourceful leader.
“I think the agency ran with an even keel,” Javor said. “It’s dependent on a lot of other outside sources she has no control over. So I think basically she took what she had… and they did the best they could, given financial limitations.”
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