On June 22, BACS joined Anthem Blue Cross, state health officials, and Sacramento city and county leaders to cut the ribbon on Camellia Village, which is creating 42 units of permanent affordable housing in downtown Sacramento for Anthem Medi-Cal members experiencing homelessness after less than 15 months.
That speed matters. Every month a building sits in planning or permitting is another month someone is sleeping outside. Camellia Village moved fast because the partners involved made people our priority.
BACS was joined by Anthem Blue Cross, California Department of Health Care Services Director Michelle Baass, Sacramento City Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum, Sacramento County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy, and a crowd of community partners, residents, and supporters to cut the ribbon on Camellia Village.
The Grand Opening Celebration
The crowd gathered outside in the Sacramento sun. Elected officials, health plan executives, state agency leadership, BACS staff, media, and community members all showed up to mark the beginning of a new life for 42 people at Camellia Village.
BACS CEO Jamie Almanza spoke to the heart of it: “Housing changes lives. Through our partnership with Anthem, we’ve created more than housing – we’ve created an opportunity for residents to thrive with the support and services they need to succeed.”
Les Ybarra, President of Anthem Blue Cross Medi-Cal Health Plan, reflected on the investment: “By investing in housing and supportive services, we’re helping our members achieve stability, improve their health, and build stronger futures.”
Director Baass connected the project to California’s broader Medi-Cal mission: “Projects like Camellia Village show how health plans and community partners can come together to expand housing options and connect residents with the services they need.”
Councilmember Pluckebaum and Supervisor Kennedy both spoke to what sustained investment and genuine collaboration look like in practice, and what it means for Sacramento residents who have been waiting for exactly this kind of solution.
What Camellia Village Is
Camellia Village is BACS’ 6th time converting a motel into permanent housing. Thanks to Anthem’s deep investment and partnership, Camellia Village is now a permanent affordable housing community with onsite supportive services for Anthem Medi-Cal members experiencing homelessness. For the people who live there, it’s a front door that’s theirs. It’s stability. It’s the foundation that makes everything else (health, recovery, connection) possible.
Comparable housing through new construction can take five years or more to realize. Camellia Village took fifteen months, a pace made possible by Harjit Singh Gill, BACS Regional Vice President for Sacramento, who built the cross-sector coalition and kept partners aligned from the start.
Why This Partnership Matters
Camellia Village is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between a private health plan and a community-based housing operator. Anthem brought the investment. BACS brought the operational model – the same approach we’ve built over decades serving people with the most complex needs in the Bay Area, now applied in Sacramento.
The evidence on housing and health is consistent: people who are stably housed use emergency services less, manage chronic conditions better, and engage more successfully with behavioral health treatment. For people experiencing homelessness, housing isn’t a complement to health care. It’s the key to so many challenges that can’t be solved until someone is stable and indoors. That’s the logic Camellia Village is built on.
A Model Worth Scaling
This project opens at a moment when California is actively rethinking what Medi-Cal can do. Not just treating illness, but addressing the conditions that make people sick. Housing is at the top of that list.
Camellia Village shows what’s possible when a health plan treats housing as a health intervention, when state leadership aligns to support that investment, and when a community-based organization is ready to operate at the intersection of all three.
Forty-two people now have a home.
