Local governments in California could have their funding for homelessness slashed next year if they fail to use what is left in this year’s budget to sweep encampments.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is purportedly weighing the funding cut for cities and counties dragging their feet on clearing large encampments that have dotted the state, Bloomberg reported Friday.
The cuts could come as soon as next year, though it is not clear just how much money Newsom’s administration is ready to withhold or which counties and cities are at the top of the list. There are more than 180,000 homeless people in the state.
About 123,000 Californians are unsheltered on any given night, according to a recent count. Unlike New York City, which guarantees people the right to housing, California does not.
Since Newsom was elected governor in 2018, the state has spent $27 billion to address homelessness.
An audit released earlier this year called California’s ability to track and analyze its spending on homeless services into question.
The state does not have up-to-date information on the costs or results of its many homelessness programs because the agency tasked with gathering and tracking program success stopped analyzing spending in 2021, according to the report by State Auditor Grant Parks.
Three of the five state programs the audit reviewed failed to produce enough data for Parks to determine whether they were effective. One of the programs was California’s main homelessness funding source.
Since then, Newsom has gotten tougher on homelessness. He was further emboldened after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in June that cities could begin to ban people from sleeping and camping in public areas. The ruling overturned a lower court decision that called it cruel and usual under the Eighth Amendment to punish those sleeping outside if they had nowhere else to go.
A month later, Newsom issued an order for officials to start dismantling hundreds of homeless encampments around California.
Newsom’s move is by far the most sweeping response to date following that decision.
Some of the state’s largest Democratic-led localities have embraced the governor’s crackdown including San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who has stepped up encampment removals. In Oakland, police evicted dozens of homeless people from a site, and Fresno recently enacted penalties for violating its camping bans in public areas with steep $500 fines or six-month jail sentences.
Earlier this month, Newsom rolled up his sleeves at an event in the San Fernando Valley, where he helped pick up trash from an encampment.
“If we don’t see demonstrable results, I’ll start to redirect money,” Newsom told reporters, adding, “I’ll be candid with you. This is more broadly an indictment of counties. … Counties need to do more.”
Los Angeles County has been the most vocal against Newsom’s demands.
The Los Angeles area itself has about 75,000 unhoused people, or about 40% of the state total.
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In the past three years, the state has doled out about $3 billion for homelessness and affordable housing programs in Los Angeles city and county.
Christina Villacorte, a spokeswoman for LA County’s Homeless Initiative, told Bloomberg that “any loss of funding that has already been allotted for a variety of housing and homeless services would derail Los Angeles County’s emergency response to homelessness,” adding that it would “hurt the momentum that has taken new strategies, extensive recruiting, and exhaustive work to build.”
