Newsom wants more money for California’s homeless. Will it get encampments off the streets?

Standing alongside a San Diego highway in front of orange trash bags and cleanup crews earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared the homelessness crisis in California was “unacceptable” and said he’s going to do something about it.

“Not only are we meeting this moment by recognizing what everybody’s recognizing, that it’s out of control and unacceptable what’s happening on the streets all across the state,” he said. “But we are starting to deliver on what we’ve been promoting.”

After putting up $12 billion in funding for homelessness and affordable housing last year, Newsom is proposing the state spend another $2 billion this year to address immediate housing and behavioral health needs and clear encampments along California sidewalks, highways and vacant lots.

The extra $2 billion is meant to build a bridge to permanent housing and ease the pressure the state is facing from mayors in big cities, where sprawling encampments are nearly ubiquitous. But some housing advocates are skeptical that it will be enough.

One estimate from an advocacy group, Housing California, says the state would need to invest nearly $18 billion every year for 10 years to end homelessness and create affordable homes.

Newsom says the state, home to more than a quarter of the nation’s unhoused residents, never had a comprehensive homelessness plan before he took office. He’s been clear that he expects cities and counties to pull their weight when it comes to caring for homeless individuals.

“I’m not the mayor of California,” he said in San Diego. “I’m a former mayor, and I remember being mayor. I never looked to the state for help. I recognized my responsibility.”

Homelessness has long been a problem in California, but the increasing visibility in recent years is pressuring state leaders to take action.

“People are not enamored of their sidewalk having encampments. They’re not enamored of going to parking lots and seeing encampments. Moms don’t want to tell their kids why their kids are living outside, how do you do that?” said Philip Mangano, president and CEO of the American Round Table to Abolish Homelessness and the former national homeless czar under the Bush and Obama administrations.

California leaders know what needs to be done, and are now trying to scale-up solutions like Homekey that have worked on smaller levels, Mangano said.

“Where we’ve come in the last 20 years is we know what to do and we know how to do it for homeless individuals,” he said. “The issue in homelessness is scaling the response of what we know to do... People need to be in housing with the services they need.”

Christopher Martin, policy director for Housing California, said the one-time commitments proposed in the new budget “fall short of the scale of funding needed to end the on-going cycle of homelessness and housing insecurity.”

“The Governor and state leaders must address the severity of the problem by taking bold action, and responding with long-term solutions at scale,” Martin said in a statement.

Last year’s budget included $12 billion over two years to create new units and treatment beds through local governments. The 2021 budget built on Project Roomkey and Homekey, programs launched during the pandemic that provided shelter for 50,000 homeless people and created 6,000 new homes.

Part of last year’s budget also included the creation of the Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program to construct, acquire and expand properties related to behavioral health. In 2021, the program awarded $221 million to local governments, and plans to award another $2 billion in 2022. Another state program, the Community Care Expansion Program, will provide $805 million in grants for adult and senior care facilities.

Those grants are aimed at creating long-term solutions to help the state’s 160,000 homeless residents, but Newsom this month said he wants to build a “bridge to permanent supportive housing,” so he’s proposed adding another $1.5 billion in state grants. That money will be used to purchase and install tiny homes and provide “time-limited operational supports.”

In response to the pressure, Newsom this year also is proposing the state spend an additional $500 million to rehouse people living in encampments, like those often seen along freeway overpasses and in vacant lots. It’s a ten-fold increase from the $50 million aimed at clearing encampments in last year’s budget.

“What we’re offering this year is additional money to find a bridge to the permanent, supportive housing,” he said. Local governments could pay for tiny homes, health care and shelter beds with the increase.

The ideal solution is permanent housing with services, but that could take years to come to fruition. In the interim, “we’ve got to do more,” the governor said.

CA mayors want shelter, mental health services

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, a longtime mental health care advocate, applauded the governor’s proposal, calling it a “humane and forward-looking” solution to address homelessness. Steinberg also praised the addition of $2 billion in grants and tax credits to develop affordable housing, especially in downtown areas.

In San Jose, Mayor Sam Liccardo said the $1.5 billion commitment toward temporary housing is “critically important” and a recognition that California “has an urgent situation to which we have to respond immediately.”

When the pandemic hit, cities like San Jose took advantage of federal funding and California Environmental Quality Act waivers to quickly build housing. Liccardo said the city built three housing project in a year that would typically require five to six years to be built, at a fraction of the typical cost.

“I certainly hope we don’t lose the sense of urgency or the ability to cut through that red tape,” he said.

Liccardo said helping the homeless requires a nimble response. Many require both shelter and services at the same time.

“We know we’re not going to solve anyone’s methamphetamine addiction while they’re living underneath a bridge,” he said. “The notion that somehow we can solve the problem of treatment without housing is far-fetched.”

It can be hard to provide the right help in one fell swoop. Cities are responsible for finding and building new housing units, while counties handle behavioral health and addiction services.

“Without a really coordinated approach, it narrows the range of unhoused residents we can service effectively,” Liccardo said, noting that the newly proposed dollars could increase resources for mentally ill homeless residents if “we’re all working together.”

Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said state leaders need the “political will” to address homelessness if anything is going to be solved. As mayor, Faulconer did not allow homeless encampments so long as shelter beds were available, and said he thinks the state needs to toughen its stance on allowing people to camp on state lands, like under highways.

“You can throw all the money in the world at this. But if you don’t have the political will, to make a difference on the street it’s not going to change,” he said.

Faulconer, like others, has said the government needs to compel homeless people to actually use shelters and services. Newsom, during his budget presentation in early January, suggested making changes to rules governing conservatorship, a legal status for managing the affairs of incapacitated people.

“Every individual has the right to shelter. I also believe that when we provide that shelter, you have an obligation to use it,” Faulconer said. ”I enforced that obligation, because it is not compassionate to let somebody live and die in a tent encampment on our streets.”

Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said the kind of state assistance Newsom wants to increase is “critical” in helping local governments get people off the streets. Fresno was able to buy and re-purpose motels thanks to funding from Homekey last year, which housed 550 homeless people and provide them with services.

“It works,” Dyer said. “And the sustained funding is of absolute importance.”

Long-term homeless funding

Local leaders aren’t keen to criticize the state as it doles out billions to address encampments and homeless people, but do say they want a permanent source of money that they can tailor to their communities’ needs.

Veronica Kelley, chief of Mental Health & Recovery services in Orange County’s Health Care Agency, said every city knows what suits it best. Some might not want certain types of housing, and tiny homes aren’t a one-size-fits all solution.

“Our municipalities and our counties all have strategies. We know our local communities better, I think, than the Capitol knows them,” Kelley said. “Having the flexibility that we can plan our strategy, that certainly is in line with a general strategy with the state, is helpful.”

In Fresno, Dyer said multi-year, sustained funding for outreach workers would be particularly helpful. The city recently created the Homeless Assistance Response Team, or HART, a group of outreach workers that act as a primary point of contact for homeless people needing assistance. Thanks to that team, 80% of the homeless people they contact take advantage of shelter and services, Dyer said.

Liccardo in San Jose said the city could benefit from ongoing funding to pay for housing and mental health solutions. One-time grants are helpful, he said, but it’s difficult to plan years in the future without an ongoing source of money.

“I think a lot of cities recognize there’s going to be a cliff at some point,” he said. “And as soon as those one-time sources run out, the great risk is that we’ll be pushing hundreds if not thousands of Californians back out onto the street.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Newsom wants more money for California’s homeless. Will it get encampments off the streets?."