‘Everyone has to do better.’ Gov. Newsom holds state homelessness funding hostage
© Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group/TNS
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA - September 14: California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks before signing legislation establishing CARE Court on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022, at Momentum for Health Crossroads Residential Village in San Jose, Calif.
Sending a sharp rebuke to cities and counties he says are not setting sufficiently ambitious goals to reduce homelessness, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday said he’ll hold $1 billion in state funding hostage until local jurisdictions do better.
As part of a wide-ranging effort to hold local officials more accountable, Newsom recently started requiring all cities and counties to submit “homeless action plans” as a condition of receiving state homelessness funding. The plans are supposed to detail how officials would spend the money to reduce the number of people living on their streets and increase permanent housing. But Newsom was far from happy with the initial round of plans he received, and is not approving any of them.
That means, for now, local cities and counties don’t get their money.
“As a state, we are failing to meet the urgency of this moment,” he said in a news release. “Collectively, these plans set a goal to reduce street homelessness 2% statewide by 2024. At this pace, it would take decades to significantly curb homelessness in California – this approach is simply unacceptable. Everyone has to do better – cities, counties, and the state included. We are all in this together.”
Newsom said he will gather local officials for a meeting in mid-November to talk about the state’s expectations and go over strategies to better address the homelessness crisis. The $1 billion — which comes from round three of the state’s Homelessness Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) grants — will be on hold until then.
While Newsom allowed that some of the plans he received show cities and counties taking “aggressive action,” he said others reflect unacceptable double-digit increases in homelessness over four years. Jason Elliott, senior counselor to the governor, wouldn’t call out any particular communities that submitted subpar plans, but said some are in the Bay Area.
The state already has doled out more than $1.5 billion in homelessness funding to cities and counties. But Newsom recently has been making it clear that the money won’t continue to flow unless he starts seeing some results. In August, he threatened to claw back millions of dollars from Oakland over what he said was the city’s unacceptable reaction to the massive Wood Street homeless encampment in West Oakland. Newsom accused the city of shirking its responsibility to find housing and shelter for the several hundred people in the camp, the majority of whom lived on land belonging to Caltrans. The agency recently finished clearing the camp, and while the city and Alameda County found shelter beds for some residents, others moved to other nearby camps or surrounding neighborhood streets.
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By withholding the latest round of funding, Newsom is taking yet another step to show cities and counties that they can no longer skate by when it comes to addressing the housing and homelessness crises. The governor also has created a housing accountability task force to penalize communities that don’t plan for enough new housing.
And Newsom’s action Thursday sends a message that reducing homelessness is going to take more than money, Elliott said. The governor has allotted $15.3 billion to homeless housing and services over several years, and if all that huge sum can accomplish is a 2% reduction, then we need more creative solutions, he said.
Now it’s up to the cities and counties to submit more ambitious plans and unlock their funding, he said.
“The ball is in the court of the local governments. If no one chooses to stretch, if no one chooses to push further, then I think we’ll be in a tough position,” Elliott said. But I think there are a lot of leaders who want to do more and are going to use this opportunity as motivation.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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