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California’s governor warned cities and counties that they could lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding if they don’t make progress in clearing out encampments and tackling homelessness.
Gavin Newsom’s comments on Monday, while announcing $920m in funding to address the crisis, come as he escalates efforts to push local governments to take greater action. Last summer, Newsom told counties he could withhold state support if they failed to do more homeless encampment sweeps.
“We want to see results. We have to address unsheltered homelessness, encampments and tents,” Newsom said. “We have been too permissive … we need them cleaned up. We’re providing unprecedented support, now we need to see unprecedented results.
“If we don’t, we’re not going to continue to fund excuses, [we’re] not going to continue to fund failure.”
California’s homelessness crisis is the worst in the US with roughly one-third of the country’s population of unhoused people, which experts attribute to a lack of affordable housing in the state. A 2023 count found that more than 180,000 people in the state were experiencing homelessness, including 123,000 people who were unsheltered or living outside on the streets in tents, trailers, cars and makeshift shelters.
Cities in California and across the US have begun cracking down on homelessness with harsher anti-camping policies following the US supreme court’s ruling last year that cities can criminalize unhoused people for sleeping outside – even when there are no shelter spaces available.
Over the summer Newsom issued an executive order calling for the removal of encampments on state property. This month the Bay Area city of Fremont passed a controversial law banning camping on public property and making “permitting, aiding, [or] abetting” encampments illegal. Advocates for unhoused people have warned that such policies only worsen the crisis and make it harder for people to access services.
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Newsom’s announcement on Monday of the $920m in newly available funds came with stricter “accountability measures” for local governments and an online tool allowing residents to track progress in their communities. The money includes $760m in new funding, as well as roughly $160m in grants for local governments.
This year’s funds come with significantly more strings attached, Newsom said, and governments are expected to aggressively focus on clearing encampments, as well as creating new shelter. The governor has proposed a clawback provision that will allow the state to take back funding from local governments that “fail to demonstrate progress”.
“People want to see their sidewalks taken back. They want their streets safe again. They want to bring their kids, walk them down the streets to the playground without stepping over people on the sidewalks,” Newsom said.
State funding could take on even greater importance during the Trump administration. Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” has targeted the Office of Community Planning and Development, which funds housing and support for unhoused people, for significant cuts. The department is expected to lose 84% of its staff, according to an NPR report.
