Local Housing First initiatives require a hard pivot?

Even Gov. Newsom acknowledges that throwing more taxpayer money at the homelessness epidemic hasn’t dented—anything. Dan Walters from CalMatters’ write-up highlights Californians’ (and our governor’s) mounting frustration with existing homelessness approaches, such as SJ’s focus on “Housing First.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged the growing resentment as he introduced his new state budget last week. “People have just had it,” he told reporters. “They want the encampments cleaned up.”

“People are dying on the streets all across this state,” Newsom said. “The encampments, we’ve got to clean them up, we’ve got to take ownership, we’ve got to take responsibility….”

In the last two state budgets, Newsom and the Legislature have committed $17.5 billion for housing and services to the estimated 170,000 homeless Californians – about $100,000 each. However, as Newsom’s new budget acknowledges, “Despite unprecedented resources from the state and record numbers of people being served by the homelessness response system, the population of unhoused individuals grows faster than the population exiting homelessness.”

The new budget adds several more billion dollars, but suggests that local governments are still not doing enough – a theme that Newsom has pursued in recent months.

This article originally appeared in CalMatters. Read the whole thing here.

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