The Angels.- Governor Gavin Newsom promised Thursday that California will build 1,200 tiny houses across the state as part of an effort to help house the largest homeless population in the country and address a problem that has persistently plagued the state during his tenure. .
Newsom announced the plans in Sacramento at the first stop of a planned four-city tour, during which major policy announcements on housing, health care and public safety are expected.
With prototype homes on display behind him during a speech at the state fairgrounds, Newsom said he hoped to have all the homes built by the fall.
The homes will be spread across four cities: Sacramento, San Jose, San Diego and Los Angeles, with local governments deciding exactly where to put them and being responsible for managing them.
The goal, he said, is to provide more options for homeless people who “live on the streets and sidewalks in these extraordinary and horrific conditions.”
In 2022, there were more than 170,000 people on the streets in California, according to federal data. Newsom said the 1,200 new homes are just one part of the state’s broad efforts to address the problem.
The Governor has approved more than $22.3 billion in spending on new housing and homelessness since he took office, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. “I get it, you want to see progress and you want to see it now,” Newsom said.
State Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones criticized the proposal, calling it another example of Newsom “throwing money” at a problem with no solutions. “While I appreciate the Governor’s creativity in building 1,200 tiny houses, that’s a drop.” in the ocean”.
Newsom dedicated his 2020 annual state address to homelessness, calling it an “embarrassment” in a land of such wealth.
Home to nearly 40 million people, California has nearly a third of the nation’s homeless population, and their numbers are growing much faster than other states, according to an analysis of federal data by the Public Policy Institute of California.
His goal is for new homes to be located on public land to house people living in encampments along roads and rivers. Sacramento will get 350 homes, Los Angeles will get 500, San Jose will get 200, and San Diego will get 150.
The houses will cost approximately $30 million, Newsom spokesman Anthony York said.
The Governor also announced that he had given more money to local governments to address homelessness following their commitment to be more aggressive in reducing the number of people on the streets.
Last fall, Newsom delayed $1 billion in funding for local government homeless programs because he didn’t like how they planned to spend it.
Cumulatively, local government plans aimed to reduce the homeless population by just 2 percent. Newsom released the money after a meeting with local leaders.
On Thursday, the Governor said that local leaders revised their plans with the goal of a 15 percent reduction.
California’s homelessness problem is in part a byproduct of the shortage of affordable housing, a problem that advocates say affects far more people than just those living on the streets.
Leaders of the state’s largest cities and counties want Sacramento to more clearly define its role in addressing homelessness and how the state will measure the success of local programs that receive state funds.
Currently, state funding for homelessness has “all kinds of rules that have to be implemented and half a dozen different state departments involved in finding a program,” said Graham Knauss, executive director of the California State Association of Counties. “That has to change. That is not the government at its best.”
The association’s solution is to ask the state Legislature to pass laws that clearly define state and local government responsibilities, along with recurring state funding for local governments each year. Knauss said the association is talking to lawmakers and the Governor’s office about passing the legislation.
“We certainly shouldn’t expect that we’re going to make continued progress on homelessness while using one-off funds to do it,” he said.
The stakes are high for people like 18-year-old Nathen Avelar, who has struggled with unstable housing for most of his life. Avelar grew up with his mother and his twin brother in the Central Valley city of Merced, where he said there are lots of new homes, but they are all out of reach for him.
For a few years they lived in a house infested with mold, which aggravated his brother’s asthma and forced them to leave. They moved in with their grandmother; if it weren’t for their home, which they often shared with various other family members, Avelar said they likely would have been homeless.
“I remember a couple of times we drove around looking for houses, and we always saw these nice houses on the street and knew we could never afford them,” he said. “That was really discouraging.”
Avelar, who worked part-time for a voter engagement group that supported Newsom during a failed impeachment attempt in 2021, said he wants the Governor’s Administration to build more affordable housing.
