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440600 |
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Date: September 01, 2024 at 18:20:52
From: old timer, [DNS_Address]
Subject: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
URL: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness
The Democratic governor is trying to telegraph a tougher stance on one of
the state’s most politically volatile issues.
By Jeremy B. White
09/01/2024 07:00 AM EDT
SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom has recited a consistent
message to cities and counties over the years as he tries to leverage
billions in state funds to combat homelessness: Get people off the street,
or else.
He said it in 2022, when he briefly froze hundreds of millions of dollars in
aid by rejecting every local plan to address homelessness. He said it in
2023, when he questioned the rationale to “provide them one dollar more”
if they “can’t clean up the encampments.” He said it in April, warning they
“sure as hell shouldn’t get another penny if they didn’t use the money
wisely.”
This time, he says he means it.
But some local officials aren’t buying it and are pushing back, arguing the
governor is unproductively threatening needed dollars and shifting blame
for a problem he’s been unable to solve.
“If we don’t see demonstrable results, I’ll start to redirect money,”
Newsom said in mid-August, wearing aviator sunglasses, a T-shirt and a
cap as he cleaned up an encampment in Los Angeles with news cameras
recording — a recurring feature.
The repeated threats illustrate the gravity and intractability of the
homelessness issue for ambitious Democrats like Newsom, who has called
it “the biggest scar on the reputation of the state of California.” Newsom’s
aides describe a yearslong effort to raise the political cost for mayors and
county supervisors who refuse to clear encampments or get people
housed, often buckling to pushback from voters who don’t want shelter or
services in their neighborhoods.
The intraparty dispute is unfolding as the nation’s most prominent
California Democrat is running for president and fending off Republican
attempts to tie her to the state’s homelessness crisis.
But Newsom’s persistent need to reiterate the same call also shows the
limited power of his office and the fundamental necessity of local
officials’ buy-in to execute his vision. The federal count of unhoused
Californians has risen by 30,000 people since Newsom took office in
2019, to roughly 181,000 last year.
Newsom, emboldened by a Supreme Court ruling in June that lifted
constraints on clearing encampments, issued a sweeping executive order
to get unhoused people off of streets weeks later. But the order only
applied to state land, limiting its scope.
Prominent Democratic officials have pushed back on the governor’s
threats, and even some who welcome Newsom’s pressure play warn it
won’t allay the deeper problems.
“We can’t simply wave a magic wand and make encampments disappear.
We also have to offer people a place to go,” San Jose’s Democratic Mayor
Matt Mahan said. “My fear with the [Supreme Court] decision and the
governor’s executive order is we could create a race to the bottom in
which cities and counties focus their taxpayer dollars on simply shifting
people to other jurisdictions.”
Newsom’s office declined to comment, referring back to his remarks in
Los Angeles.
Repeated threats
When Newsom froze funds in 2022, the result was a meeting where local
officials promised to make larger reductions in their unsheltered
populations and ultimately saw the funding restored. At the time, Newsom
said he was satisfied with their “recognition that we have to get to another
level.”
The next year, Newsom questioned in his January budget press
conference whether cities deserved another dollar. Months later, he
signed a budget allocating another $1.4 billion for two marquee programs,
touting “new accountability measures” that required better regional
coordination. Applicants also have to set more concrete targets — like
building shelters or hiring outreach workers — and show progress on
them.
This year, one way he’s trying to crack down is through a budget that
imposed more conditions on aid dollars, allowing the state to block funds
if local agencies have made “insufficient progress” toward goals like
getting people out of encampments. Newsom said in L.A. that next year’s
budget will withhold money from places that don’t show “specific results
in the next few months.” His encampment crackdown met resistance from
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and county officials.
He’s also pushing legislation that would make cities and counties plan
low-cost housing, which cleared the Legislature last week and now awaits
Newsom’s signature.
But even the Democrat who carried Newsom’s planning bill bemoaned a
lack of clear expectations.
“We have had strings attached through the budget and those strings have
gotten stronger every year about what the expectations are for
performance, but there is no data,” said Assemblymember Chris Ward
from San Diego. He said that threatening to pull money is “unfair, because
we are not stating what the clear expectations are for success.” He
warned Newsom against “knee-jerk reactions to ultimately stop
momentum that we’re trying to build on over the years.”
And while Newsom faults local intransigence, his detractors believe he is
cynically shifting blame after his administration unaccountably spent
billions of dollars with little to show for it: A scathing state audit earlier
this year found the administration hasn’t tracked if homelessness money
is producing results.
Where Newsom vows progress, critics see more posturing — and a self-
serving effort to offload blame for a political liability.
“This is what Republicans and Democrats can’t stand about Gavin
Newsom,” said Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher. “He looks
bad because of his failures on homelessness, so he does this big PR stunt
and blames everybody else.”
And while local leaders don’t dispute Newsom’s focus on the severity and
urgency of street homelessness, they warn yanking money will only
exacerbate the situation on the ground.
“The scale of the resources needs to match the problem. A billion dollars
a year for the [homelessness grant] program is wonderful, but that’s not
alone going to be able to move the needle,” said League of California
Cities lobbyist Jason Rhine. “We’re not going to be able to accomplish this
by pulling funding and threatening.”
A new era?
Newsom and his allies, meanwhile, frame this moment as the culmination
of a multi-year effort. The governor has allocated roughly $24 billion
toward homelessness since 2019, championed laws to push people into
treatment for mental and behavioral health and persuaded voters to
narrowly pass a bond generating billions of dollars for services and beds.
“We had a vision of the pieces that needed to be put in place,” said
political consultant Jason Elliott, who until recently was Newsom’s point
person on homelessness. “The pieces are now in place; we expect results.
The results have not materialized.”
Newsom sent a $10 million message last month by redirecting a grant to
build tiny homes from San Diego County to San Jose after San Diego
leaders reneged on plans for a site. Assemblymember Ward’s bill from
Newsom would compel cities to plan housing for their lowest-income
residents or risk forfeiting money and control over zoning, expanding his
tactic of penalizing cities that do too little on housing — although the
consequences won’t bite until after he leaves office.
Assemblymember Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat who until recently
led the budget committee, said the homelessness program Newsom has
used to shower local governments with cash was never intended to be a
blank check.
“The intent was always that if the money isn’t being spent properly it
should be clawed back,” Ting said. “It’s very easy to deliver a message
because next year we’ll revisit those budget items and that money could
be pulled away.”
Democrats have also rebuked the governor for demanding they move
people off the street now that the Supreme Court has dissolved a
requirement that cities have enough beds before initiating encampment
sweeps. Los Angeles officials like Mayor Karen Bass have warned against
an overly punitive approach that she cautioned could mean simply
shuffling people around or citing them.
Similarly, some lawmakers who are scrutinizing the latest round of
hundreds of millions of dollars for encampment clearances fear the funds
could be used simply to paper over an inconvenient issue.
Assemblymember Alex Lee, a Democrat from the San Francisco Bay Area,
called the encampment resolution grant fund “a trash abatement program
disguised as a homelessness program.”
“A lot of this encampment money was actually to push people out of sight
and make them less visible,” Lee said. “That’s hundreds of millions of
dollars that could go to rehabilitative services.”
Still, Newsom’s defenders hope he is gradually shifting the calculus for
local leaders. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria argued mayors and council
members, who are hesitant to take action like opening new shelters
because they fear the political fallout, would only change if they begin to
see a “political cost” for inaction.
“I’m hopeful that what the governor’s trying to accomplish with his
considerable bully pulpit is to force cities and counties to do the hard
part,” he said. “Not the easy part of saying, ‘We don’t like encampments,’
but the hard part of saying, ‘You can’t be here, but you can go over
there.’”
Elliott argued Newsom’s aggressive stance would be most effective as a
deterrent that persuades local officials to act before they risk forfeiting
money or zoning authority.
“It’s better for the governor or an attorney general or an assemblymember
to say, ‘Why are you fighting this fight? You will lose,’” Elliott said. “Lose
could be lose your seat, lose could be you lose a lawsuit, lose could be
you lose votes.”
But putting the onus on local governments could also extend a stalemate.
“What we’re seeing now with the court decisions and what Newsom’s
doing is people are trying to get out of the business of homelessness,”
said Democratic political consultant Andrew Acosta, “and that leaves
some municipalities stuck trying to figure it out.”
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Responses:
[440622] [441453] [441455] [441490] [441454] [441491] [441494] [441502] [441505] [441522] [441523] [441524] [441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] [441506] [440628] [440624] [441492] [440602] [440615] |
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440622 |
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Date: September 02, 2024 at 12:44:44
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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the summer of 2020 was the beginning of the end for this
nation ... letting those people run wild in the streets
like savages was despicable and those blue states let
them do it ... and so now we all pay the price for it
... it is governors like the governors of California,
Oregon, and Washington (state) that let loose the
lunatics to burn and loot and maim and do what ever else
they wanted because "BLM" ... so suck it up Newsom ...
you get exactly what you deserve ... stop law
enforcement and defund the police? how is that working
for you?
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Responses:
[441453] [441455] [441490] [441454] [441491] [441494] [441502] [441505] [441522] [441523] [441524] [441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] [441506] [440628] [440624] [441492] |
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441453 |
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Date: September 19, 2024 at 10:01:51
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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if you take issue with my post ... just remember it was
Kamala Harris came on late night on CBS and spoke her
mind that she was ok with the violence and that it
should continue ... and it has ... or have you all been
under a rock all this time?
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Responses:
[441455] [441490] [441454] [441491] [441494] [441502] [441505] [441522] [441523] [441524] [441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] [441506] |
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441455 |
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Date: September 19, 2024 at 10:15:19
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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Responses:
[441490] |
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441490 |
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Date: September 21, 2024 at 09:05:51
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTg1ynIPGls |
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Responses:
None |
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441454 |
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Date: September 19, 2024 at 10:06:50
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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No, georg, we don't live under rocks...but it sure seems
you're literally living in your own very dark dream... ;(
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[441491] [441494] [441502] [441505] [441522] [441523] [441524] [441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] [441506] |
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441491 |
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Date: September 21, 2024 at 09:06:29
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTg1ynIPGls |
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Responses:
[441494] [441502] [441505] [441522] [441523] [441524] [441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] [441506] |
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441494 |
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Date: September 21, 2024 at 09:34:34
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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Protests for equal justice for All *are not darkness,* dear
georg.....
...unless you're not part of the All, and don't care about
justice for *Everyone*...even though you're included within
Everyone...
Sorry to break your brain, there, but you seem to be
missing that aspect of *All/Everyone*... You're one of us,
whether you like it or not... ;D
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[441502] [441505] [441522] [441523] [441524] [441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] [441506] |
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441502 |
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Date: September 21, 2024 at 11:27:51
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KESLp1nXvvQ |
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[441505] [441522] [441523] [441524] [441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] [441506] |
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441505 |
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Date: September 21, 2024 at 22:17:23
From: E, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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Date: September 14, 2024 at 12:32:29
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Eating DUCKS? Residents of Springfield, Ohio
Speak O
why do you continue to consort with infidels here?
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[441522] [441523] [441524] [441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] [441506] |
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441522 |
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Date: September 23, 2024 at 10:03:35
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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habitual behavior ... I was avoiding it for some time
but just had to dip in to see how the management was
treating people ... went over to the tech board and saw
the weak justifications for bad behavior and decided I
would throw my oar in again ... what's your excuse? LOL
I began this journey on May 1, 1998 on the board that
JOB had ... were you there? I liked interacting with
those I had never met and it was interesting ... for a
while ... and then September 11, 2001 happened and we
all splintered into factions and hateful rhetoric ...
do you recall?
so it is habitual behavior and one of the last habits
for me to break ... let it be today with this post
can I get an Amen?
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[441523] [441524] [441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] |
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441523 |
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Date: September 23, 2024 at 10:04:55
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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[441524] [441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] |
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441524 |
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Date: September 23, 2024 at 10:06:26
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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are you standing in for Eve now? those who believe make
the "Amen" strong and visible ... are you a weak sister?
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[441535] [441573] [441525] [441536] [441574] |
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441535 |
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Date: September 23, 2024 at 13:06:45
From: eVe, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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I'm not your sister and it was a faux pas with the keying in...it
happens...doh? And here you are with your party stuff infighting...I don't
believe in politics myself nor the ballot box spell casting of this world
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[441573] |
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441573 |
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Date: September 24, 2024 at 18:42:11
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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and yet you continue to engage with me here ... stunning
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441525 |
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Date: September 23, 2024 at 10:09:29
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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thought you were leaving...lol...
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[441536] [441574] |
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441536 |
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Date: September 23, 2024 at 13:17:29
From: Eve, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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Apparently just saying but not doing.
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[441574] |
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441574 |
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Date: September 24, 2024 at 18:43:57
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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yes, much like everyone else who cannot make heads or
tails of the conversations ... mmmm, so tasty ... and
habit forming too ... since JOB kicked us out and we all
found this stinking hovel
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441506 |
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Date: September 21, 2024 at 22:58:10
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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440628 |
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Date: September 02, 2024 at 13:39:10
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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are you still looking for Antifa behind every bush,
George???
Whatever happened to them? They seemed to have
disappear. Wonder why.
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440624 |
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Date: September 02, 2024 at 12:49:20
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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remember, it was ronnie raygun that losed them on society...
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[441492] |
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441492 |
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Date: September 21, 2024 at 09:07:31
From: georg, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTg1ynIPGls |
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did he advocate violence like she did in 2020?
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440602 |
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Date: September 01, 2024 at 19:07:20
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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he needs to start funding alternatives...like car parks and camping areas...
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[440615] |
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440615 |
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Date: September 02, 2024 at 09:17:14
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A fed-up Gavin Newsom pushes California cities on homelessness |
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There has been progress down in LA, especially around
the VA where we sometimes travel for hubby's medical
care.
It's a multi pronged issues with many causes, and is
probably going to have to have multi-pronged
solutions.
Last time we were down there half to 2/3rds the street
tents were gone. The VA (federal not state) did have a
type of tent village on the grounds away from the
hospital, but staffed with social workers, security (to
keep the homeless vets safe), food help, etc. Without
removing them from the city (where jobs, health care,
social services are available), then can work with the
specific issues of each person and try to help them out
of the "village" and back into regular housing. For
some of these it might be veteran group homes for those
with severe mental/emotional/drug rehab services. For
others, it may just be finding a job and a rental they
can afford.
Mental health, drug abuse is sometimes the cause--
especially among veterans. But it can also be lack of
available and affordable housing. The Car parks would
help with that as many families retreat to cars if
housing is lost.
Having access to a shower and employment help is key
for those able to work, but needing to find a job.
And just to be clear, this is an "urban" issue, not a
blue or red one. We took a trip to Texas over Christmas
to see family, and noticed a very large homeless
population while driving through Dallas. Saw it with my
own eyes. I asked relatives about it, they confirmed
it's sort of become a permenant feature of downtown
Dallas (and other Texas cities). Lots of tents under
elevated freeways and over passes. Last I checked,
Texas is a red state and they seem to have the same
issues, but you never hear about that for some reason.
Homeless congregate more in cities because that is
where the services are that they need to survive.
That's true in blue or red cities.
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