SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday urged California cities to clear homeless encampments, escalating once again his efforts to address an intractable issue of his time in office: the makeshift tents that line underpasses, parks and local streets up and down the state.
Newsom’s administration drafted a local law that counties, cities and towns can directly adopt or modify to achieve the Democratic governor’s goals. He’s also releasing $3.3 billion in voter-approved funds to expand housing and treatment options for homeless residents.
“The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses,” Newsom said in a statement.
Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco, made tackling homelessness a priority of his administration when he took office in 2019 and since then, Democratic leaders in the state have also moved toward cracking down on encampments. The state accounts for a quarter of the homeless population in the United States, with more than 187,000 Californians in need of housing.
With tents lining streets and disrupting businesses in cities and towns across the state, homelessness has become one of the most pressing public health and safety issues in California and one sure to dog Newsom if he runs for national office.
His declaration comes a year after the U.S. Supreme Court made it easier for officials to ban homeless people from camping outside. It was a ruling welcomed by many Democratic leaders, including Newsom, despite pushback from advocates for homeless people who objected to the decision by the conservative court as cruel.
The key provisions of the model ordinance announced Monday include prohibitions on “persistent camping” in one location, a ban on encampments that block sidewalks and a requirement that local officials provide notice and make every reasonable effort to identify and offer shelter prior to clearing an encampment.
Providing a ready-made local law could bring uniformity to how cities and counties deal with encampments though Newsom is urging local officials to modify his proposal as needed.
Major cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have already started clearing out encampments, saying they are not fair to children, seniors and disabled people who need access to parks and sidewalks.
San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, pledged to clean up city sidewalks while in San José, Mayor Matt Mahan has proposed arrests if a person refuses shelter three times. Both cities have ramped up the number of shelter beds available so more people have somewhere to go.
In Los Angeles, first-term Democratic Mayor Karen Bass has made clearing encampments a priority but sagging tents, makeshift shelters and rusting RVs remain an all-too-common sight in just about every neighborhood. An annual tally last year estimated that more than 45,000 homeless people were living in the city.
Efforts to reduce homelessness are facing increased stress, as the city contends with a nearly $1 billion projected budget gap along with the massive and costly job of rebuilding the Pacific Palisades neighborhood that was destroyed in a January wildfire.
A message was sent Monday to Bass’ office seeking comment on Newsom’s announcement.
Critics say there is no evidence that punitive policies reduce homelessness and camping bans make it harder to link people up with stable housing and employment. People may lose critical documents or contact with a case manager, forcing them to start all over again, says the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
In 2024, California voters approved a measure that imposes strict requirements on counties to spend on housing and drug treatment programs to tackle the homelessness crisis. It was a signature proposal for Newsom, who campaigned for the measure’s passage.
Under the measure, counties are required to spend about two-thirds of the money from a voter-approved tax enacted in 2004 on millionaires for mental health services on housing and programs for homeless people with serious mental illnesses or substance abuse problems.
The governor has also pushed for laws that make it easier to force people with behavioral health issues into treatment. And he has repeatedly threatened to withhold state money from cities and counties that do not step up to address homelessness.
But despite the roughly billions of dollars spent on more than 30 homeless and housing programs during the 2018-2023 fiscal years, California does not have reliable data needed to fully understand why the problem didn’t improve in many cities, according to a 2024 state audit.
The audit found California spent $24 billion to tackle homelessness over the previous five years but did not consistently track whether the huge outlay of public money actually improved the situation.
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Associated Press writers Christopher Weber and Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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An earlier version of this report incorrectly said California makes up nearly one third of homeless people in the U.S., instead of a quarter.
