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Newsom grants $827 million toward homelessness
Homeless encampment sweep in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.
LOS ANGELES - Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced that he was awarding $827 million to California communities to address homelessness; Los Angeles got the lion's share at more than $380 million and the Bay Area received nearly 1/5 of the total amount at $169 million.
The money came in the form of 37 new grants to help more than 100 communities and organizations create long-term solutions to address homelessness, Newsom said, adding that this money comes with "strong accountability and transparency measures and clear expectations" to help ensure that the programs initiated are measurable and effective.
"Our unprecedented commitment to end homelessness can only be realized at the local level when everyone does their part to address this crisis on the streets," Newsom said at a news conference in Los Angeles. "We’ve given our local partners the tools and resources they need — it’s time to end this crisis now. These new funds represent the hard work, accountability, and strategic planning needed to address homelessness with real, long-lasting results."
According to Newsom's office, California has made "unprecedented investments" to address the housing and homelessness crises, with $40 billion invested to help communities create more housing and $27 billion provided to communities to help prevent and end homelessness.
Where California ranks in helping homeless people the most: study
Homelessness is not a problem unique to California; it is seen in each state. A study from nonprofit organization SmileHub released a new report Tuesday on the states that help those experiencing homelessness the most in 2024.
These new grant awards are part of the state’s Homeless Housing and Assistance Prevention program, which provides flexible grant funding to help communities support people experiencing homelessness by creating permanent housing, rental and move-in assistance, case management services, rental subsidies, among other eligible uses.
San Francisco, which has been cracking down on encampments for months, is set to receive more than $43 million. Mayor London Breed said the funding will be a gamechanger in the city’s outreach efforts.
"It helps with not only our ability to build non-congregate shelter capacity but also the services that go with it so that we can help people exit homelessness," said Breed.
She said the city has decreased tent encampments by 60% this year alone and reports helping 20,000 unhoused people get housing.
"We’ve expanded our shelter capacity by more than 70% and we do so because of our support from the state," said Breed.
Homeless advocates argue the street sweeps are not being handled properly.
"They’re throwing it all on a truck as you can see," said Russell, who lives near an encampment in the Tenderloin and helps his friend each time the streets are swept. "They’ve taken two of his tents the last 3 weeks, and they probably would have taken this one if I wasn’t here to help him."
Back in April, a state audit reported California spent $24 billion on programs to tackle homelessness over a five-year period, but didn’t consistently track the outcomes or effectiveness of those programs, mostly because the state did not sufficiently collect data from cities or organizations that were granted the funds.
The governor said this round of funding will come with strict rules around transparency and reporting, so the state can track outcomes.
As a condition of receiving the new funding, the awardees must agree to increased accountability, transparency, and compliance measures, Newsom's office said. Grantees will report monthly fiscal progress that will be available live on the California Housing and Community Development’s website through the HHAP fiscal dashboard. Grantees will also upload program outcomes to the California Homeless Data Integration System on a quarterly basis.
Grantees were required to work regionally on these applications and they were required to explicitly commit to coordinating with one another, clearly stating who was responsible for which parts of their joint regional homeless efforts, as a condition of receiving funding, Newsom's office said.
The funding requires grantees to commit to addressing racial inequities in homelessness, prioritize permanent housing rather than temporary shelters, and include people with lived experience of homelessness in program design.
Here is a list of who is getting the grant money:
• Alameda region — $55.9 million
• Amador, Calaveras, Mariposa, and Tuolumne regions — $2.06 million
• Del Norte, Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, and Siskiyou region — $7.1 million
• Fresno and Madera region — $25.76 million
• Humboldt region — $25.76 million
• Imperial region — $3.67 million
• Inyo and Mono region — $247,950
• Kern region — $11.17 million
• Kings and Tulare region — $4.14 million
• Lake region — $1.3 million
• Los Angeles region — $380.36 million
• Marin region — $3.15 million
• Mendocino region — $1.784 million
• Merced region — $2.21 million
• Monterey and San Benito region — $6.23 million
• Napa region — $1.43 million
• Placer region —- $1.9 million
• Riverside region — $21.35 million
• Sacramento region — $53.21 million
• San Bernardino region — $11.82 million
• San Diego region — $58.84 million
• San Francisco region — $43.32 million
• San Joaquin region — $14.07 million
• San Luis Obispo region — $4.32 million
• San Mateo region — $5.24 million
• Santa Barbara region — $5.32 million
• Santa Clara region — $56.77 million
• Santa Cruz region — $5.08 million
• Solano region — $3.38 million