Require homeless housing? Darrell Steinberg makes his pitch in D.C.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg Thursday brought his bid to make housing the homeless a government mandate to Washington, D.C. Thursday, explaining how funding the massive effort would work without offering a specific price tag.
Steinberg spoke at a forum of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, where mayors from around the country, including Los Angeles’ Eric Garcetti, offered their own solutions.
Most of their ideas were in the same spirit as Steinberg’s, though none had as specific or as comprehensive a plan.
The mayor, who chairs a state task force on homelessness, pressed his requirement idea. He compared the need for a mandate to other requirements from governments, such as public education for all children.
While Steinberg has talked to federal representatives, and found the Democratic-led House of Representatives sympathetic to his calls for aid, the White House has been critical of the state’s efforts to address its homeless crisis. Mayors are scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump Friday.
Steinberg does not plan to attend, explaining he has obligations back home.
On Thursday, he found a friendly audience among the mayors, who will wrap up their three-day Washington meeting Friday.
He cited the growing number of unsheltered homeless people, particularly in Sacramento and California, and lamented, “What is missing is there is no legal requirement or mandate to actually bring people indoors.”
Earlier this month, the state task force called for a November ballot measure to require localities and the state to meet goals that would house the homeless.
If approved, localities would in 2021 set what Steinberg calls “aggressive but reasonable” benchmarks and timelines. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2022, failure to meet those goals could result in court action.
California would be the first state with that sort of requirement if the Legislature, in a two-thirds majority vote, places the constitutional amendment on the ballot by June 25.
But a big political question would involve how much such a plan would cost and where the money would come from.
“We need more money, but I don’t think that’s where you start,” Steinberg said. “You start with the assumption this is a public policy and a systems failure. And that there is no incentive currently for all the different funding sources, all the different programs to be collected and for us to get the money out with the urgency that is so desperately required.”
The best way to make a case for more funding, he said, is to show results and progress with funding already available – accountability Steinberg said is now often lacking.
“I’ve always been for raising the revenue to be able to meet the social needs. That’s what my whole career’s been about,” he said. As a member of the Legislature, Steinberg wrote the Mental Health Services Act, which imposed a 1% tax on millionaires to help pay for enhanced mental health care.
“The way to make the case is that you set up a system of accountability that demonstrates we’re spending the money we have currently with greater urgency,” he said, “and that there’s a gap and that we need more.”
This story was originally published January 23, 2020 at 2:09 PM.
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