Gavin Newsom devotes his State of the State to homelessness — ‘No person is untouched’

Gov. Gavin Newsom called California’s growing homeless population “the most pernicious crisis in our midst” during his second State of the State address Wednesday, vowing to help communities get people off the streets and into stable housing.

“Let’s call it what it is, a disgrace,” he said. “The richest state in the richest nation — succeeding across so many sectors — is falling so far behind to properly house, heal, and humanely treat so many of its own people.”

In a break from custom, Newsom focused the speech almost entirely on one topic: homelessness.

His narrow focus contrasted from his pattern in his first year as governor, during which he frequently declined to whittle his priorities to a single issue and used his biggest public speeches to discuss multiple priorities at once, ranging from wildfires to jobs.

When Newsom said homelessness must be at the “top of our agenda” during the Wednesday address to the Legislature, lawmakers gave a standing ovation.

Homelessness has surged in California despite the state’s continued economic growth. It increased 12 percent in Los Angeles County from 2018, 17 percent in the city of San Francisco and 19 percent in Sacramento County since 2017, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending for services provided in budgets from Newsom and former Gov. Jerry Brown.

Across the state, officials estimate the homeless population grew to 151,000 people last year.

“Some of the most troubling increases have occurred in rural areas, in small towns, and remote parts of our state,” Newsom said. “No place is immune. No person is untouched. And too often no one wants to take responsibility.”

Newsom asked lawmakers to cut environmental regulations hampering construction of shelters and make it easier to force mentally ill people into treatment.

He also called for them to help him find more stable funding for homeless aid on top of the one-time $750 million he already proposed in the state budget to fund for organizations that help homeless people.

‘We have to work together’

After Newsom’s speech, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, praised his “singly focused approach.”

“The governor showed real leadership today to issue a challenge, not just to the Legislature, but to everyone in attendance today, to local jurisdictions, to counties,” she said. “We have to work together to fix this problem.”

Republicans also praised Newsom’s direction. Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron of Escondido said “it’s been long overdue” to work on homelessness through a bipartisan lens.

“I’m excited to hear that he’s working on that, and we’ll work on that as we continue to go forward,” Waldron said.

Newsom’s speech comes a week after the Legislature’s nonpartisan analyst’s office, which advises lawmakers as they craft policy, panned the homeless agenda Newsom laid out at the start of the year.

“We find the governor’s budget proposal falls short of articulating a clear strategy for curbing homelessness,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office wrote, recommending lawmakers reject Newom’s plan to spend $750 million through a new program to dole out funding to local organizations.

Newsom doubled down on that proposal in his speech Wednesday, arguing it will allow the state to collaborate with philanthropic organizations to streamline homeless aid.

Organizations that receive the money will have to quantify their progress — the number of new leases signed, the number of new units built, the number of people helped off the streets — or risk having the state revoke the funding.

“It’s time to match our big-hearted empathy with tight-fisted accountability,” Newsom said.

‘Prescriptions for housing’

Newsom also highlighted his plan to revamp the state’s health care system for poor Californians to focus more on housing and mental health. It would steer more money to Medi-Cal, the state’s health program for low-income people, to fund housing assistance for homeless people and boost mental health services.

“Health care and housing can no longer be divorced,” he said. “Doctors should be able to write prescriptions for housing the same way they do for insulin and antibiotics.”

He called for changing the law voters passed in 2004 that taxes people who earn more than $1 million to fund mental health services. Counties should be able to use that money to treat drug addiction, and they should spend the money they receive through the law faster, he said.

Newsom also endorsed exempting homeless shelter and supportive housing projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, a rigorous environmental review process often blamed for delaying construction.

One Assembly Democrat, Miguel Santiago of Los Angeles, has already introduced a proposal to create a statewide exemption for emergency shelters, supportive housing and affordable housing projects through 2028. Newsom did not explicitly endorse Santiago’s bill, but backed its premise.

“It helps to have a governor conceptually in line with that thinking,” Santiago said after the speech. “It’s a no-brainer.”

But other lawmakers said Newsom’s approach doesn’t go far enough, including Assemblyman James Gallagher.

“I agree with the governor that we must remove regulatory burdens and red tape in order to expedite much needed housing. But he fell short on providing any specifics,” the Yuba City Republican said in a statement.

He also said Newsom’s past support for policies including a statewide cap on rent increases and limits on who landlords can evict are making the problem by limiting the supply of affordable housing.

“Policies like rent control, just-cause eviction and inclusionary zoning only make the housing crisis worse,” Gallagher said.

Newsom didn’t back down from any of his past policies, but acknowledged that status quo in the state is not working.

“The public’s lost patience,” Newsom said. “It’s time to muster the political will to meet this moment.”

This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 10:53 AM.