Where does the buck stop on homelessness in California?
Good luck answering that.
Responsibility for building, sheltering and treating the Golden State’s 187,000 homeless is as elusive as leprechaun gold.
Californians, across political parties and geographies, support policies to help the state’s homeless. And they have voted accordingly, green-lighting through state and local ballot measures billions of dollars for more drug treatment, mental health services, temporary shelters and long-term housing.
Here’s the rub:
While Californians might agree they want solutions, the city, county and state leaders who represent them don’t agree on how — nor who is responsible for the needed social services and housing.
Tackling homelessness has pit California against itself.
Mayors blame other mayors, who blame county supervisors, who blame mayors and the governor, who, in turn, blames mayors and supervisors.
The finger-pointing status quo has become a politically safe homeostasis absolving them all of direct accountability.
Part of the problem is that cities and counties cannot reliably take on homelessness when the state has chosen a one-year-at-a-time approach to funding.
That must change. They need long-term financial clarity.
But, in exchange, Newsom needs to use the full authority of his office to ensure responsibilities are clear and the job gets done.
To date, the governor has primarily issued guidelines to local governments that have failed to produce the results he wants or Californians are demanding. Over the last four years, audits have shown that cities’ and counties’ hands are not clean. As much as local governments like to blame the state for their problems, they have flouted its guidelines, obscured their data and mismanaged billions in funds earmarked for the homeless.
It’s time for Newsom to clearly delineate local governments’ responsibilities and demand accountability for the results. He can and should turn guidelines into mandates and enforce them by leveraging his full powers under the California Emergency Services Act and, if necessary, following through on threats to withhold funding.
Mistaken identity
In some ways, California’s image as the national poster child of homelessness is overblown. California has more homeless than other states because because it has more people than other states. On a per-capita basis, it doesn’t have the most homeless. It’s fifth. In fact, California’s rate is about 40% lower than Hawaii’s and New York’s.
And importantly, California’s efforts to arrest the growth of homelessness have shown some success. Last year, when the unsheltered homeless population grew by 6.9% nationally, it basically flat-lined in California, rising only 0.4%.
But California is a long way from patting itself on the back. The state is still home to 24% of the nation’s homeless and almost half its unsheltered. It can and must do better.
More than anything, the lack of coordination among cities, counties and the state is inhibiting progress no matter how much taxpayer money is thrown at the problem.
Up and down California, local governments are enforcing their homeless policies haphazardly and in isolation, pushing people out of their cities — and straight into their neighbors’.
After Oakland and San Francisco increased their enforcement of no camping laws last year, Antioch reported that its unsheltered population rose 24%.
“Don’t push people into our communities and expect us to be the dumpsite for all your problems,” said then-Antioch Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe. “That’s not fair and that’s not right.”
Helter skelter
In the South Bay, the same lack of coordination has created conflicts.
An encampment in North San Jose grew substantially after neighboring Milpitas and Fremont cracked down on camping on public property. The trend angered San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who, in April, threatened legal action against cities intentionally pushing their unhoused population into his city.
“If we find evidence of coordinated displacement or dereliction of duty, the next step could include seeking injunctive relief or recovering costs tied to housing and cleanup,” said Mahan.
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Beyond San Jose’s conflicts with neighboring cities, it’s also feuding with Santa Clara County.
Tension recently spiked as Mahan sparred with city councilmembers and county supervisors over his proposal to arrest homeless residents for trespassing if they refuse available shelter.
San Jose leaders, facing rising constituent pressure to clean their streets, want the county — traditionally focused on providing health services — to bear a bigger share of the cost of building shelter.
“We have a feckless county that has been derelict in its duty,” said Councilmember George Casey. “Most people don’t know who their county supervisor is or what the county is responsible for, and we’re the ones who catch hell.”
And how did the county respond to the city?
Predictably.
“We need to build more housing,” wrote Santa Clara County Executive James Williams, “and that core responsibility falls to our cities.”
So round and round it goes. Where accountability lies, no one knows.
It’s time for Newsom to end that.
Max Taves is deputy opinion editor for Bay Area News Group.