Governor Gavin Newsom is ratcheting up the threat level toward California cities and counties on the homeless encampment front, now saying he’ll cut their funding if they aren’t more aggressive in clearing encampments.
The US Supreme Court handed down their decision in late June that cities and counties can aggressively clear homeless encampments even if those localities cannot provide shelter beds to the people whose encampments were being cleared. Not long after, Governor Gavin Newsom declared an executive order that state agencies like Caltrans and California State Parks can help clear encampments on the state’s dollar. But Newsom cannot legally force cities and counties to use the services of state agencies for these ramped-up encampment sweeps, he can only compel them to do so.
.@GavinNewsom is in Mission Hills cleaning up a homeless encampment near the freeway.
— Elex Michaelson (@Elex_Michaelson) August 8, 2024
He’s frustrated L.A. County leaders aren’t doing more to remove encampments.
I talk about that & the presidential race coming up on @FOXLA at 6p & @TheIssueIsShow pic.twitter.com/jMxg4A1lP7
And now he’s trying to do so in the strongest terms possible, with more than just the photo op seen above, which KTLA says happened “under the 5 Freeway in Mission Hills,” and was done with the assistance of Caltrans crews. The Associated Press reports that Newsom is vowing to cut funding to cities and counties if they’re not sweeping encampments aggressively enough for his liking.
“I want to see results,” Newsom said at a press conference at that encampment-clearing appearance. “I don’t want to read about them. I don’t want to see the data. I want to see it.”
Politico notes that Newsom's ire is more directed at California counties than at cities. “I’ll be candid with you. This is more broadly an indictment of counties,” Newsom said at the press event, per Politico. “Counties need to do more.”
And Newsom seems to have a notable fight here with Los Angeles County in particular. The LA County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that they would not arrest or jail unhoused people caught up in encampment sweeps, which Newsom seems to interpret as pushback against his efforts. (And notably, Newsom’s encampment-clearing photo op under I-5 was in Los Angeles County.)
But LA County supervisors are resolute. “We don’t want encampments on our sidewalks, but we cannot, nor are we legally allowed to make jails our de facto housing and shelter,” that county’s Board of Supervisors chair Lindsey P. Horvath said at a meeting last week, according to Politico, which described the Board as “united in their visible skepticism to the governor’s order.”
Closer here to home, San Francisco Mayor London Breed has very enthusiastically stepped up encampment sweeps in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, and police have begun issuing citations in the process — though no one appears to have been jailed thus far. Meanwhile, statewide, California currently has an estimated 180,000 people without shelter, which is one-third of the entire US homeless population.
Image: MARYSVILLE, CA - MAY 16: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (L), Wade Crowfoot, CNRA Secretary (R), and Chuck Bonham, CDFW Director (2-L) walk along the Lower Yuba River to the Daguerre Point Dam on May 16, 2023 in Marysville, California. (Photo by John G. Mabanglo-Pool/Getty Images)
