The state poured billions of dollars into alleviating homelessness, creating thousands of shelter beds and housing units. But the housing affordability crisis has only worsened as millions lost their jobs and rents skyrocketed.
Sacramento firefighters respond to a fire at a homeless encampment under Highway 80 near 14th and X street in Sacramento on Feb. 24. As she headed to her car after two hours of counting and surveying Sacramento’s homeless population, the state’s top housing official acknowledged there is a long road ahead.
California last tallied its homeless population in January 2020, and found at least 161,000 people without a roof over their heads on any given night, with the biggest concentration in Los Angeles. Most were single adults, about a third were chronically homeless and Black Californians were overrepresented in the count nearly fivefold.The state poured billions of dollars into alleviating homelessness, creating thousands of shelter beds and housing units.
“I’m counting one, two, three, four, five, six down there, seven, maybe eight tents on this side,” said Jason Pu, HUD’s regional administrator in charge of California, Arizona, Hawaii and Nevada, pointing across the dimly lit street at a string of tents and tarps beside Highway 50. “What do you think?”
“I’ve lived in Sacramento all my life and I’ve never seen it like this,” said Rocknie Simon, Hud’s partner, who has been homeless for about 10 years.Officials and advocates chalk it up to decades of disinvestment. In 2012, for example, the state began unwinding its redevelopment agencies, which were in charge of revitalizing “blighted” areas across the state.
The reason for the limited available data is, in part, because local entities serving people on the ground hadn’t always been required to report outcomes to the state, and no state body provided effective oversight of the myriad agencies that address homelessness, the state auditor found. A slew of laws passed last year are supposed to change that.
Last summer, with a historic budget windfall, state lawmakers allocated $12 billion for homelessness, most of which hasn’t hit the streets. This year, they have an even bigger surplus, but the dearth of data is making it difficult to evaluate the additional spending Newsom proposed: $1.5 billion for temporary bridge housing and $500 million to deal with encampments, building on the $50 million in grants Newsom announced last week to shelter or rehouse 1,400 people now in camps.
“Here in the city and county of Sacramento, we are committed to making housing and shelter a human and a legal right, and mental health care and treatment as a human and legal right,” he said. “That has to be our commitment coming out of this point-in-time count.”
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